Chinese Checkers at a glance
Chinese Checkers is a race on a star-shaped board. Each side starts in one point of the star and must bring all its pegs into the opposite point before the opponent does. Nothing is ever captured: you step, you jump, you weave through. First side home wins.
This page describes the rules exactly as they are played at Le Tripot d’Edmonde: a duel between two sides, with two house rules — the blocked-peg swap and the passed turn — that guarantee a game can never get stuck.
The star board
The board has 121 holes: a central hexagon of 61 holes surrounded by six triangular points of 10 holes each. Every point is one colour’s starting camp, and the point facing it is that colour’s target camp.
Each colour has 10 pegs, set out in a triangle in its starting point (four rows of 1, 2, 3 and 4 pegs). Pegs move in six directions, along the lines of the hexagonal grid.
Two sides, one to three colours each
At the Tripot, Chinese Checkers is always played by two sides facing each other. Before the game you pick the number of colours per side:
- 1 colour — 10 pegs each, the classic duel. The other four points stay empty.
- 2 colours — 20 pegs per side, in two neighbouring points.
- 3 colours — 30 pegs per side: all six points are filled and the centre becomes a real scrum.
A side’s colours are always neighbours, and the opponent holds the exactly opposite points. So each of your pegs has to reach the point an opposing peg starts from: the two sides trade places. Unused points are open ground — you may cross them and even stop in them.
On your turn you move one peg, of any of your colours, then play passes to the opponent. When you launch the game you choose who opens: you, the opponent, or a coin toss.
Moves
The step
The peg moves one hole, to any of its six neighbouring holes, as long as it is empty. A step ends your turn: you cannot combine a step with jumps.
The jump
The peg jumps over a neighbouring peg — yours or your opponent’s, any colour — and lands in the empty hole right behind it, in a straight line. The jumped peg stays where it is: nothing is captured in Chinese Checkers.
The symmetric (long) jump
Our version also allows jumping at a distance. Along a straight line, if a peg — the “pivot” — sits at the end of a run of empty holes, your peg may jump over it and land on the far side at the same distance: as many empty holes after the pivot as before it, and the landing hole free. The pivot can be up to five holes away, so a single hop can cover ten holes.
Jump chains
After a jump, the same peg may keep jumping, in any direction, mixing short and symmetric jumps. One constraint only: never land on a hole already visited this turn, starting hole included. Stop whenever you like with the “End jump” button: the whole chain counts as one turn. Jumping is never compulsory.
Winning the game
A side wins as soon as every hole of its target camp holds a peg of the right colour. With two or three colours, all your colours must be home. The win is checked after every move.
A single opposing peg left in your target point is therefore enough to stop you finishing. That is one of the two situations the blocked-peg swap resolves.
The blocked-peg swap
This house rule is always on. In two precise situations you may swap the places of one of your pegs and an opposing peg. The swap takes your whole turn: no jump can follow it.
Swap range. The two pegs must be neighbours, or separated by a single occupied hole (any peg), in a straight line — exactly the distance of a short jump. Symmetric jumps do not count towards range.
Case A — the stuck peg
One of your pegs is stuck when:
- it is still in its starting point and none of its moves (step or jump chain) can take it out; or
- wherever it stands on the board, it has no legal move at all.
If no move by any of your other pegs could free it, you may swap it with an opposing peg within its range. As long as one of your pegs can unblock it in a single move, the swap is not offered: you free yourself by your own means first.
Case B — the last peg
All your pegs are home except one, and that last peg cannot reach its target camp this turn. If an opposing peg is squatting in a hole of your target point, you may evict it: swap it with any of your pegs within its range. The swap is offered even if other pegs could still make some pointless shuffle.
Both cases can come up on the same turn. On screen, available swaps show with a distinct marker when you touch the peg concerned, and the move history labels them “Swap”.
Passed turns and full deadlock
If on your turn none of your pegs can move and no swap is available, your turn is passed automatically. The game tells you (“You were blocked — turn skipped”) and play returns to the opponent.
If both sides are blocked one after the other, the game ends on a peg count:
- the side with more pegs in its target camp wins;
- if tied, the side whose pegs are, in total, closest to home wins;
- on a perfect tie, the win goes to player 1’s side — you, when playing solo against the AI.
Thanks to these two rules, a game of Chinese Checkers at the Tripot always ends: it can never freeze.
Game modes
Solo against the AI
Five levels: Beginner, Easy, Medium, Hard and Impossible. The higher the level, the further the AI looks ahead, the longer its jump chains and the fewer its mistakes. Each level has its own named opponent, from Jean Médecin to Marie Curie. A “Hint” button suggests a move when you hesitate.
Two players, one device
Two players share the same screen and take turns: one tablet on the table is enough.
Online, device to device
Three ways to find an opponent: quick match, where we find you an opponent in the waiting room; the open lobby, where you open a public table in the format of your choice; and the private room, with a code to share with friends. The format is the number of colours per side (one, two or three, or “any format”). Games are played device to device, with no account required, and every incoming move is checked before it is applied.
Short glossary
- Point
- One of the six arms of the star (10 holes). It is one colour’s starting camp and the opposite colour’s target camp.
- Side
- All the colours of one player: one, two or three, always neighbours.
- Chain
- A series of jumps by the same peg in a single turn, never revisiting a hole.
- Swap
- House rule: one of your pegs and an opposing peg within range trade places. Reserved for the stuck peg (case A) and the last peg (case B); it takes the whole turn.
- Pivot
- The peg you jump over in the middle of a symmetric jump.
- Passed turn
- The turn of a side with no move and no swap available: play passes to the opponent automatically.
Where to next?
With the rules in hand, what is left is winning the race. That is what our Chinese Checkers strategy guide is for: jump ladders, a compact group and making the most of the swap. And if you prefer cards, here are the Oh Hell rules.
Play in person, in Nice
The Tripot’s games are also played around a real table at Les Folies d’Edmonde, a cocktail bar set in a vaulted cellar in Old Nice. From 6 pm, a game table often opens there: whist is the main game, with Chinese Checkers now and then. If you book, write “game table” in your request.