Chinese Checkers Board Game Instructions

Setup

• Players place 10 marbles or pegs into their triangles. If only two people are playing, they should set their pieces up in triangles opposite each other. For three or more players, as many players as possible should be opposite one another. Many boards are color-coded, so the playing pieces match their starting triangle. Use a coin toss or similar method to determine who goes first.

Play

• On their turns, players may move one piece one space or may hop if his piece is adjacent to another piece of any color. If the hop puts your piece in a position for another hop, you may continue until no more hops are available.

  Play rotates clockwise. Your turn ends when you have completed a move of one space or until you runs out of hops. You may move your pieces into any space on the board, including the triangles, but you may not move a piece out of the triangle opposite once it enters.

Winning

• The goal of Chinese checkers is to get all of your playing pieces across the board into the opposite triangle. The first person to do this wins the game. Strategies sometimes involve building "bridges" that allow you to hop pieces all the way across the board, or "walls" that prevent your opponent from hopping or even progressing in some cases.

The "Dubious Block"

• One situation sometimes left out of the rules is when an opponent leaves one playing piece in his triangle to prevent his opponent from getting all 10 playing pieces in. This is not a very effective strategy since it usually leads to a stalemate, but you should decide ahead of time how to handle it. One option is to say that a player wins when all available slots in the opposing triangle are filled, not necessarily all 10.