What is Chinese Checkers with 6 pieces?
This version is the standard game with smaller armies. Each player starts with six pieces in the three rows at the tip of their point of the star (one, two and three holes), and the fourth row of the point, nearest the centre, starts empty. Everything else is unchanged: on your turn you move one piece, either one step to an empty neighbouring hole or a chain of hops over single pieces, and pieces are never captured.
The goal shrinks to match. You win by filling the three tip rows of the opposite point with your six pieces. The fourth row of that point is ordinary board: you may pass through it or stop there, but only the six tip holes count, and a piece that has reached them may move within them but never leave.
With fewer pieces there are fewer stepping stones, so long chains of hops are rarer and each one matters more. Games are short, the board stays open, and the rules are easy to see at a glance, which makes the version a good first game for new players and a quick one for anyone. It can be played by any number of players the standard game allows.
Rule changes
| Rule | Standard Chinese Checkers | Chinese Checkers with 6 pieces |
|---|---|---|
| Pieces each | Standard Chinese Checkers10. | Chinese Checkers with 6 pieces6. |
| Starting position | Standard Chinese CheckersA triangle of four rows (1, 2, 3 and 4 holes) filling one point of the star. | Chinese Checkers with 6 piecesA triangle of three rows (1, 2 and 3 holes) at the tip of the point. The fourth row starts empty. |
| Players | Standard Chinese Checkers2, 3, 4, 5 or 6. | Chinese Checkers with 6 piecesThe same. |
| How to win | Standard Chinese CheckersFill the four rows of the opposite point with your 10 pieces. | Chinese Checkers with 6 piecesFill the three tip rows of the opposite point with your 6 pieces. Pieces may pass through or stop in the fourth row, which does not count. |
| Game length | Standard Chinese CheckersTen pieces to bring across the board. | Chinese Checkers with 6 piecesSix pieces, with fewer stepping stones for hops, so games are noticeably shorter. |
History
Chinese Checkers was published in Germany in 1892 as Stern-Halma, a star-shaped version of Halma, and the standard game gives each player ten pieces. A game with six pieces each is a shortened form of it rather than a separately documented tradition: no inventor, date or traditional name is recorded for it.
Small armies are, however, common in research on the game. Chinese Checkers can be scaled to other board sizes, numbers of players and numbers of pieces, and researchers solve the smaller versions by computer. Nathan Sturtevant's paper On Strongly Solving Chinese Checkers, presented at the Advances in Computer Games conference in 2019, reported that the small versions it solved are all wins for the first player. A 2024 University of Alberta thesis by Bigyan Karki reports that the two-player game has been strongly solved up to a 6×6 board with six pieces per player.