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In the United States the governing body is the American Checker Federation. It conducts a biennial tournament to determine the national champion, as well as numerous sectional and local events.

The chief international events in checkers have been team matches between countries. The first such event was between England and Scotland in 1884. The Scots won. In 1905, England sent a team to the United States and the British triumphed. In 1927 an American team beat the British by 96-20.

Continuing analysis has brought "go-as-you please" checkers near to exhaustion. That is, if given free choice of opening, a modern expert can surely draw a game-he need risk losing only if he tries to win. With infallible play on both sides the game is undoubtedly a draw. In the middle of the last century, the percentage of drawn games in tournament play rose to inordinate heights. Andrew Anderson, the first modern world champion, and James Wyllie, in a championship match, played the same drawn game 54 times, neither player caring to risk loss by departing from "the book."

Walter Hellman won the world title in 1948 by defeating Asa Long, who had held the title for 15 years. The score was two games to one, with 37 ties, one which lasted eight hours. Since then Hellman has held the title for all but four of the last 25 years.
Modern tournament play therefore uses a plan to force contestants to be prepared for all possible openings, not merely the most favorable. In the "2-move restriction" plan, the 47 playable combinations of a Black first move and a White answer are written on cards and to begin a match between 2 players a card is drawn at random. Each contestant must take the Black and White sides of the prescribed opening in 2 separate games. National championships use a 3-move restriction, with 142 openings.

The rules of checkers are not the same throughout the world. In fact, the small divergences in the rules, making enormous differences in strategy, have created several distinct variants. In Spanish draughts, a king may move any distance along an open diagonal, like a bishop in chess. In Italian draughts, a single man may not capture a king . Polish draughts (so-called because advocated in a book written in 1736 by a Pole residing in Paris) uses a 10-inch x 10-inch board with 20 pieces on each side. The British-American variant is believed to have sprung from Spanish draughts in the 16th Century.

Freestyle Checkers, also known as Spanish Checkers, was won by Enrique "King Chico" Freeman in the First World Freestyle Championship in 1964 by defeating Mexico's Eligio Rodriquez in a 24-game series. He has held the title since then.