Peg Solitaire
Jump pegs over neighbors on the classic 33-hole board, finish with as few as possible
FAQ
What are the rules of Peg Solitaire?
What counts as a perfect finish?
What happens when no move is left?
Where is my best score stored?
How to use
- Learn the board
The English board is a 7×7 grid without the four 2×2 corners, leaving 33 holes. Every hole starts filled except the center one, 32 pegs in total.
- Jump to capture
Select a peg, then tap an empty hole two squares away in a straight line. The peg hops over its neighbor and the jumped peg is removed from the board.
- Plan the order
Every jump removes one peg, so think ahead about which pegs stay as springboards. Avoid pushing pegs into corners where they run out of neighbors quickly.
- Finish and improve
The game ends when no jump is possible and your score is the number of pegs left. One peg on the center hole is the perfect finish, and the best result is saved locally.
About this tool
Peg Solitaire, also known as Solo Noble or solitary checkers, is a single player board puzzle that has been played for centuries. This version uses the classic English board, a 7×7 grid with the four 2×2 corners removed, which leaves 33 holes arranged in a cross shape. At the start every hole holds a peg except the center one, so 32 pegs wait on the board. A move works like a capture in checkers. A peg hops in a straight line over an adjacent peg into the empty hole behind it, and the jumped peg leaves the board. Each jump thins the crowd, and the round ends when no legal jump remains.
Scoring is refreshingly simple: the fewer pegs remain, the better. Finishing with a single peg already takes planning, and when that last peg sits on the center hole the game is considered solved perfectly. The English central opening is regarded as one of the hardest standard setups. Newcomers often stall with five or six pegs left, which is completely normal. The built in undo lets you step back to any earlier position and try another route, and reset starts a fresh round at any time. The fewest pegs recorded is kept in your browser, so you can keep pushing your own limit.
How it works
The puzzle hides real mathematics beneath simple rules. Color the board like a chessboard and notice what every jump does. It moves a peg to the opposite color while removing one peg of each color, which produces parity invariants. On the English board these invariants prove that a final single peg can only end on certain holes. The center hole is one of them. The same reasoning gives an early warning during play. If the remaining pegs cannot match the color pattern needed for the center, the round is already doomed to fall short. Undoing a few moves to fix the route beats playing on in hope.
Good solutions follow a pattern. Many players clear the arms of the cross first, using edge pegs on each other. Keep the middle region connected as long as possible, because the center offers the most directions for late jumps. Another useful habit is to push jumps in one consistent direction so the survivors stay near each other instead of scattering. Computers have long verified that the English central opening can be reduced to a single peg on the center hole. Memorizing one verified opening sequence while improvising the middle game is the most practical road to a perfect finish.
When to use it
- Commuting filler
A full round usually takes a few minutes and the pace is entirely yours, which fits a queue or a train ride perfectly. There is no opponent and no connection needed. Opening the page and studying the cross is an easy way to wake up spatial reasoning instead of scrolling a feed.
- Parent and child duels
The rule takes a minute to explain, so a child and a parent can each play a round. Then compare how few pegs remain. Talking through which peg should stay as a springboard turns the game into a light thinking lesson, and the visible score keeps the competition friendly.
- Warmup for focused work
Before writing code or tackling hard problems, one quick round pulls attention onto the board and settles the mind. Judging parity and open lines is gentle mental exercise, and players who enjoy sudoku or chess usually recognize the feeling within the first few moves.
Tips & tricks
- Clear the tips of the four arms early; corner pegs have few exits and get stranded fast.
- Pull play toward the center, since pegs near the middle keep the most directions open.
- Check the color parity of the survivors before the endgame and undo early if the center is lost.
- Memorize one verified opening sequence and save your thinking for the middle game.
Things to watch
- Grabbing every jump
Jumping wherever a capture is available scatters the survivors, and a scattered crowd quickly runs out of legal moves. Before each jump, check whether the moving peg can still take part later. Saving a springboard for the endgame often matters more than capturing one extra peg right now.
- Parking pegs in corners
A peg in a corner has only two or three directions left, and once its neighbors are gone it is stranded. Keep pulling pegs toward the middle and preserve lines along the cross arms, so the endgame still has room to maneuver.
- Refusing to undo
Staring at a stuck endgame with four or five pegs rarely finds a miracle move. When the color pattern shows the center is out of reach, step back a few moves. Find where the route went wrong, and fix it instead of restarting from scratch every time.