Peg Solitaire
PuzzlePeg Solitaire is a centuries-old single-player board puzzle. You start with 32 pegs filling every hole of a cross-shaped board except the center. Jump one peg over a neighbor into the empty hole beyond, remove the jumped peg, and repeat. A perfect solve leaves just one peg standing, ideally right in the middle.
How to Play
Goal: Remove as many pegs as you can. A single peg left is the classic win.
Controls: Tap or click a peg to select it (it turns green), then tap or click a highlighted empty hole to jump. Highlighted holes are your only legal landing spots. Tap the same peg again to deselect. Works with a single tap on phones.
Rules: A jump must be straight (across or down, never diagonal) and must hop over exactly one peg into an empty hole two spaces away. The peg you jump over is removed. When no legal jumps remain, the game is over and your peg count is your score. Lower is better.
History: The puzzle dates to at least 17th-century France. Read the background on Wikipedia.
About Peg Solitaire
Peg Solitaire is a 300-year-old puzzle with an aristocratic origin story: tradition claims it was invented by a French noble imprisoned in the Bastille in the late 17th century, and a 1697 engraving of a French princess with the board is the game's first hard evidence. The English cross-shaped board of 33 holes became the standard: 32 pegs, one empty center.
Every move is a checkers-style jump that removes the jumped peg, and the classic goal is brutal: finish with a single peg, ideally standing in the center hole. The puzzle has real mathematical teeth, positions can be classified by invariants that prove most 'nearly there' endings were doomed many moves earlier, which is why planning beats hopeful jumping.
Peg Solitaire planning
- Play in blocks: learn small three-peg 'packages' that clear a region cleanly, and treat the board as a few packages, not 32 pegs.
- Keep pegs mobile in the center. Corner and edge pegs are the ones that end up stranded.
- Do not chain jumps just because you can, every capture that scatters lone pegs to the rim is a future orphan.
- Work symmetrically when possible; mirrored positions are easier to reason about and known solutions exploit symmetry.
- If you end with two pegs far apart, the mistake was in the midgame. Undo generously and learn the package that failed.
FAQ
What is the goal of peg solitaire?
Jump pegs over adjacent pegs into empty holes, removing each jumped peg, until only one remains. The classic challenge on the English board starts with the center empty and asks you to finish with the last peg in that same center hole.
Is the center-finish puzzle actually solvable?
Yes, the classic center-to-center game is solvable, and the shortest known solution takes just 18 moves counting multi-jumps as one move, a record proved minimal by computer search. Solvable does not mean forgiving: most casual lines strand pegs long before the end.
Why do I always end up with pegs stuck in opposite corners?
Because captures that fling pegs to the rim create orphans with no partners left in reach. Solitaire strategy is about clearing regions completely using small rehearsed jump patterns, keeping the survivors centralized as long as possible.
Are there other board shapes?
Yes, the 37-hole French board is the other classic, and triangular versions (the restaurant tabletop puzzle) share the same jump rule. Each layout has its own theory; the English cross is the standard because its center puzzle is so clean.
