Wiegleb Maximal Sweep Solutions

by George Bell - December 2015

Wiegleb Maximal Sweeps

There are three problems on Wiegleb's Board that can contain a 16-loop:
Problem Loop Complement Coordinates
1) Vacate g4 (or equivalently d7), play to finish at d4
with the last move a 16-loop.
2) Vacate g5, play to finish at d2 with the last move a 16-loop.
3) Vacate d6 (or g6), play to finish at d3 with the second to the
last move a 16-loop. The 16-loop begins and ends at d2.

You can go nuts trying to solve these playing forward. The trick is to play backwards from the sweep position, or equivalently play forward from the complement of the sweep position. To read more about this trick and understand why it works, read about the "time reversal trick" in the book Winning Ways for your Mathematical Plays (Volume 4) [B3]. or see my description here.

Suggestion: Print this web page and try solving these puzzles by hand. Can you figure out how to play from each complement position to a single peg? Where you can end up will be at one of the starting vacancies given.

See this web page for solutions.

Copyright © 2015 by George I. Bell

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