HALMA (Greek for "jump"), a table game, invented in 1883 by George H. Monks, of Boston, Massachusetts. It is played on a board divided into 256 squares, with wooden men resembling chess pawns. In the two-handed game 19 men are employed on each side, coloured respectively black and white; in the four handed each player has 13, the men being coloured white, black, red and green. At the beginning of the game the men are drawn up in triangular formation in the enclosures, or yards, diagonally opposite each other in the corners of the board. The object of each player is to get all his men into his enemy's yard, the player winning who first accomplishes this. The moves are made alter nately, the mode of progression being by a step, from one square to another immediately adjacent, or by a jump (whence the name) which is the jumping of a man from the square it occupies over the man just next to it, to an empty square just beyond. There may be two or more jumps in the same play, in case the situation admits it. This corresponds to jumping in draughts (checkers), except that in Halma, the hop may be in any direction, over friendly as well as hostile men, and the men jumped over are not taken but remain on the board.
See Hoffmann, Card and Table Games (London, 1903) ; R. F. Foster, Foster's Complete Hoyle (1928).