There is a new MATLAB contest running right now. I am anxious to see what kind of solutions people come up with for the Peg Solitaire contest. Basically it is the peg solitaire game that many of us are familiar with, but with this contest, there is a twist: your score is not the number of pegs left but something a little more interesting.

Many times I have a very good guess as to what strategy the winning entry will use, but this time I am pretty mystified how this problem will be solved. My guess is that someone will figure out how to remove all the pegs, and then someone will learn how to optimize this for points by setting up really long jumps sequences or possibly leaving more pegs on the board at the end, but increasing the score. This should prove to be a very interesting contest, I am looking forward to seeing the entries people have entered once “Darkness” and “Twilight” phases are over.