Swap Solitaire

Two Different Opening Setups

Alternate Names

Swap Places Solitiare, Eight Point Star Solitiare, Octagram, Octagram Solitaire

No. of Players

Two

Equipment

An octagram board and either two each or three each of black and white (here blue and red) counters are required for play. The cells of the board are the eight vertices of the eight-pointed star. Counters are never played at the intersections at the interior of the star.

History

It is likely that these games originate from the 19th century, but their origin is not known.

Objective

The simple goal is to move all counters of one color to occupy all the positions occupied by counters of opposite colors at the start of the game. The true challenge is to do this in the least number of moves.

Play

Any counter is moved along a line to an empty cell. Counters are never removed during the game. A player should count how many moves it takes to achieve the final position and try to improve the score by reducing the number of moves it takes.

Strategy

Variations

The game may be played with four or six counters.

Sources