Solitaire à billes

The rules to get you started

In brief

The English board has 33 holes and starts with the center empty. The last marble must return to the center. The French board has 37 holes; in this app, the starting empty hole is C1 and the final target is E7.

Two boards, two starting positions

The English board has 33 holes and starts with the center empty. The last marble must return to the center. The French board has 37 holes; in this app, the starting empty hole is C1 and the final target is E7.

A legal jump

A marble jumps over an adjacent marble into an empty hole immediately beyond it. The jump is horizontal or vertical, never diagonal. The marble jumped over is removed.

Winning the game

To win, you must leave just one marble, placed in the target hole. A lone marble elsewhere is not enough. If no jump is possible and the objective has not been reached, the game is stuck.

Hints in this app

The hint shows a legal jump. It does not calculate a complete solution or guarantee that the suggested jump will lead to a win.

A situation to observe

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Teaching diagram. Coordinates are read from left to right and from top to bottom.

In the initial English board layout, D4 is empty. The marble at D2 can jump over D3 and land at D4. D2 and D3 become empty; D4 becomes occupied.