Play Chinese Checkers

How to Play Chinese Checkers

Despite the name, Chinese Checkers isn't Chinese, and it isn't really checkers — it's Stern-Halma, a German commercial game from 1892 built on the older race game Halma (1883/84). The US "Hop Ching Checkers" boom in 1928 is where the "Chinese" label got attached, decades after the game was invented and an ocean away from China. We cover the full paper trail in our history of the name.

It's also not checkers by the usual definition, since nothing is ever captured. It's a race: on your turn you either step a marble to an adjacent empty hole, or jump it in a chain over any marbles — yours or your opponent's — landing in the empty hole just beyond each one. A jumped marble stays right where it is. The first side to fill the star point opposite their start wins.

Our version

This is a 2-player build: you and the AI (or a friend in hot-seat) sit at opposite points of the star, 10 marbles each. Play against easy, medium, or hard AI, or take turns on one screen. Undo, hints, resume, and your win/loss stats all work the same way they do on the rest of the site. You can also play online: hit Play Online to get paired with another player, or create a private game and share the link with a friend.

We also use one house rule to stop a stalling tactic the classic game allows: if your opponent parks a marble in their own starting triangle and refuses to move it, they can block you from ever completing your goal there forever. On this site, you win as soon as every hole in your goal triangle is full — even if one of those marbles is an opponent's leftover piece. See the full breakdown, including why the classic rule allows the stall, on the rules page.

See how it compares to the rest of the family in our guide to checkers variants.