Introduction
We're going to talk about the version of peg solitaire that is playedon the triangular board below.
Rules
There are just 5 rules for the triangular board.
- Every jump must be a jump of a peg over a neighboring peg.
- There must be a space for the jumping peg to land in.
- Jumps can be made either on the diagonal or the horizontal lines.
- A peg that is jumped is removed--just like in checkers.
- That's it--no more rules!
These two pictures both show jumps that you can make.
You can't make any jumps in either of these pictures.
Where Can I Get a Board?
There are several restaurant chains in the U.S. that sell triangularsolitaire boards. For example, the Cracker Barrel chain sells a wooden boardwith golf tees for pegs that sells for $2. Oriental Trading Company sells a similar board for $1.50.
If you have a Chinese Checkers Board, then you have a triangularsolitaire board. Just use the top 15 holes in one of the points. Oriental Trading Company sells a small (4.5 inches in diameter) version of Chinese Checkers for $1.80, or a larger (10 inches in diameter) for $6.Land'sEnd sells a nice wooden board--one side is Chinese Checkers, and the otheris the "cross", or British version of rectangular peg solitaire.Their board costs about $35.
One of the cheapest ways to make a board is to print the empty boardgiven below. If use pennies for markers, you get a board for 15 cents.However, pennies can be hard on the fingers if you play a lot. You may wantto try using buttons instead.
You can also get computer versions of peg solitaire.
Window's version: This was written by Rick Parris of Exeter Academy. He has both the British cross and 15-hole triangular version of peg solitaire in his Winarc package. Winarc is part of Parrish's Peanut Software for Windows.
Macintosh version: This is a program I wrote myself about 1992.
Coordinates
Sometimes it's helpful to have a way to describe the holes. We will usethe following names for the 15 holes.
We'll also use coordinates to describe jumps. For example, the c3-g3jump is the jump that starts in c3 and ends in g3.
Here are some pictures of the starts of some other jumps.
In the next section, we'll start off with some easy problems, thengradually work into some harder problems.
Next: Some warm-up problems
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