Peg Jump — Peg Solitaire Puzzle
Jump pegs over each other to remove them. The goal: leave only one peg in the centre.
How to play
- Click any peg to select it — it turns blue and valid destinations turn green.
- Click a green destination to jump the selected peg over its neighbour (removing that neighbour).
- Each jump removes one peg from the board.
- Goal: leave exactly ONE peg, and ideally in the centre hole.
- Use 'Undo' to backtrack and try a different sequence.
Classic English peg solitaire on a cross-shaped 7×7 board. Jump pegs over each other to remove them. The perfect solution: one peg remains in the centre hole.
How it works
Peg Solitaire (also called Peg Jump) is a classic solo puzzle played on a cross-shaped board filled with pegs. One hole starts empty. You move by jumping one peg over an adjacent peg into the empty hole beyond it, removing the jumped peg from the board. The objective is to clear all pegs except one, ideally leaving that final peg in the centre hole.
Every jump removes exactly one peg, so you need 32 jumps to go from 33 pegs to 1. The challenge is that it is very easy to reach a state where no more jumps are possible with several pegs still remaining and none of them adjacent to each other. Good solutions require planning many moves ahead to avoid isolated pegs.
Experienced solvers use a technique of working backward: imagine where the final peg should be, then figure out which peg must make the last jump, then the second-to-last, and so on. This reverse-engineering approach dramatically reduces the search space.
Peg Solitaire is a pure logic puzzle with no opponent. It is an ideal brain exercise for spatial reasoning, forward planning, and the rewarding experience of discovering that a seemingly impossible position can in fact be solved.
Worked example
Make your first sequence of jumps
- The standard board starts with the centre hole empty.
- Click a peg that is two squares from the empty centre with an adjacent peg between them.
- The clicked peg jumps over the middle peg into the centre; the middle peg is removed.
- Look for new jumps created by the two new empty holes and continue.
- Try to make jumps that keep pieces in the centre region rather than pushing them to isolated corners.
Several pegs removed and multiple jump options available, keeping the puzzle solvable.
Common mistakes to avoid
- Making short local sequences without considering global board state — this frequently creates isolated pegs that cannot be removed.
- Jumping into the corner arms too early, leaving those pegs stranded when the central pieces are gone.
- Not planning the endgame: the final 3-5 moves must be visualised in advance or the last peg often ends up away from the centre.
Key terms
- Jump
- The only legal move: a peg leaps over an adjacent peg (horizontally or vertically) into the empty hole beyond, and the jumped peg is removed.
- Isolated peg
- A peg with no adjacent pegs in any direction and therefore no possible jumps — isolating pegs before the board is clear leads to a failed solution.
- Complement
- A peg-solitaire analysis technique that assigns values to board cells; the complement of a position predicts whether a perfect solution is reachable.
Frequently asked questions
- How do I jump a peg?
- Click a peg to select it (it turns blue), then click an empty hole that is exactly two steps away in a straight line — the peg in between gets removed.
- Can I undo a move?
- Yes — click 'Undo' to take back the last move. You can undo as many times as you like.