Peg solitaire online

The classic peg board puzzle, in your browser

Peg solitaire is the wooden board you may remember from a relative's shelf: a grid of holes, a peg in every hole but one, and a simple goal. Jump pegs over each other, remove the ones you jump, and try to finish with a single peg. Unlike the card game of the same name, there are only jumps here.

Four boards are available: English, 33 holes (the familiar cross, centre empty at the start), European, 37 holes (the board with rounded corners), Triangle, 15 holes (top hole empty, the shape often found on restaurant tables) and Large cross, 45 holes for a longer game. No account, nothing to install.

How to play

1. Pick a board. The Pegs counter starts at 32 on the English board, 36 on the European one, 14 on the triangle and 44 on the large cross.
2. Tap a peg: the holes where it can land turn green. Tap the hole you want, or drag the peg there with your mouse or finger.
3. The peg jumps over an adjacent peg, along a row or a column, into the empty hole right behind it. The peg you jumped over is removed. On the triangle you can also jump diagonally, which gives six directions.
4. Keep going until no jump is left. The Time clock starts with your first jump and stops when the game ends.

Undo jump takes back as many moves as you like and Restart resets the board. With Highlight pegs that can jump ticked, every peg that has a legal jump gets a ring. Keyboard players can move a frame with the arrow keys, press Enter to pick a peg and then its landing hole, Esc to cancel the choice and Ctrl+Z to undo.

The goal: one peg, ideally in the centre

Every jump removes exactly one peg, so the English board always takes 31 jumps to go from 32 pegs to one. The perfect finish leaves that last peg in the centre hole, the one that was empty at the start. It can be done, and the solver on this page will show you a way. At the start only 4 jumps are possible, all into the centre, and by symmetry they lead to the same game.

On the European board, starting with the centre empty can never end with a single peg: a simple colouring argument proves it. So the game starts with the first hole of the top row empty instead. That position can be solved down to one peg, though not in the centre. The triangle has no centre hole, so one peg anywhere counts as a full win.

A little history

The puzzle was known in Europe by the late seventeenth century: a French engraving dated 1697 already shows someone playing it. Its earlier origins are uncertain, and the colourful stories about who invented it are not backed by evidence.

Strategy tips

• Clear one arm at a time so no stray peg is stranded at its tip.
• Watch the corners. A lone peg in a corner with no neighbours can never jump or be jumped again. That is the usual reason a game ends with two or three pegs.
• Keep the centre busy for most of the game, because the jumps that link the arms pass through it.

If you are unsure, Can I still win? tells you whether the current position can still end with one peg, and whether the centre is still reachable. Show a solution searches for a sequence of jumps from where you are and plays it on the board; Stop the solution hands control back to you.

Best results keeps, per board, your fewest pegs left (one peg in the centre beats one elsewhere), its time and your games finished, on your device.

Frequently asked questions

Can every game be finished with one peg?

From the starting positions offered here, yes, on all four boards. A few careless jumps are enough to make a one-peg finish impossible, though. Press Can I still win? at any time to check.

Why does the solver sometimes give no answer?

It explores possible jump sequences for up to 15 seconds. On the larger boards, when almost every hole is full, that may not be enough. Play a few jumps and ask again: with fewer pegs the answer comes quickly.

Does a game helped by the solver count as a best result?

No. Once Can I still win? or Show a solution has been used, you can finish the game, but it will not be recorded in your best results.

Can I play on a phone?

Yes. Tap a peg and then its landing hole, or drag it with your finger. The board shrinks to fit the width of the screen.