![]() ![]() Even though its roots are far from the ancient east, my hat’s off to Pressman and its excellent marketing for making Chinese checkers a truly classic American game. HOP CHING CHECKERS certainly set the stage for the popularity of this game in US. The bad news is of course, is that opponents may use your ladder to propel their pieces quickly across the board too!īe the player that moves all of your marbles across the board first to your new home base to be the winner! Players move their marbles to form a “ladder” across the board so pieces can be jumped across the board in a single turn. The strategy in playing Chinese checkers is to get to the other side of the board quickly by maximizing jumping moves. Jumped marbles are not removed from the board like regular checkers. (Jumping – that’s where the checkers part comes in, right?) The player may continue to jump in any direction (except backwards) for as long as there are marbles in his path to jump. On a turn a player moves one marble to an adjacent empty hole or he may jump over any (even an opponent’s) single marble. When 3 players participate, player’s home bases are located at every other point on the star playing field. If there are only 2 players, each gets 15 marbles instead. Players get 10 marbles to fill their triangular home base. As you can see, the roots of Chinese checkers are wide, but not anciently deep! Monks based HALMA on an older British board game called HOPPITY. (Stern means “star” in German) HALMA’S ancestry goes back even further inventor Dr. Ravensburger refined HALMA’s play, changed its board to the familiar star shape and named it STERN – HALMA. HALMA, meaning “jump” in Greek, plays similarly what we know as Chinese checkers but the board is square. Ravensburger, a German game publisher, honed the game HALMA, invented around 1883 – 1884 by American, Dr. Pressman got the idea for HOP CHING CHECKERS from an earlier game published in Germany in 1892 called STERN-HALMA. Pressman and Company printed HOP CHING CHECKERS, a name based on the country’s obsession with the orient at the time and created the made-up Chinese image for the game. (drum roll please) 1928! That blows my whole ancient game idea, doesn’t it? J. Franklin Mint Chinese checkers The Collectors Edition game table and pedestal with the COAs. Nice picture in my head – it’s WRONG – but definitely a wonderful story book picture!Īre you ready for the truth? Chinese checkers has quite a lineage! Chinese checkers was first published in the United States in. View realised checkers auction prices from 290 auction lots. By the graphics and colors of the board, one could imagine ancient Chinese people competing in what appeared to be an age-old game handed down by generations of ancestral players. Slide the lever again, and pieces couldn’t “escape” from their hidden storage space. With the slide of a lever on the side of the board, the game pieces could be stowed inside. Growing up we had a metal, 2 sided checkers/Chinese checker game board. ![]()
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