Tap a peg, then tap the empty hole you want to jump into
| Tap a peg | Select the one you want to move. |
| Tap an empty hole | Jump there, removing the peg you jumped over. |
| Restart | Reset the board. |
Peg Solitaire is the wooden board with a cross of holes that sits on pub tables and family shelves. Jump one peg over another into an empty hole, remove the peg you jumped, and repeat. The aim is to finish with a single peg remaining, ideally in the middle, which is far harder than it sounds.
The puzzle dates back to at least the seventeenth century and has been analysed to death by mathematicians since. Most people who play casually finish with five or six pegs stranded in different corners. Getting down to one requires planning several jumps ahead rather than taking whatever move is available.
Work toward the centre, not away from it. Pegs stranded on the arms of the cross are the ones you cannot reach at the end, so every jump should ideally bring material back toward the middle of the board.
Avoid leaving isolated pegs. A peg with no neighbour can never be jumped and can never jump, so it is dead. Before making a move, check whether it strands anything on its own.
Think in groups of three. The classic technique is to clear the board in packages of three pegs that can be removed with a short sequence of jumps, rather than treating every move individually. Recognising those clusters is the key skill.
Plan the last few moves first. Finishing with one peg in the centre requires the endgame to be set up long in advance, so experienced players decide roughly how the board should look with six pegs remaining and work backward.
A peg jumps over an adjacent peg into an empty hole directly beyond it, and the peg jumped over is removed.
Finishing with one peg is excellent, and one peg in the centre hole is the perfect solve. Most casual players end with four or five.
Yes, when no legal jump remains. That is how most games end, and restarting is part of learning the patterns.
Yes, the standard board has known solutions ending with a single central peg.
No. Peg Solitaire runs entirely inside this page, so it starts the moment the page opens. There is nothing to download, no plugin, and no account to create.