When playing teams, teammates usually sit at opposite corners of the star, with each team member controlling their own colored set of pieces. Starting layouts Six playersД¬an be played 'all versus all', or three teams of two. 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. is not an opponent's starting corner), the player can freely build a 'ladder' or 'bridge' with their pieces between the two opposite ends. For example, if a player's home destination corner starts empty (i.e. Games between top players are rarely decided by more than a couple of moves.Дiffering numbers of players result in different starting layouts, in turn imposing different best-game strategies. Of equal importance are the players' strategies for emptying and filling their starting and home corners. (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. (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.) StrategyДЄ basic strategy is to create or find the longest hopping path that leads closest to home, or immediately into it. It is not mandatory to make the most number of hops possible. Red might advance the indicated piece by a chain of three hops in a single move. 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. In the diagram, Green might move the topmost piece one space diagonally forward as shown. Turns proceed clockwise around the board. There is no capturing in Chinese checkers, so hopped pieces remain active and in play. A player may not combine hopping with a single-step moveВ - a move consists of one or the other. 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. 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. (On bigger star boards, 15 or 21 pieces are used.)

Each player has 10 pieces, except in games between two players when 15 are sometimes used. The aim is to race all one's pieces into the star corner on the opposite side of the board before opponents do the same. HistoryДЄ single move can consist of multiple hops each piece hopped must be directly adjacent, and hops can be in any direction. The rules are simple, so even young children can play. Like other skill-based games, Chinese checkers involves strategy.

The remaining players continue the game to establish 2nd, 3rd, 4th, 5th, and last place finishers. The objective is to be first to race 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 game is a modern and simplified variation of the American game Halma. Another popular format uses colored pegs in holes.Д¬hinese checkers (US spelling) or Chinese chequers (UK spelling) is a board game of German origin which can be played by two, three, four, or six people, playing individually or with partners. A typical pitted-wood gameboard using six differently colored sets of marbles.

Board games halma