Chinese Checkers · History
From Halma to Stern-Halma
The ancestor of the game is Halma (Greek for “jump”), devised around 1883–84 by George Howard Monks, a Boston surgeon. It was played on a 16×16 square board, moving pieces from one corner to the opposite one. In 1892 the German publisher Ravensburger moved the idea onto a star-shaped board as Stern-Halma (“star Halma”), whose six camps made it ideal for groups.
A marketing name
In the late 1920s American game companies began selling Stern-Halma under exotic oriental-sounding names, and “Chinese Checkers” is the one that stuck. It was pure marketing riding a fashion for East Asian themes: the game neither comes from China nor is it a form of checkers. Under that name it nonetheless became a fixture in American homes.
The star board in Asia
The star board later spread through East Asia. In China it became the everyday family game tiàoqí (跳棋, “jumping chess”), and in Japan it is sold as the “Diamond Game”. Korea adopted the Japanese name as 다이아몬드 게임, and plastic star boards with glass marbles became a childhood staple there.
Today
With simple rules and no luck involved, it remains a classic that children and adults can play together. Because it is so often played by several people, local rules differ; this site uses the widely adopted “no stopping in other camps” rule and the anti-blocking win condition.