Chinese checkers 跳棋
Chinese checkers is a board game played on a board, usually circular or hexagonal, on which a six-pointed star is drawn, with 121 positions in all.
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The Chinese name of the game is 跳棋 tiàoqí: that is the word this site's Chinese dictionary records for Chinese checkers.
The pieces are set out in the six outer triangles of a six-pointed star, forming six groups of ten, which allows two, three, four or six players to play at the same time. Each group has its own colour. With two or three players, groups of fifteen pieces can be used.
Every piece always stands on a position, and a position is never occupied by more than one piece.
Depending on the set, the pieces may be marbles, in which case the positions are holes bored into the board. Alternatively, the lines of play are drawn on the board and the positions are where those lines cross. The pieces then stand on the crossings.
Object of the game
The object of the game is to move all of your pieces into the zone opposite your own starting zone. The winner is the first player to have brought every one of their pieces into their destination zone.
Rules
The players are spread evenly around the board.
Each of them has a group of ten or fifteen pieces to bring into the zone symmetrical to their starting zone about the centre of the board.
In a three-player game, that zone is free from the very start.
In every other case (two, four or six players), it is occupied at the start by an opponent, who will vacate it as their own pieces advance.
Players move one single piece each in turn. A move follows one of two modes, and only one:
- A step of one position, in one of the six directions of the board.
- A series of jumps. Each jump goes over a piece of any colour whatsoever, landing symmetrically on the far side of it, along one of the directions of the board. The basic rule is that the piece jumped over must be immediately adjacent; a frequently played variant allows "long jumps". In every case the jump is only allowed if no other piece stands on its path or on the landing position, the pivot piece excepted.
Unlike in draughts, jumping captures nothing. Every piece stays in play for the whole game.
Strategy
It is of course crucial to use the other players' pieces to get on as fast as possible. It matters just as much not to leave a piece behind, because by the end of the game the centre of the star is often deserted, and the pieces left back there no longer have the chance to jump: they are reduced to advancing one position at a time.
There is more to it than that with the player directly opposite, because of the mutual dependence that grows between you: each of you needs the room the other vacates, and your play bears on that one opponent far more than on the others.