Checkers Free: The only way to win is not to play.

Was checkers always this lame?

No, seriously, I'm asking. And I will be checking the comments to see if I really woefully misjudged this childhood game of useless strategy.

There are multiple checkers games on the iTunes store ranging in price from "free" to a whopping $2.99. Being your logical HAL9000, I, of course, went with "free."

And the first few moments of playing the Checkers Free app, I experienced an almost frightening flashback to childhood bliss, sitting at a picnic table next to the pool with family members while older kids made fun of me, working hard to outsmart my sis. I would always win, and though I was bigger than her, she was older than me and would invariably punish me with physical harm for bringing her the shame that came with my checkers domination.

But I digress.

The app was easy to use, fast to take turns, and very smart in its strategy. A little too smart, in fact. It kicked my ass.

This is when I discovered the slider bar in the setup menu which allows you to choose difficulty levels on a full sliding scale--much fancier than the standard "easy, medium, and hard," choices. It also lets you choose one or two players. But if I'm actually going to sit down for a game of checkers with another human being, I think I'll rustle up a real board, thank you very much [Good luck with that on the train. -ed]. So I stuck with one player.

This time I was a little more solid, a little more calculated. I ended up with two "king" pieces, the computer ended up with three. It was time for attack.

It was about this time that I noticed a repetition to the computer's moves. It backed one of its pieces into a corner, and was moving back and forth constantly. Which brings me to my complaint about this app: the computer doesn't play to win, but not to lose.

This leads almost every singe freakin' time to a stalemate where the pieces stay in their corners. Whenever I gained the intestinal fortitude to venture forth and attack with reckless abandon, I was foiled at every turn. So I just moved back and forth, back and forth, back and forth. Needless to say, the game quickly lost its luster.

Funnily enough, the author of the app seemed to have seen this coming. If the computer and yourself go through 25 consecutive moves without a piece being jumped, the app offers to declare a draw. This, at first, seemed a lame way to end the game, so I declined.

Back and forth, back and forth. It wore me down quickly, and a draw was declared.

If you are an amazing checkers player, perhaps you can destroy all the computer's pieces and move forward to victory. If you're really bad, maybe you'd be dumb enough to let yourself get defeated by venturing out on a suicide mission. If you're neither a genius nor psychologically damaged, the game gets boring really quickly.

I am not sure whether this is a problem with the programming or with the game itself. Maybe when playing a proper human being (or a better program), there is a mutual understanding that hiding in a corner is an act of cowardice, so a sporting battle always ensues. Either way, I'd suggest avoiding Checkers Free even at the low, low cost of nothing. It can suck away your time and will invariably lead to an endless string of draws.

If you can't afford a new board, however, it's a free way to share the game with friends in 2-player mode. If that's the case, however, how in God's name did you afford an iPhone?