Solving Triangular Peg Solitaire
George I. Bell
Tech-X Corporation
5621 Arapahoe Ave, Suite A
Boulder, CO 80303
USA
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 also 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).
Full version: pdf,
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(Concerned with sequences
A120422
A127500
A130515 and
A130516.)
Received August 1 2008;
revised version received November 12 2008.
Published in Journal of Integer Sequences, November 16 2008.
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