Daily Routine.
3-4 Problems (roughly 1 hour). 1 hour of studying with a book open playing out the positions on a board. 1 hour of either practicing vs an opponent or a program.
Total time per day 3 hours.
While reviewing your 3-move openings, keep a manuscript of preference for each opening by strength.
Weekly Routine.
Daily Routine at least 5 times.
Once a week review all games from practice with program.
Monthly Routine. Weekly Routine 4 times.
Take 2 days to study endings only. Use a Boland Book or another good endgame book.
Semi Annual Routine. Montly Routine each month.
Evaluate your progress by competing in an ACF sanctioned tournament.
Try to finish a book each 6 month period. Some books do take longer such as Kear's Encyclopedia.
Prepare for serious competition by memorizing your manuscript. Play online to keep your mind fresh.
Yearly Routine. Follow all Semi-Annual routine requirements and evaluate your own training program.
Look for holes in your game and try to incorporate more of that in your own personal training daily.
Compete in National Tournaments and try to play some International events.


This is what the current World Champion Alex Moiseyev recommends beyond that. For the beginners (12-18 months play or 1,000 games on the Internet), I would recommend continued practice with time control 3/2 (no less), or better five minutes per game, and problem books - Horsfall's, Gould's Problem Book, Boland's Famous Positions and Masterpieces. Any opening book must be highly avoided and prohibited for beginners. * After 12-18 months of practice and online play, you should join the American Checker Federation and start to play in real tournaments. * After two years - Lees' Guide, Checkers in Depth, Border Classics, buy Nemesis. * After three years - Basic Checkers, Solid Checkers, Nemesis opening book, Checkers the Tinsley Way, Big League Checkers, Ryan's Modern Encyclopedia of Checkers. * After four years - Kears' Encyclopedia, Master-Play. * After five years - Start studying games from tournaments and matches, Oldbury's Complete Encyclopedia. * After six years - Any checker book you find that is not in your library yet. * After seven years - Alex Moiseyev's games. * After eight years - Study your own games which you played in the past seven years. This will greatly help you to improve. * After nine years - Write your own book. * After ten years - Read your own book.

Why is there so much? It doesn't matter what it is in life, whether it is checkers or weight-lifting, you have to outwork your opponents. Do the best players just have good instincts or natural ability? For the most part the answer is yes, but there isn't a world champion on that roster who did not prepare greatly for their matches and put forth the effort needed to be great at this game. So what is realistic for you? That depends on how serious you want to take it. Maybe 3 hours a day is too much. So spend less time, just expect the time it takes to be the BEST to take longer. Is there anything else other than studying endgames, midgame positions, openings, and analysis from play that you can do to improve? Sure, checkers is a logical game. Anything you do that can activate your pre-frontal cortex will probably improve your ability to learn checkers also. I just can't tell you what the actual recipe to mix that in would be. I will tell you that being able to play blind-folded can improve your game. Also activities to improve memory help as well. Ever play a game with someone and you are in a difficult position that you have to work at finding the correct move and your opponent seems to be completely relaxed as he/she seems to find that perfect move with little trouble? That is likely to be because that person has studied this position, or that the position is written in a book somewhere. So memory does have its role in checkers. So don't be discouraged with losses, only use them as learning tools. Keep up the hard work and play some games with me on playok.com and I will see you in the world title match someday!