How to Play Halma

By Jaques of London · Est. 1795 · Updated 2026-08-17

Halma is a strategy board game for two to four players, played on a 16x16 square grid. Each player controls a set of coloured pieces that begin clustered in a corner yard and must be raced, one by one, to the diagonally opposite yard. The game rewards forward planning over brute-force tactics: a single well-judged chain of hops can leapfrog half the board in one turn.

It is well suited to kitchen tables and family game nights. The rules are simple enough for children to grasp in minutes, yet the positional depth keeps adults engaged. Games are typically unhurried, making it a popular choice for relaxed evening play rather than competitive tournament settings.

A little history

Halma was published in the United States in 1883 or 1884 and is generally credited to Boston surgeon George Howard Monks, who reputedly adapted ideas from an earlier English game. The name comes from the Greek word for jump. Its precise origins and the chain of development before commercial publication are not fully documented, so details beyond these widely reported facts should be treated with caution. The game reached Britain and Europe in the late nineteenth century and has remained in continuous production in various forms ever since.

Setting up

1. Place the board flat between the players so each corner yard is closest to one player (or one team in the four-player game).
2. For two players: each player fills their 19-square home yard in one corner with their 19 pieces. The two yards used are diagonally opposite each other.
3. For four players: each player fills their 13-square home yard in one corner with their 13 pieces. All four corner yards are occupied.
4. Decide who goes first. A simple method is the youngest player starts; any agreed method is fine.
5. In the four-player game, sitting opposite players may agree to play as partners, sharing a win condition, or all four may compete individually.

How to play

1. Players take turns in clockwise order. On your turn you must move exactly one piece.
2. A piece may move one square in any of the eight directions (orthogonal or diagonal) to an immediately adjacent empty square. This is a step.
3. Alternatively, a piece may hop over any adjacent piece (your own or an opponent's) to the empty square immediately beyond it, in a straight line. The hopped piece is not removed from the board.
4. After a hop, if the piece now sits adjacent to another piece with an empty square beyond, it may continue hopping in the same or a different direction. These chain hops all count as one turn.
5. A piece may stop hopping at any point during a chain; it does not have to continue even if further hops are available.
6. A piece that has entered the target yard (the corner yard diagonally opposite its starting yard) may still hop out again if the player chooses, but this is almost always disadvantageous.
7. There is no capturing in Halma. No piece is ever removed from the board.
8. A player must make a move on their turn; passing is not permitted unless no legal move exists, which in practice cannot occur.

Winning and scoring

The first player to move all of their pieces off their starting yard and into the target yard diagonally opposite wins the game. For a two-player game this means placing all 19 pieces into the opponent's original corner yard. In the four-player game it means filling the opposite corner with all 13 of your pieces. In partnership play, the pair wins as soon as both partners have completed their respective journeys.

The fine points

The most common dispute concerns whether a piece that has fully entered the target yard can be used as a stepping stone by the player who owns it. Standard rules permit this: your own pieces inside the target yard may be hopped over to help bring remaining pieces in more quickly. Opponents' pieces that happen to sit in your target yard may also be hopped. However, a piece belonging to an opponent that occupies one of your target squares does not count toward your total; you must either move it out or fill the remaining squares around it.

A second frequent question is whether chain hops must continue in the same direction or may change direction. The standard ruling is that each hop in a chain may go in any of the eight directions independently, giving considerable flexibility. Players occasionally try to rule that a chain must be linear; this is a known house variant but is not the standard game. Agree before play begins if you wish to use it.

How to win more often

• Build a ladder early: arrange your own pieces in a diagonal or staggered line so that your later pieces can chain-hop the full length of it in one turn.
• Move your rearmost pieces first. Pieces left behind in the starting yard cannot benefit from chains and will become a bottleneck late in the game.
• Leave your pieces spread to create hopping bridges, but avoid clumping them so tightly that you block your own routes.
• Watch your opponent's chain opportunities and avoid leaving sequences of evenly spaced pieces that hand them a long free hop across the board.
• In the four-player game, prioritise speed over blocking. Trying to obstruct three opponents is rarely worth the tempo lost on your own march.

Variations

Two-player small board

Some sets include an inner grid of roughly 10x10 squares and use fewer pieces per player. This produces a shorter, sharper game more suited to younger children or players with limited time. The rules are otherwise identical to the standard game.

Partnership Halma

In the four-player game, the two players seated opposite each other form a team. The team wins when both partners have fully occupied their respective target yards. Partners may sacrifice tempo to create hop ladders their teammate can use, adding a cooperative layer to the tactics.

One-way rule

Under this stricter variant, once a piece enters the target yard it may not leave it voluntarily. This prevents the tactic of temporarily withdrawing pieces to create a longer hop chain and tends to produce a more direct race. It is worth agreeing in advance as it meaningfully changes late-game play.

Timed turns

To increase pace, each player is given a fixed number of seconds per turn, enforced by a sand timer or clock. Any piece already picked up must be placed legally; if time expires before a move is made, the piece returns to its square and the turn passes. This variant suits players who find the game too slow in its standard form.

Halma: frequently asked questions