Halma

▪ game

      (Greek: “jump”), checkers-type board game, invented about 1880, in which players attempt to move a number of pieces from one corner of a square board containing 256 squares to the opposite corner. The first to transfer all of his pieces is the winner. In the two-handed game, each player has 19 pieces; in the four-handed game, each has 13 and the players may compete as two partnerships. The game can also be played by three, but the player without an opponent in the opposite corner is at a disadvantage.

      Pieces may move one square at a time in any direction onto any empty square, or they may jump over adjacent pieces, their own or an opponent's, onto an empty square beyond. Pieces are not removed from the board when they are jumped. Any number of jumps may be made in one turn of play. Players try to form ladders—strings of their own pieces spaced so that they jump several squares at a turn.

      Chinese checkers, a game for from two to six players, derived from Halma, was introduced in the United States in the 1930s. It is played in the same way as Halma, except that the pieces are usually marbles (each player has 10 or 15) and the board, in the shape of a six-pointed star, has holes instead of squares.

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