How to Play Peg Solitaire

Welcome to Peg Solitaire! This is a classic single-player puzzle played on a cross-shaped board.

The board has 33 holes arranged in a plus/cross pattern on a 7x7 grid. At the start, 32 pegs fill every hole except the center, which is left empty.

Your goal is to remove pegs until only one peg remains -- ideally in the center hole for a perfect solution.

A move consists of jumping one peg over an adjacent peg into an empty hole on the other side. The jumped peg is removed from the board.

Jumps can only be made horizontally or vertically (not diagonally), and must cover exactly two spaces: the peg jumps over its neighbor into the empty hole beyond.

For example, the peg at row 5, column 3 can jump up over the peg at row 4, column 3 and land in the empty center hole at row 3, column 3. The jumped peg is removed.

After the first jump, the board has 31 pegs and 2 empty holes. The peg that jumped has moved, and the jumped peg has been removed.

In this example, the peg from row 5, column 3 jumped up to the center (row 3, column 3), removing the peg at row 4, column 3.

Now new jump opportunities open up. Any peg adjacent to an empty hole (with a peg in between) can make a jump. Look for chains of moves that open up the board efficiently.

Unlike checkers, each turn is a single jump -- you cannot chain multiple jumps in one move. However, planning sequences of jumps is essential.

Look for positions where removing one peg creates an opening for the next jump. The best players think several moves ahead, setting up cascading sequences.

In this mid-game position, several jumps have been made. Notice how the empty holes cluster together, creating opportunities for pegs to jump toward the center.

Several well-known opening sequences lead to solvable games:

- Center start: Begin by jumping into the center from any of the 4 adjacent pegs. This is the most natural opening.

- Symmetry: Try to keep the board as symmetric as possible. Symmetric positions are easier to analyze.

- Work from the edges: Clear pegs from the arms of the cross first, then consolidate toward the center.

The key insight is that pegs on the edges have fewer escape routes. If you leave edge pegs too long, they can become stranded with no valid jumps.

The game ends in a loss if you have more than one peg remaining but no valid jumps are available. This happens when remaining pegs are isolated -- too far apart to jump over each other.

In this example, 4 pegs remain but none can make a legal jump. The pegs are stranded in corners with no adjacent pegs to jump over.

To avoid this, always check that your moves don't leave pegs orphaned. Keep pegs close together and maintain jump paths between groups.

In this late-game position, only 3 pegs remain. Two pegs are adjacent with an empty hole beyond -- one more jump will leave 2 pegs.

The challenge in the endgame is arranging the final few pegs so the last jump lands in the center. Every move counts!

A perfect game of Peg Solitaire requires exactly 31 jumps to reduce the board from 32 pegs to 1. Mathematicians have proven that a solution exists for the English board.