How To Play Chinese Checkers

Picture yourself walking down a narrow road, when someone from the opposite direction unintentionally blocks your path. Mumbling some excuses he steps aside to let you pass and simultaneously you do the same. You then go your separate ways. But what happens if one of you is left handed and the other right handed. Now once again imagine the former scenario. A left handed person instinctively moves to the left while a right handed person moves to the right. Thus both of you move in the same direction. The result is that you create more obstacles for each other instead of letting each pass. This is the basics of Chinese checkers; to pass over obstacles and to create blockages for your competitors. Another interesting fact about this game is that this game did not originate in China but was invented in Germany, which was the variation of the American game Halma. The Chinese had never even heard of the game until the Japanese introduced it to them. So, if you are looking towards a nice game of Chinese checkers then read the article below to learn how to play Chinese checkers.

Rules Of Playing Chinese Checkers

The Board

The Chinese checker board is star shaped containing 121 indentations. These indentations are arranged to form a hexagon with 10 such indentations being fixed in each of the triangular star points. Each triangle is of different color. The game is played with marbles which are also of different colors. Each color set has 10 marbles. These 10 marbles should be placed into the 10 indentations of each triangle matching their corresponding colors.

The Game

The game can be played between two to six players.
There are basically two variations of the game. The ‘hop across’ and the ‘capture’ variation. The ‘hop across’ is the most popular variation of the game.
The checker board is a six sided star and the aim of the game is to put all the 10 marbles of one’s own ‘base’ into the opposite ‘base’. The player who does this the quickest is the winner.

Hop Across

Put the colored marbles into the corresponding colored corners of the star.
Each player takes turn to move one marble at a time towards the opposite ‘base’.
The marble can be moved in any direction as long as the space is available.
If the space is blocked by another marble then the player can hop his marble over it if the space is available. However, he can hop over his own marble too.
The player can hop over a single marble at a time and so can have several hops in one single move.
Also in a single hop you cannot jump over two or more marbles. So, one good strategy is to keep two to three marbles bunched together so as to stop the progress of the opposing marbles.
While hopping or moving over the marbles, make a strategy so that you place your marbles in such a way that they impede the progress of the opponents marble.
The trick is to find the longest hopping chain that leads the quickest to the ‘home base’.
The player can play one, two or three sets of marbles, in case the numbers of players are less.

Capture

In this variation all the marbles are placed, not in the triangles but in the hexagonal space in the centre of the checker board.
A single central indentation is left unoccupied.
Each player takes turn to hop over the other marbles and those marbles that are ‘hopped over’ are captured. That is they go into the player's bin.
The winner is the player with the most number of captured marbles.

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