Dave Stevens' Fast Track site has rules for the game and instructions for making your own board. Ready-made Fast Track boards are available from Don Strenz Woodworking in Rochester, NY. There is a Fast Track bulletin board for discussion of rules, variants, tactics and so on. The numbers reveal that more games end with one peg remaining than with five or more pegs remaining. In theory, it is easier to do very well than very poorly. However, most (92%) of the possible games finish with two, three, or four pegs remaining. Worst Game for Starting Point #1. How to Set Up the Game? First, you need to place a tee in every hole you see on the board. Leave only one space empty where there is no tee. How to play the peg game? You need to jump tees one over and keep om removing tees until only one is remaining. Leave just one tee to win the game, if you do this then you nailed. The game starts with pegs (golf tees) in all the holes except one; the goal is to jump pegs one at a time, removing the jumped peg until only one peg remains. The instructions on the board say that if you leave only one peg, you are a genius.

This page is mainly based on information from Bill and Barb Bigger and from John and Linda Bristol.

Introduction

Pegs and Jokers is a North American race game for four, six or eight players, using playing-cards to move pegs around a board. It is also sometimes known as Jokers and Pegs. Some board designs use marbles instead of pegs as the playing pieces in which case it may be called Marbles and Jokers or Jokers and Marbles.

Pegs and Jokers is clearly derived ultimately from the Indian race game Pachisi, a race game using dice for movement, probably via its American derivative Sorry!, in which pawns are moved according to cards drawn from a special deck.

Pegs and Jokers is a partnership game played with standard playing-cards on boards that are generally home-made. It allows extra scope for strategy by giving players a choice of cards to play. Each player has five pegs, and the winners are the first team to move all their pegs from their START area to their HOME areas.

Players and Equipment

The players are divided into two teams - two against two, three against three or four against four. They sit alternately - each player seated between two opponents.

Standard decks of cards are used, with two jokers in each deck. Three decks (162 cards including 6 jokers) may be enough for up to six players: eight players should use four decks (216 cards including 8 jokers).

Four players use a four-sided board; six players use a six-sided board; eight players use an eight-sided board - one side for each player, each associated with a different color. Each player has five pegs in the color that corresponds to the side of the board nearest to them. Each side of the board has a straight section of track 18 units long: there is a corner hole at each end, shared between two adjacent sides, and 17 holes between them. The 8th hole after the corner is the 'come out' position for the pegs on that side, and next to it is the colored 'start' area with five holes where the pegs of that color are stored at the start of the game. The 3rd hole after the corner is the 'in-spot' for that color, and branching off at the 'in-spot' is a colored private track of 5 holes, which is the 'home' or 'safe' area or 'castle', where the pegs end their journey. The diagram below shows one side of the board.

Here two examples of boards:

Board made by Bill Bigger following a design by Dave Vowells.
It has tracks for 4, 6 or 8 players on a single board: 8 players use
the outer track, 6 use the middle track and 4 the inner track.

Board made by Lonnie Beagles in sections that fit
together to accommodate any number of players.

Marbles and jokers board by Wizard Woodworks.The black
and white board sections can be used to expand to 8 players.

Pegs and Jokers boards are available from Don Strenz Woodworking in Rochester, NY.

Wizard Woodworks, based on Whidbey Island, WA supplies boards in sections for 6 or 8 player versions of Pegs and Jokers and Marbles and Jokers.

Some people use colored golf tees as the pegs for this game. Others use the small colored plastic bulbs that fit into ceramic christmas trees - supplies of these bulbs can be obtained from Ceramic Art Space.

Basic Game

Deal and play of cards

Five cards are dealt to each player, and the remaining cards are stacked face down. As usual players hold their cards so that they can see their faces but no one else can. Played cards form a face up pile on the table. Players take turns in clockwise order. At your turn you do the following:

Draw one card from the top of the face-down deck, so that you hold six cards.
Play one card of your choice from your hand face up onto your discard pile.
Move according to the power of the played card.

If you have any card (except a joker) that allows you to move a peg, you must play such a card, even if the move is disadvantageous. However, if you have no cards (except jokers) that enable you to move you may discard one card of your choice without moving and draw a card to replace it. This ends your turn. Discarding without moving normally happens only at the start of the game, when a player has no aces or pictures to move any peg out of the start area.

A player is never forced to play a joker: if you have no other move you may keep the joker and discard another card.

Movement of pegs - general rules

All the pegs begin in their own start areas. From there they move to the neighbouring 'come out' hole, and then around the board clockwise. On reaching its own 'in-spot' a peg may take the branch into its safe 'home' track. No peg may ever move into any start or home area other than its own.

In the basic game, except in special circumstances described below, you may only move your own pegs.

You may never land on or pass over a hole occupied by one of your own pegs, but you may pass over or land on other player's pegs. Passing over a peg of a different color has no effect on it, but landing exactly in the hole occupied by a peg of a different color has the following results:

When a peg lands on an opponent's peg, the opponent's peg is immediately moved back to its start area.
When a peg lands on a partner's peg, the partner's peg is immediately moved to its 'in-spot', provided the partner does not already have a peg there. It is illegal to land on your partner's peg if that partner already has a peg on his or her own in-spot.

Movement of pegs - effects of individual cards

In order to move your peg out of your start area, you must play a jack, queen, king, ace (to move it to its 'come out' hole) or a joker (to move it to the hole occupied by a peg of a different color anywhere on the main track).

When playing a 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 9 or 10, you move one of your own pegs that is not in your start area forward that number of holes along the track.

When playing an ace, you may either move one of your pegs from your start area to your 'come out' hole, or move one of your pegs forward one hole.

When playing a jack, queen or king you may either move one of your pegs from your start area to your 'come out' hole, or move one of your pegs forward 10 holes.

When playing an 8, you must move one of your pegs backwards 8 holes.

When playing a 7, you may either move one of your pegs forward 7 holes, or split the 7 between two of your pegs, moving them 1 and 6, 2 and 5 or 3 and 4 holes forwards. Of course the split move can only be made if you have at least two pegs in play.

When you play a joker, you move any one of your pegs (for example one in the start area) into a hole on the main track that is occupied by another player's peg, belonging either to a partner or to an opponent. This has the effect of sending that peg to its in-spot or start area respectively, as described above. A joker cannot be used to move to an empty hole, so if there are no pegs of any colour on the main track a joker cannot be played.

You must always use the full value of the card played. For example when playing a 6 you must move a peg forward 6 holes, no less. If you play a 6 when you have a peg on your in-spot and all your other pegs in the start area, you must move your peg on along the main track, since there is not room in the home track for a move of 6.

Endgame

For a team to win the game, all its pegs must be in their respective home areas. Pegs move along the home tracks in the usual way. Since they cannot land on or pass over each other, the first peg to arrive must eventually be moved all the way to the end of the home tr

Peg Game Instructions