Halma

Halma Opening Positions for Two and Four Players

Alternate Names

Alma, Hoppity

No. of Players

Two or Four

Equipment

A Halma board is typically a 16x16 checkerboard with a few areas at the corners highlighted to distinguish them as camps, where the counters are placed at the start and finish of the game. These markings and the checkering, however, are non-essential for play and a simple 16x16 square grid will suffice. Nineteen each of black and white counters are required for play for two players and thirteen each of four different colored counters are required for four.

History

The game was invented in England in the 1880’s. Parlett (1) attributes its invention to Howard Monks, an English surgeon, in 1883. Halma and the very similar Chinese Checkers seem to have been invented right around the same time.

Objective

The objective of the game is to occupy all of the positions of the camp directly opposite the initial camp with your counters. The first player to do so wins the game. If there are four players they may make teams of two players each with partners at opposite corners. Using such a configuration, a team wins when all of its counters have traded sides before the counters of the opposing team do the same. Alternately, four players may play without making teams. In such a game, play may continue after one player wins to determine rank.

Play

The game commences with the counters positioned as above. After determining which player goes first (a considerable advantage), alternate turns entail a move of a single counter in any direction (diagonally or orthogonally) to a necessarily vacant neighboring square or an orthogonal or diagonal jump over a neighboring counter of any color to a necessarily vacant cell immediately beyond in a straight line in any direction. There are no captures in Halma and a jumped counter remains on the board. Double or multiple jumps in one move are permitted and direction may be changed after each jump. Thus, on a turn a player may move a single counter to a neighboring square, perform a jump, or perform a series of any number of jumps with the same counter, but no combination of the said moves are allowed in a single turn.

It should be noted that one small problem remains with the rules as stated above. An unscrupulous player may keep a counter in his camp to prevent its total occupation. There are a few different rules which may be implemented for serious players of Halma to prevent such exploitation. First, it may be decreed that a player wins the game when all positions of the enemy base camp are occupied, at least one of them by a counter of their own color. Another rule states that when one player completely vacates his camp, his opponent must vacate her own camp on successive plays. Thus, the opponent cannot move a counter outside of her camp until the yard is empty of her counters. The latter is probably the best solution to the problem of trivial draws, as crafty players may be able to devise further trivial draws even with the implementation of the former rule. Also note that the player with the first move is given considerable advantage. For fair tournaments, the order of play should be rotated until each player has gone first for an equal number of games.

Strategy

One common strategy is to form a “ladder” as shown below.

Halma Ladder Formation

Overall, it is ideal to keep all of your counters in close proximity to each other throughout the game, moving as a group. This works to impede the opponent’s advance, but does not allow for quick transition as in the ladder. Therefore, an expert player may make use of both ladders and groups.

Variations

In Color Halma the colour of the square determines the rules of movement. If a counter starts on a dark square it must remain on dark squares only, moving one step diagonally and is not allowed to jump. A counter that starts on a light square must remain on light squares only, and can only move by orthogonal jumps.

In Marked Halma or Treff-Halma (German) each player marks his corner piece and must get that counter to the opposite corner exactly.

Another curious variant of Halma, is Top Secret, where each player drops in turns their 18 counters on the central 6x6 square area of the 16x16 board. After all drops are made, the goal is to be the first to remove all counters from the board by moving moving or jumping off the edge.

Eckha was a slightly modified version of Halma published by Milton Bradley in 1888 and 1889 after they lost the legal battle for the name of Halma.

Super Halma

A rare game, Cetro, is played on a regular checkerboard with a player's different counters marked for different movements and strengths. The objective is to form a “bridge” or “ladder” to move pieces across the board quickly.

Sources

  1. Parlett, David. The Oxford History of Board Games. Oxford: Oxford UP, 1999.

  2. Provenzo, Asterie Baker and Eugene F. Provenzo, Jr. Play It Again, Historic Board Games You Can Make and Play. Prentice-Hall, Inc., 1981. ISBN 0-13-683367-5