Play Chinese Checkers

Chinese Checkers is a simple game once you learn the rules. Two to six players race each other to see who can fill their destination triangle with colored marbles, also called “pegs,” first. Continue reading if you want to learn more about how to play this entertaining game.

Steps

Setting Up

1. Familiarize yourself with the game board. The shape of the board is a six-pointed star, and each point has ten holes inside of it.
   • The inner hexagon portion of the board is also filled with peg holes. Each side of the hexagon has five holes along it.
   • With most Chinese Checkers boards, each triangular point has a different color. There are also six sets of marbles or pegs, and each colored set corresponds to a colored point.
2. Choose your starting triangles. The triangles you use will depend on the number of players you have. Play the game with two, three, four, or six players.
   • If playing with six players, use all six triangles.
   • If playing with two or four players, use pairs of opposing triangles. In other words, for a two-player game, the triangle of Player A should lie directly across from the starting triangle of Player B. For a four-player game, two sets of these opposing triangles should be used.
   • If playing with three players, play every other triangle. There should be an empty triangle in between the starting triangles of each player.
3. Know how many pegs to use. In an ordinary game, you should use the ten marble pegs that correspond to the color of your triangle.
   • Not all Chinese Checkers boards have color-coded triangles, however. In this case, you can choose any colored set of pegs you wish.
   • While most games are traditionally played with ten pegs regardless of how many players you have, if desired, you can vary the number of pegs based on the number of players. A full six-player game would use ten marbles, while each player in a four-player game would use 13 and each player in a two-person game would use 19 marbles.

Playing the Game and Moving Pegs

1. Flip a coin. The game typically starts with a coin toss.
   • Flip a coin into the air and predict if the coin will land on its "heads" or "tails" side. Whichever player guesses correctly the greatest number of times is chosen to be the starting player.
   • You could also use other "luck of the draw" methods to determine who starts. For instance, you could play a game of rock-paper-scissors.
2. Take turns. After the first person takes his or her turn, the person to that player's left should take a turn next. Continue moving around the board in this matter, traveling to the left until you reach the first player again. The cycle then repeats.
   • There is traditionally no reason to skip over a player's turn. If all the players agree to it, however, you could establish a rule that permits players to "pass" for one turn.
   • You could create other rules about skipping turns, as well. A common "added" rule to apply is that the first player to get a marble into their target triangle must skip his or her next turn. While common, though, this rule is not an official part of Chinese Checkers.
3. Move into one adjacent hole at a time. The most basic way to move one of your pegs is to move it into an adjacent hole.
   • When your turn comes, look for empty holes that are next to the marble you want to move. You can move one marble into one empty hole like this per turn, unless you choose to "hop" your peg over another peg, instead.
   • Pegs can move in any direction: side to side, forward, or backward.
4. Hop over other pegs. The other way to move your peg is to "hop" over adjacent pegs into a vacant hole on the other side.
   • During your turn, you can move your peg into an empty hole that is situated directly on the other side of another peg. There must only be one peg blocking you from the empty hole, and the empty hole must be directly beyond that peg and in the same direction as the peg itself in relation to the peg you move.
   • You can only "hop" over a peg during your turn if you have not already moved into a vacant hole directly adjacent to your peg during the same turn.
   • You can hop over any peg, including your own.
   • You can hop over pegs in any direction.
   • Additionally, you can continue to hop over as many pegs as you want during a single turn, as long as you only move one peg. Each peg you hop over must be directly adjacent to your peg's current position. This is the only way to move a peg more than once during a turn, and it is theoretically possible to hop your way across the entire board in one turn using this tactic.
5. Do not remove your pegs. Unlike traditional Checkers, you do not remove pegs from a Chinese Checkers board once those pegs have been jumped or hopped over.
6. Aim for the opposing triangle. You can move pegs in any direction across the board. You can even move them into other triangles that are not currently in use. Ultimately, however, you should aim to pile all your pegs into the triangle directly across from your starting triangle.
7. Do not move pegs out of the destination triangle. Once you move one of your pegs into the opposing triangle, you cannot move it out of the triangle for the rest of the game. You can move it within that triangle, though.
   • Pegs that are moved into other triangles can still be moved out.

Winning and Losing

1. Win by filling your destination triangle. The winning player is the first person to move all of his or her marbles into the triangle lying directly across from his or her starting triangle.
   • Once a winner has been established, it is your decision whether to stop the game or continue on. Traditionally, the game ends with one winner, and the rest of the players lose. If you want to continue playing until every player has filled his or her destination triangle, though, you may do so.
2. Establish rules governing "blocked" holes. With Chinese Checkers, it is legitimate to "block" a player from winning by occupying one of the holes in his or her destination triangle, thereby preventing that player from filling the triangle first.
   • One rule you can implement is a rule which states that a player who is prevented from moving a peg into a destination triangle can swap that peg with the one blocking it.
   • Another rule you can use is that, if one or more filled holes in an occupied triangle are filled with other players' pegs, these pegs actually count toward the blocked player's victory. If that player has filled all the non-blocked holes within his or her destination triangle, that player wins.
3. Determine rules about potential forfeits. Even though it is not an official rule, many players choose to enact a rule stating that a player must forfeit the game if he or she is unable to move any pegs during a turn.
   • If this happens, the losing player must remove his or her pegs from the board and sit out the rest of the game.

Things You'll Need

• Chinese Checkers board
• Six sets of colored pegs or marbles, with ten marbles each

Sources and Citations

See also

• Play Checkers
• Win at Checkers
• Win at Chinese Checkers

What links here

• Play Chinese Chess