Ken's POTW


Peg Solitaire
The peg-solitaire game of Hi-Q (in the form of a cross) is whimsically dissected and solved at Cut-The-Knot's Peg Solitaire Page. That game inspired me to dig up some others:
  1. This game starts with 15 pegs in the form of an equilateral triangle with a base of five pegs. Each move consists of jumping one peg over an existing peg into an empty position. (Jumps are parallel to any of the three sides of the triangle.) The jumped peg is then removed from the board. The goal of the game is to be left with only one peg, preferably left in the original empty hole.

  2. In a 5x5 grid of squares, the center nine squares each have one peg, numbered 1 (in the second row, second column) through 8 clockwise around the center square numbered 9. Each number represents a piece that can jump over any other piece, either vertically, horizontally or diagonally into an empty square beyond. Each piece is removed when it is jumped. Disregarding the end position:

Source: 1. rec.puzzles. 2. Sun-Tsu Suan Ching, c. 400, in The Penguin Book of Curious and Interesting Puzzles, David Wells, 1992, #69


Solution
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