What is Capture Chinese Checkers?
Capture Chinese Checkers turns the race into a game of taking pieces. All 60 pieces start in the central hexagon, filling every hole except the very centre, and the six points of the star start empty. The pieces belong to nobody: colour is irrelevant, and on your turn you may move any piece on the board.
Every move is a hop. You hop a piece over a neighbouring piece into the empty hole beyond it, exactly as in the standard game, but the piece you hop over is captured at once: it leaves the board and counts for you. You may keep hopping with the same piece, capturing again with each hop, and you may stop after any hop. Because a captured piece is already gone, a chain can never hop the same piece twice, and it may even end back on the hole it started from. Single steps are not allowed.
The board is tightly packed at first, so early moves capture one or two pieces. As it empties, long chains open up, and the skill is to take what you can without leaving your opponents an even longer chain. When no hop is left anywhere on the board, the game ends and the player with the most captured pieces wins. A tie for the most is a draw. With the Long Jump option on, captures can be made with long hops as well.
Rule changes
| Rule | Standard Chinese Checkers | Capture Chinese Checkers |
|---|---|---|
| Starting position | Standard Chinese CheckersEach player's pieces fill one point of the star; the central hexagon starts empty. | Capture Chinese Checkers60 pieces fill the central hexagon except its centre hole; the six points start empty. |
| Which pieces you move | Standard Chinese CheckersOnly your own. | Capture Chinese CheckersAny piece on the board. The pieces belong to nobody. |
| Moves | Standard Chinese CheckersOne step to an empty neighbouring hole, or a chain of hops. | Capture Chinese CheckersHops only. You may stop the chain after any hop. |
| Hopped pieces | Standard Chinese CheckersStay on the board. | Capture Chinese CheckersAre captured at once and counted for the player who hopped them. |
| End of the game | Standard Chinese CheckersWhen a player fills the opposite point. | Capture Chinese CheckersWhen no hop is left anywhere on the board. |
| How to win | Standard Chinese CheckersBe the first to bring all your pieces into the opposite point. | Capture Chinese CheckersCapture the most pieces. A tie for the most is a draw. |
History
No inventor or date is recorded for the capture variant. It borrows its one new rule from draughts, where a piece that is jumped is removed from the board, and applies it to the hopping moves of Chinese Checkers. Rule collections describe it with the same essentials played here: all sixty pieces start in the central hexagon with the centre left empty, colour does not matter, only hops are allowed, the game ends when no further hop is possible, and the player with the most captured pieces wins.
The variant needs nothing beyond a standard set, since the six armies of ten pieces fill the 61-hole hexagon with exactly one hole to spare. It works for any number of players, since everyone draws on the same shared pieces; here two to six can play.