JUMPIN

Copyright (c) 1964 3M Publishers

This game is played on an empty 11x6 square board with the following setup:

 

MOVE - Each stone may orthogonally (no diagonals) jump over one or more line of stones (of either color), as long as there is an empty cell to land).  Multiple jumps with the same stone are possible in the same turn. A stone cannot simply move to an adjacent empty cell. GOAL - A player who first gets all of his stones to the opponent's initial position, wins.

It seems to me that the original rules need some tuning (a player can force a draw by refusing to move one stone). Jumps could be mandatory (but with no need to make the longest jump) and stones could only move backwards if no other movement was available. Stalemate should be a loss.

Mark Thompson, on his webpage of Jumpin, says:

Jumpin, published by Minnesota Mining and Manufacturing Company (3M), 1964 (author uncredited). Jumpin is played on a 6x11 board. In the handsome original bookshelf edition the two armies are Silver and Gold, and each starts with twelve pawns as shown. The object is to maneuver all your pawns into the opposite home area.

So far this sounds like a version of Chinese Checkers on a square grid, but Jumpin makes an interesting change to the rule of movement. Pawns may not move except by jumping, and a jump consists of leaping over a single pawn or an unbroken line of pawns, in any orthogonal direction. The pawns being jumped can be of either color, and are not removed. The jumping pawn lands on the first vacant square after the jumped pawn(s). Multiple jumps (using the same pawn) are allowed on the same turn.

Since pawns cannot move apart from jumping, a player must be careful not to strand one of his own pawns. Otherwise he will waste considerable time trying to get back to it.

Jumpin needs a slight rule tweak to take care of the possibility of a player refusing to move his last pawn out of his goal area, thereby preventing his opponent from winning. The same problem arises in Chinese Checkers, where one proposal is to require that any pawn in the home area which can jump out of the goal area over an enemy piece must do so. The rule proposed by Sid Sackson, which strikes me as more elegant, is to change the winning condition: a player wins when his enemy's home area is fully occupied and contains at least one of his own pieces. This rule makes the game proceed exactly as it does when both players "play fair."

Jumpin needs a slight rule tweak to take care of the possibility of a player refusing to move his last pawn out of his goal area, thereby preventing his opponent from winning.  The same problem arises in Chinese Checkers, where one proposal is to require that any pawn in the home area which can jump out of the goal area over an enemy piece must do so.  The rule proposed by Sid Sackson, which strikes me as more elegant, is to change the winning condition:  a player wins when his enemy's home area is fully occupied and contains at least one of his own pieces.  This rule makes the game proceed exactly as it does when both players "play fair."

Jianying Ji proposes the addition of a swap rule optional to the jump move: A player may swap with an opponent stone adjacent to it. Note: KO rule applies, a player can't reverse a swap that was just made by the opponent.

An example The stone at a1 can make the sequence of jumps to cell [1], then to cell[2] and finally to cell [3]

There is a way to play a series of games: Medal play - Medal play is an extension of match play. When one player has succeeded in getting all his stones to the other side, the second player continues to place all of his stones, counting and recording the number of moves it takes him to succeed. After four games, instead of counting the number of games won, the winner is the player with the lowest score.