Chinese Checkers

Originally From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.

Chinese checkers is a board game that can be played by two to six people. The object of the game is to place one's pieces in the corner opposite their starting position by moving them through jumps over other pieces. The Chinese checkers board is laid out in a six-pointed star like the Star of David although the game is unrelated to Judaism. The game is played with up to six sets of colored marbles, ten of each color. The ten marbles are arranged as a triangle in the starting position in one of the corners of the star.

Each player puts his or her own colored marbles on one corner of the star, and attempts to relocate them all to the opposite (or indicated) corner. The proper corner is indicated by a background color matching the color of your pieces.

Players take turns moving one marble, either a single step or a chain of one or more hops. A step consists of moving a marble to an adjacent unoccupied space in any of the six directions. A hop consists of jumping over a single adjacent marble, either one's own or an opponent's, to an unoccupied space directly opposite. You cannot "capture" or take pieces from an opponent, and it makes no difference if you hop over your own pieces of or one of any opponents.

The basic strategy is to find the longest hopping path instead of moving step by step. However, since your opponent or opponents can make use of whatever hopping ladders you create, more advanced strategy requires hindering your opponent as well as helping yourself. Of equal importance is the players' strategy or algorithm for emptying and filling their origin and destination triangles. Games between experts are rarely decided by more than a couple of moves.