Chinese checkers

Chinese checkers

A typical game board.
Players	2–6
Playing time	10 minutes to 2 hours

Chinese Checkers is a board game that can be played by two to six people. It is a variant of Halma; the objective of the game is to place one's pieces in the corner opposite their starting position of a pitted hexagram by single moves or jumps over other pieces.

Essentials

The Chinese Checkers board has 121 indentations arranged to form a six-pointed star much like a regular hexagram, with ten such spots within each triangular star-point of the hexagram, and 61 within its hexagon. The game pieces are usually six sets of colored pieces (typically marbles), ten of each color. Each set of ten pieces begins placed in the spots of one of the star-points.^[1] Play rotates amongst contestants in fixed order, each player making one move before the next player. A piece moves either to an adjacent spot or, by a “jump” over another piece, to a spot two places removed. The objective of the game is to place one's pieces in the opposite corner.

History

Despite being called “Chinese Checkers”, this game does not originate from China or any part of Asia. Chinese Checkers is also not a variation of checkers. The game itself was invented in Germany in 1893 under the name “Stern-Halma”, as a variation on the older American game of Halma.^[1] The “Stern” (German for star) refers to the star-shape of the board (in contrast with the square board of 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".

(The game was mostly introduced to Chinese-speaking regions by the Japanese.^[1])

Hop across

Standard jumps can have multiple hops, but each hop must be directly adjacent.

The aim of the game is simply to enter all of one's ten marbles into the opposite "Home base" (star point) on the opposite side of the board before any other player in the game finishes entering his/her pieces likewise.

In the "hop across", most popular variation, each player puts his or her own colored marbles on one of the six points or corners of the star and attempts to relocate them all to the opposite corner. Players take turns moving one marble, either by moving it one single adjacent step or moving a chain of one or any other number of available hops or 'jumps', as they are often called. A step consists of moving a marble to an adjacent unoccupied space in any of the six available directions. In the diagram at right, Green might move the topmost marble diagonally one space down and to the left. A hop consists of jumping directly over a single adjacent marble, either one's own or an opponent's, to the unoccupied space directly over and beyond the adjacent marble. In the diagram at right, Red might advance the indicated marble by a chain of three hops in one single move. It is not mandatory to advance the marble by as many hops as is possible in the chain. In some instances a player may choose to stop the move part way through the chain to impede the opponent's progress or to align their marbles for planned future moves.

Essentially, the basic strategy is to find the longest hopping path that leads closest to, or immediately into, the "home" base (star point) on the opposite side of the board instead of moving step by step, as it obviously requires fewer moves to finish when using multiple jumps in one single move. However, since one or more players can make use of whatever hopping 'ladders' an opponent creates, more advanced strategy requires a player hindering opposing players in addition to helping himself or herself find jumps across the board. Of equal importance are the players' strategies for emptying and filling their origin and destination triangles. Games between experts are rarely decided by more than a couple of moves.

In the fast-paced variant, which is played mainly in Hong Kong, game pieces may hop over non-adjacent pieces. A hop consists of jumping over a distant marble to a symmetrical position on the opposite side. For example, if there are two empty spaces between the moving marble and the marble over which it is hopping, it lands on the opposite side with a gap of two empty spaces. As before, a single move may be a chain of hops, as shown in the diagram at left.

Usually, in the fast paced version, a marble is allowed to enter into an empty corner in the middle of a series of hops but must hop out again before the move is over.

Jumping over two marbles in a single hop is not allowed. Therefore, in this variant even more than in the original version, it is sometimes strategically important to keep one's marbles bunched in order to prevent a long opposing hop.

An alternate variant allows hops over any symmetrical arrangement, including pairs of pieces, pieces separated by spaces, etc.

In a five player game, the situation mimics the six player game except that one player moves toward the unoccupied corner. Because this player is in an advantageous position, usually a weaker player (e.g. a younger child) would take that position.

The four player game is same as the six player game except two opposite corners are unused.

In a three player game, all players play either one or two sets of marbles each. If one set is used, the game pieces are moved across the field into an empty corner. If two sets are used, each player starts with two color sets at opposite corners.

In a two player game, each player plays one, two or three sets of marbles. If one set is played, the pieces usually go into the opponent's corner. If two sets are played, the pieces can either go into the player's own opposite corners or into the opponent's corner. If three sets are played, the pieces usually go to the opponent's corners.

Each layout takes different game strategy. For example, if a player's pieces go to that player's own corner, the player can arrange his or her own pieces to serve as bridges between the two opposite ends. On the contrary, if a player's opponent occupies that player's target corner, the player might have to play a waiting game until all of the pieces are moved out.

Capture

In the "capture" variation all sixty game pieces are put in the hexagonal field in the center of the game board. The one hole in the center of the board is left unoccupied so that the game board starts out with a symmetrical hexagonal pattern. The players take turns hopping any game pieces over other game pieces on the board; the hopped over pieces are captured (retired from the game, as in the traditional American incarnation of Checkers) and collected in the player's bin.

At the end of the game, 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 and multiple captures can often take place in one move. In this game, two or more players can participate. There is no upper limit to the number of players in this game, but if there are more than six players, not everyone will get a fair turn.

The fast-paced version of this game allows the game pieces to catapult over multiple empty spots (just as described in hop-across above). The original version only allows small hops like in checkers.

Notes

External links

Wikibooks has a book on the topic of Chinese Checkers

Wikimedia Commons has media related to: Chinese Checkers

• Chinese Checkers Strategy at Wikibooks
• Chinese Checkers Guide at LearnPlayWin
• History of Halma and Chinese Checkers
• Chinese checkers is played at Thinks.com
• Chinese Checkers is played at Yahoo! Games
• Multiplayer Chinese Checkers is played at Vinigames