Solving Triangular Peg Solitaire

Abstract

We consider the one-person game of peg solitaire on a triangular board of arbitrary size. The basic game begins from a full board with one peg missing and finishes with one peg at a specified board location. We develop necessary and sufficient conditions for this game to be solvable. For all solvable problems, we give an explicit solution algorithm. On the 15-hole board, we compare three simple solution strategies. We then consider the problem of finding solutions that minimize the number of moves (where a move is one or more consecutive jumps by the same peg), and find the shortest solution to the basic game on all triangular boards with up to 55 holes (10 holes on a side).