🔵 Peg Jump

The board, the jump and the finish line

Peg Jump uses the classic English board: a plus-shaped cross of 33 holes, built from a 3x3 centre block with a 2x3 arm sticking out on each side. You start with 32 pegs and only the dead-centre hole empty. The Pegs counter at the top starts at 32 and drops by one with every jump.

To move, tap a peg. It gets a yellow outline and every hole it can legally land in lights up with a green ring. Tap a green ring and the jump happens: your peg hops over its neighbour, and the neighbour is removed. Jumps go up, down, left or right, exactly two holes, always over a peg and always into an empty hole. No diagonals, no sliding, no jumping over a gap.

There is no timer, no hint button and no difficulty setting: the puzzle is the same every time, and it is all about you. The game ends the moment no peg on the board can jump. Finish with one peg in the centre and you get the PERFECT trophy screen; one peg anywhere else earns a Brilliant; anything more is simply No more jumps, with your peg count shown.

A worked opening: your first three moves

Only the centre hole is empty, so the only legal first jumps are the four pegs two holes away from it, each jumping into the centre. All four are mirror images, so pick any. Say you take the peg two holes below the centre: it jumps up, the peg directly below the centre is removed, and you now have 31 pegs with two empty holes stacked under the middle.

Move two: only the upper gap can be filled sideways. The lower gap sits on the narrow bottom arm, with no holes two steps to its left or right. Into the upper gap, the peg two holes to its left or right can hop across, removing the peg in between. Say you jump in from the left.

Move three: that empties a hole at the left edge of the centre block, just above the bottom arm. The peg at the bottom-left tip of that arm can jump straight up over its neighbour into it, pulling an arm peg back toward the middle. Open out, then fold an outer peg back in: that is the whole game in miniature.

Count it out: going from 32 pegs to 1 takes exactly 31 jumps, because every jump removes precisely one peg.

Mistakes that cost you the last peg

Most games are lost ten or twenty jumps before the end, when a peg gets cut off. These habits cause it.

• Emptying the centre block early. The 3x3 middle is where pegs from different arms meet. Hollow it out too soon and the arms can no longer reach each other.
• Leaving a lone peg on an arm tip. Nothing can ever jump over an arm-corner peg, because there is no hole beyond it in either direction. Left alone, it can only be rescued by bringing another peg back alongside so it can jump out, and late in the game you rarely have pegs to spare.
• Splitting the pegs into two islands. Once your pegs split into two groups, reuniting them means both groups stretching toward each other, which wastes jumps. Keep the pegs in one connected mass.
• Sweeping one arm clean in a rush. Ask what each jump sets up, not just what it removes.
• Ignoring the Undo button. The ↶ arrow steps back one jump at a time with no limit. Play fast, see which arm left stragglers, then rewind and try a different order there.

Strategy that actually works

Clear the arms first and the centre last. Pegs in the middle have up to four jump directions; pegs out on the arms have far fewer. Use your flexible central pegs as tools to tidy the awkward outer ones, then collapse back toward the middle once the arms are empty.

Think in small packages. Strong players do not plan 31 jumps; they look for a little cluster, like three pegs in an arm plus one helper peg next to it, that can be cleared while leaving the helper standing. Clear one package, check that the helper is still connected to the main group, then find the next.

Always keep a jumper beside the hole you just made. Every jump leaves two new empty holes. If no peg can jump into either of them on the next move, you have probably created a dead zone.

Why only five holes can hold the last peg

Starting with the centre empty, if you ever get down to a single peg, it can only be sitting in one of five holes: the centre itself, or the middle hole on the outer edge of each of the four arms. Each is a multiple of three steps from the centre, and a classic colouring argument rules out every other hole.

In practice that means two things. First, plan your last jumps so the final peg lands on one of those five holes; no other finish exists. Second, only the centre earns the PERFECT trophy, so keep your endgame pegs gathered around the middle.

Other boards and a little history

Peg solitaire has been played in Europe since at least the late 1600s, when it was fashionable in France. Two boards became standard. The English board, the one you play here, has 33 holes. The French board has 37, with extra holes filling the inside corners of the cross so its outline looks rounder, closer to an octagon.

Those four extra holes change everything. On the 37-hole French board, starting with the centre empty, finishing with one peg is mathematically impossible, so French players start with a different hole open. On the English board the centre start works, and the famous challenge is to finish in the centre as well.

Peg Jump FAQ