CRACKER BARREL GAME STRATEGY Triangle Wooden 14 Peg Game - Jump All But One

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• published: 29 Dec 2012
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I made a quick video showing how I beat the "Cracker Barrel Game". It's not really a 'Strategy', I just memorized a series of moves to leave one peg. There's more than one way to do it, but this is the way I came up with, and it's pretty easy to memorize. The Song Is Called- 'Back In The Saddle' and the Artist is- 'James Low' We lost electricity during for 3 days during the 2012 snow/ice storm that hit Arkansas, so I was very bored and this is the result:-). I'm really not sure what this game is officially called- Cracker Barrel Game, Triangle Peg Game, Peg Board Puzzle, Tricky Triangle Skill Game, Golf Tee Board Game?? I hope it helps you guys when you're at the Cracker Barrel and look at this on you're iPhone or Android. Here are some instructions, and more than you ever wanted to know about this game. Thanks for looking Everyone! While there are 15 possible starting positions for the pegs, to be a perfect player, you really only need to know how to play from 4 of them (pegs 1,2,4 and 5), because all the rest are either a reflection, rotation, or a reflection or rotation of the "core 4". For example, if the hole is at peg 11, you can rotate the puzzle to move peg 11 to peg 1, peg 3 is the mirror reflection of peg 2, and peg 14 can be made into peg 2 by a rotation and a reflection combined. By learning winning games from pegs 1,2,3,4 and 5 you can complete the puzzle without bothering with reflections at all. There are a total of 1,945,839,290 possible games that can be played, of which only 438,984 of them are winning games with only 1 peg left. The choice of the starting empty peg is very important. There are 29,760 possible winning games starting with pegs 1,11 or 15; 14,880 winners starting with pegs 2,3,7,10,12 or 14; and 85,258 when starting from pegs 4,6, or 13. But there are only 1550 solutions when starting from pegs 5,8, or 9! Thus, when at dinner and challenged to play the game, always give the puzzle to your unsuspecting opponent with peg 5 empty, and watch him or her go down in flames. But when you take the puzzle, start with position 4 open, and even if you don't remember the moves, you're likely to do better (you're about 50 times more likely to luck out!) Presented on this page are diagrams for sample winning games starting with any particular peg and, just for giggles, ending up whenever possible with the final peg on the starting hole. If you want to be a real ratfink, have someone try to do this with the empty peg starting at positions 5,8 or 9 -- it's impossible! I've also included an example of the worst possible game! It turns out that it is possible to play a game that ends up with 10 pegs out of the original 14 on the board, but no legal moves!