Peg Solitaire

Opening Position for English Solitaire

Alternate Names

Chinese Checkers has been used to refer to Peg solitaire games in general, but this term should be retained to refer to the multi-player Chinese Checkers game described here. Note that the single-player family of card games called Solitaire are probably best referred to as Patience.

No. of Players

As the name would imply, typically only one player is involved in a competition against the game. The game may be thought of as a board game puzzle. Competitions using peg solitaire games for two or more players may be devised.

Equipment

There are a large variety of solitaire boards which have been invented and used and probably an infinite amount that could still be unknown. Quite often, the game is made and/or marketed as a board with holes which are made to contain the pegs that are used as counters.

History

Elaborate maritime Solitaire board from the House on the Rock in Spring Green, Wisconsin, USA.

The game or, more accurately, puzzle of solitaire is oft reported to be invented by a French nobleman while imprisoned during the Revolution at the end of the eighteenth century. This story, however, is only an inaccurate legend and it turns out that solitaire had already been around for quite some time. The French, however, did bring solitaire into popularity and the game retains its French name.

Objective

The objectives vary but the most common is to start with a single hole vacant on the board and end up with a single counter (peg) at the end of the game. In variations, a player may start with some pattern on the board (several holes vacant) and then attempt to reduce to just one. In other variations, players may attempt to form some pattern of pegs at the end of the game. The complement problem, which is not attainable on all boards, is where one begins with a single hole vacant and ends the game with only one peg left in that initially vacant hole. Marketed version of these games often give ranks to players depending on how many pegs they have left on the board. For example:

Play

The only moves allowed are jump and capture moves. On a move, a counter may only jump over a neighboring counter to an immediately opposite vacant hole. On almost all boards these jumps are strictly orthogonal (a hexagonal space may allow up to six different orthogonal jumps). The 13-Hole Diamond Solitaire board, however, is an exception and allows diagonal jumps (without them no single peg problem on the board is solvable). A counter that is jumped over is removed from the board.

Strategy

Variations

Here are several of the most common boards and problems in peg solitaire. For reference, I have marked all boards used for solitaire with red at the position(s) of the typical initial vacancy. This is not, however, to say that this is the only initially vacant position from which the puzzle can be solved.

There are several Peg Solitaire games that have been devised to play on the English and French Solitaire boards. All of the same rule apply, only the game commences with less counters on the board:

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Sources