Chinese checkers

Chinese checkers (US) or Chinese chequers

Chinese checkers
(UK),[1] known as Sternhalma in German, is a
strategy board game of German origin that can be
played by two, three, four, or six people, playing
individually or with partners.[2] The game is a modern
and simplified variation of the game Halma.[3]

The objective is to be first to race all of one's pieces

across the hexagram-shaped board into "home"—the
corner of the star opposite one's starting corner—
using single-step moves or moves that jump over
other pieces. The remaining players continue the
game to establish second-, third-, fourth-, fifth-, and
A typical pitted-wood gameboard using six
last-place finishers.[4]
differently colored sets of marbles. Another
popular format uses colored pegs in holes.

History and nomenclature Genres Board game

Abstract strategy game
Players 2–4, 6
Playing time 10–30 minutes
Chance None
Age range 7+
Skills Strategy, tactics

Playing Hop Ching checkers,

Synonyms Star halma
Montreal, 1942 Sternhalma
Hop Ching checkers
The game was invented in Germany in 1892 under the Tiaoqi ("jump chess")
name "Stern-Halma" as a variation of the older
American game Halma.[5] The Stern (German for
star) refers to the board's star shape (in contrast to the square board used in Halma).

The name "Chinese checkers" originated in the United States as a marketing scheme by Bill and Jack
Pressman in 1928. The Pressman company's game was originally called "Hop Ching checkers".[6] Like
all Halma games, there's a similarity to checkers, but it did not originate in China nor any other part of
Asia.

The game is known as tiàoqí (Chinese: 跳 棋 ; lit. 'jump game') in Chinese. In Japan, the game has a
variation called "diamond game" (ダイヤモンドゲーム) with slightly different rules.
Rules
The aim is to race all one's pieces into the star corner on the
opposite side of the board before the opponents do the same.
The destination corner is called home. Each player has 10
pieces, except in games between two players, when 15
pieces are used.[7] (On bigger star boards, 15 or 21 pieces
are used.[8])

In "hop across", the most popular variation, each player

starts with their colored pieces on one of the six points or
corners of the star and attempts to race them all home into
the opposite corner. Players take turns moving a single
piece, either by moving one step in any direction to an
adjacent empty space, or by jumping in one or any number
of available consecutive hops over other single pieces. A
player may not combine hopping with a single-step move —
A single move can consist of multiple hops;
a move consists of one or the other. There is no capturing in
each piece hopped must be directly
Chinese checkers, so pieces that are hopped over remain adjacent, and hops can be in any direction.
active and in play. Turns proceed clockwise around the
board.[4]

In the diagram, Blue might move the topmost piece one space diagonally forward as shown. A hop
consists of jumping over a single adjacent piece, either one's own or an opponent's, to the empty space
directly beyond it in the same line of direction. Red might advance the indicated piece by a chain of seven
hops in a single move. It is not mandatory to make the most hops possible. (In some instances a player
may choose to stop the jumping sequence part way in order to impede the opponent's progress, or to align
pieces for planned future moves.)

Starting layouts

Six players
Can be played "all versus all", or three teams of two. When playing teams, teammates usually sit at
opposite corners of the star, with each team member controlling their own colored set of pieces. The first
team to advance both sets to their home destination corners is the winner. The remaining players usually
continue play to determine second- and third-place finishers, etc.

Four players
The four-player game is the same as the game for six players, except that two opposite corners will be
unused.

Three players
In a three-player game, all players control either one or two sets of
pieces each. If one set is used, pieces race across the board into
empty, opposite corners. If two sets are used, each player controls
two differently colored sets of pieces at opposite corners of the
star.

Two players
In a two-player game, each player plays one, two, or three sets of A three-player game
pieces. If one set is played, the pieces usually go into the
opponent's starting corner, and the number of pieces per side is
increased to 15 (instead of the usual 10). If two sets are played, the pieces can either go into the
opponent's starting corners, or one of the players' two sets can go into an opposite empty corner. If three
sets are played, the pieces usually go into the opponent's starting corners.

Strategy
A basic strategy is to create or find the longest hopping path that leads closest to home, or immediately
into it. (Multiple-jump moves are obviously faster to advance pieces than step-by-step moves.) Since
either player can make use of any hopping 'ladder' or 'chain' created, a more advanced strategy involves
hindering an opposing player, in addition to helping oneself make jumps across the board. Of equal
importance are the players' strategies for emptying and filling their starting and home corners. Games
between top players are rarely decided by more than a couple of moves. Differing numbers of players
result in different starting layouts, in turn imposing different best-game strategies. For example, if a
player's home destination corner starts empty (i.e. is not an opponent's starting corner), the player can
freely build a 'ladder' or 'bridge' with their pieces between the two opposite ends. But if a player's
opponent occupies the home corner, the player may need to wait for opponent pieces to clear before
filling the home vacancies.

Variants

Fast-paced or Super Chinese Checkers

While the standard rules allow hopping over only a single adjacent occupied position at a time (as in
checkers), this version of the game allows pieces to catapult over multiple adjacent occupied positions in
a line when hopping.

In the fast-paced or Super Chinese Checkers variant, popular in France,[9] a piece may hop over a non-
adjacent piece. A hop consists of jumping over a distant piece (friend or enemy) to a symmetrical position
on the opposite side, in the same line of direction. (For example, if there are two empty positions between
the jumping piece and the piece being jumped, the jumping piece lands, leaving exactly two empty
positions immediately beyond the jumped piece.) As in the standard rules, a jumping move may consist of
any number of a chain of hops. (When making a chain of hops, a piece is usually allowed to enter an
empty corner, as long as it hops out again before the move is completed.)
Jumping over two or more pieces in a hop is not allowed. Therefore, in this variant, even more than in the
standard version, it is sometimes strategically important to keep one's pieces bunched in order to prevent
a long opposing hop.

An alternative variant allows hops over any symmetrical arrangement, including pairs of pieces, pieces
separated by empty positions, and so on.

Capture
In the capture variant, all sixty game pieces start out in the hexagonal field in the center of the
gameboard. The center position is left unoccupied, so pieces form a symmetric hexagonal pattern. Color
is irrelevant in this variant, so players take turns hopping any game piece over any other eligible game
piece(s) on the board. The hopped-over pieces are captured (retired from the game, as in English
draughts) and collected in the capturing player's bin. Only jumping moves are allowed; the game ends
when no further jumps are possible. The player with the most captured pieces is the winner.

The board is tightly packed at the start of the game. As more pieces are captured, the board frees up, often
allowing multiple captures to take place in a single move.

Two or more players can compete in this variant, but if there are more than six players, not everyone will
get a fair turn.

This variant resembles the game Leap Frog.[10] The main difference being that in Leap Frog, the board is
a square board.

Diamond game
Diamond game (Japanese: ダ イ ヤ モ ン ド ゲ ー ム ) is a
variant of Chinese checkers played in South Korea and
Japan. It uses the same jump rule as in Chinese checkers.
The aim of the game is to enter all one's pieces into the star
corner on the opposite side of the board, before opponents
do the same. Each player has ten or fifteen pieces. Ten-piece
diamond uses a smaller gameboard than Chinese checkers,
with 73 spaces. Fifteen-piece diamond uses the same board
as in Chinese checkers, with 121 spaces. To play diamond,
each player selects one color and places their 10 or 15
pieces on a triangle. Two or three players can compete.[11]

Usually, there are one "king piece" (王駒) and 14 common

pieces (子駒) on each side. The king piece is the piece at the
apex of each area and can jump over the common pieces,
Diamond gameboard with 73 playing
but the common pieces cannot jump over the king piece.[12]
spaces

Yin and Yang

In Yin and Yang, only two players compete and as in chess, Go, and Othello, only the black and the white
marbles are used. For more interesting play, at the start of the game, the triangle placement of the
opponents' marbles does not have to be 180 degrees in opposition.

Order Out Of Chaos

Two or more players select their coloured marbles and then those marbles are randomly placed in the
centre of the board. The object of the game is then for the players to move their marbles out of the chaos
to their home corners, creating order; the reverse of half a traditional game.

Notes
1. "Chinese chequers" (http://dictionary.cambridge.org/dictionary/british/chinese-chequers).
Cambridge Advanced Learner's Dictionary. Cambridge University Press.
2. Five people cannot play, because one player would lack an opponent sitting opposite.
3. Schmittberger (1992), pp. 87–88. "Halma · The original inspiration for Chinese Checkers.
Halma originated in Victorian England. [...] Halma is played the same way as Chinese
Checkers, except that the board grid is square rather than hexagonal. This makes the play
more complicated because pieces can move in eight directions—that is, along any
horizontal, vertical, or diagonal line—instead of only six."
4. Bell (1983), p. 154.
5. Bernardo Johns, Stephanie; The Ethnic Almanac. Doubleday Publishing (1981). ISBN 0-
385-14143-2
6. Rodney P. Carlisle: Encyclopedia of Play in Today's Society, Band 1, SAGE, 2009, p. 137.
7. Parlett (1999), p. 135.
8. Mohr (1997), p. 76.
9. Schmittberger (1992), p. 8.
10. Leapfrog (https://www.boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/35722) at BoardGameGeek
11. (in Korean)
naver.com (http://100.naver.com/100.nhn?docid=42049)
naver.com (http://100.naver.com/100.nhn?type=image&media_id=3391&docid=42049&d
ir_id=04020105)
naver.com (http://shopping.naver.com/detail/detail.nhn?where=all&query=%EB%8B%A
4%EC%9D%B4%EC%95%84%EB%AA%AC%EB%93%9C%20%EA%B2%8C%EC%9
E%84&cat_id=40008428&nv_mid=6233004836&frm=NVSCPRO) see 15-piece version
12. "Chinese Checkers ／ ダイヤモンドゲーム" (http://www.nakajim.net/index.php?Chinese%20
Checkers%20%EF%BC%8F%20%E3%83%80%E3%82%A4%E3%83%A4%E3%83%A2%
E3%83%B3%E3%83%89%E3%82%B2%E3%83%BC%E3%83%A0). The Museum of
Abstract Strategy Games - アブストラクトゲーム博物館 (in Japanese). Retrieved
2021-06-09.

References
Bell, R. C. (1983). The Boardgame Book. Exeter Books. ISBN 0-671-06030-9.
Mohr, Merilyn Simonds (1997). The New Games Treasury (https://archive.org/details/newga
mestreasury0000mohr). Houghton Mifflin Company. pp. 75–76. ISBN 1-57630-058-7.
 Parlett, David (1999). The Oxford History of Board Games. Oxford University Press Inc.
pp. 135–136?. ISBN 0-19-212998-8. HathiTrust mdp.39015059586043 (https://babel.hathitr
ust.org/cgi/pt?id=mdp.39015059586043&q1=%22Chinese+checkers%22&start=1). Google
Books rH6DAAAAMAAJ (https://books.google.com/books?newbks=1&newbks_redir=0&gl=
US&ovdme=1&id=rH6DAAAAMAAJ&focus=searchwithinvolume&q=%22Chinese+checker
s%22).
Schmittberger, R. Wayne (1992). New Rules for Classic Games (https://archive.org/details/n
ewrulesforclass00rway). John Wiley & Sons Inc. ISBN 978-0-471-53621-5.

External links
Chinese Checkers (http://chinesecheckers.vegard2.net/history.html) history of Halma and
Chinese Checkers by Vegard Krog Petersen
Shortest Possible Game (http://arxiv.org/abs/0803.1245) study of 10- and 15-marble armies
Shortest Possible Game (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1ZU5CpoNJZc) video of 10-
marble army
Chinese Checkers (https://www.boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/2386) at
BoardGameGeek
Classic Chinese Checkers Board (https://www.amazon.com/Regal-Chinese-Checkers-Natur
al-Marbles/dp/B08C1TXMGL/ref=sxin_16_pa_sp_search_thematic_sspa?content-id=amzn
1.sym.1c86ab1a-a73c-4131-85f1-15bd92ae152d%3Aamzn1.sym.1c86ab1a-a73c-4131-85f
1-15bd92ae152d&crid=1EWMFQ3UQAG61&cv_ct_cx=chinese+checkers&keywords=chine
se+checkers&pd_rd_i=B08C1TXMGL&pd_rd_r=dd2b6d8d-06ce-4b8b-a69a-51cd7e7555e9
&pd_rd_w=qwwsB&pd_rd_wg=NLH35&pf_rd_p=1c86ab1a-a73c-4131-85f1-15bd92ae152d
&pf_rd_r=QTGFM4M8JREE32T96WC0&qid=1690476682&sbo=RZvfv%2F%2FHxDF%2BO
5021pAnSA%3D%3D&sprefix=Chinese+%2Caps%2C113&sr=1-4-364cf978-ce2a-480a-9bb
0-bdb96faa0f61-spons&sp_csd=d2lkZ2V0TmFtZT1zcF9zZWFyY2hfdGhlbWF0aWM&psc=1
&smid=A3SZ3BN7XJVZ4H)

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