Peg Solitaire - Rules, History & Strategy Guide

Peg Solitaire — also called Solo Noble or, in India, Brainvita — has been a fixture of parlours and puzzle collections since at least 17th-century France, where an engraving of a noblewoman with the board dates it firmly to the court era. The familiar 33-hole cross board became the English standard, while a 37-hole version took hold on the continent.

Because it is a pure logic puzzle with no opponent and no luck, Peg Solitaire has drawn the attention of mathematicians for centuries. It has been analysed with group theory and used to teach problem-solving, yet its appeal is immediate: anyone can pick it up, and almost everyone gets stuck a few pegs short of a perfect solve.

You play alone on a cross-shaped board that starts full except for the centre hole, and try to finish with a single peg.

1. Select a peg, then choose an empty hole two spaces away in a straight line.
2. A jump is legal only horizontally or vertically over exactly one adjacent peg into the empty hole beyond.
3. The peg you jump over is removed from the board.
4. Keep jumping while legal moves remain, using Undo to explore different lines.
5. Reduce the board to one peg to win — and landing that last peg in the centre hole is the perfect game.

• Work toward the centre: clear the arms first and funnel pegs inward to keep late jumps available.
• Avoid stranding isolated pegs with no neighbour to jump or be jumped.
• Think in packages — sequences that clear a whole region cleanly rather than one peg at a time.
• Keep the remaining pegs connected; a lone peg in a corner usually ruins a perfect finish.
• Plan two or three moves ahead and Undo freely to test a cleaner sweep.

Beyond the 33-hole English cross, popular shapes include the 37-hole French board, triangular peg boards (the “cracker barrel” version found in American diners), and square grids. Some challenges start from a different empty hole or set a target ending square, changing which perfect solutions are possible.