June 20, 2004

By: David Sacco
Website: http://www.a1-in-toys.com

A Brief History And Guide To Chinese Checkers

Chinese Checkers was invented in Germany in 1892.  It is a descendent from the game Halma, which is Greek for Jump, and was invented by an American Professor from Boston, Dr. George Howard Monks.  This is the only 19th century internationally classic game to have been originated in the United States.  It is different from Chinese Checkers in that the number of pieces used at the start depend on the number of players, and the jumped pieces are never captured or removed from the board. It is a game for 2 to 4 players and is played on a flat square game board with 256 pieces (16X16).  There are 19 pieces each in a two-player game, 13 pieces each in a four player game, and in a rare 3 player game each player has 15 pieces.  The object of the game is to move all your pegs across the board, by moving one step at a time or jumping over adjacent pegs, to occupy the star point directly opposite.  The player getting all pegs across is the winner.

In Board Game terminology these two classic games are part of what is known as the traversal branch of space games.  Chinese Checkers is not from China and has nothing at all to do with the game of checkers.  It is also not related to the peg game Marble Solitaire or Peg Solitaire.  Although it is based on the game Halma, the only real difference is that it is played on a six-pointed star-shaped game board and then can be played by 2 to 6 players.  Each player has only 10 pieces each and the distance to the opponents home is fewer spaces away.

The first game of Chinese Checkers was published in 1892 and patented by the German game company Ravensburger (Otto Robert Maier) under the name Stern-Halma (stern means start in English).  Later on Spears & Sons introduce this game to England in 1909. 

The first game to be published in the United States was in 1929 by J. Pressman and Co., and was known as 'Hop Ching Checkers'.  It was the exact same game as the 1892's Star-Halma.  The two brothers Bill and Jack Pressman made up the name Chinese Checkers at around 1928.  The game was given a Chinese name and theme in order to keep up with the current interest in oriental products such as the discovery of King Tut's tomb in 1922, and the mah jongg game that was introduced in 1923.

If you are interested in purchasing some great Chinese Checkers games then check out our buyer's guide in the Board Games section of our web site to find excellent companies such as Amazon and KBToys.  These companies offer great selections at reasonable prices and with full money back guarantees.

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