About the game
Peg solitaire is one of the oldest one-player puzzles, and the cross-shaped English board is its best-known form.
A little history
The puzzle was fashionable in the French court by the late 1600s, where it appears in engravings of aristocrats at the board. From there it spread across Europe, played with pegs in drilled holes or with marbles resting in shallow cups.
Two boards became standard. The French board has 37 holes. The English board, used here, has 33 arranged in a plus shape, and it is the one where finishing with a single marble in the centre is possible from the classic start.
Mathematicians have studied it for over a century. The shortest known solution, counting a chain of jumps by the same marble as one move, takes 18 moves. It was found by Ernest Bergholt in 1912 and proved to be the minimum by John Beasley in 1964.
This version
The board is a lacquered walnut disc with a brass inlay marking the finishing hole. The marbles are glass cat's-eyes, rendered with real refraction so the coloured vanes bend and magnify as they roll. Everything, including the wood grain, is drawn in your browser. There are no images to download.