Pentalpha is a single-player placement puzzle played on a five-pointed star, or pentagram, marked with ten intersection points. Nine stones or counters are set out, and the solver places each one in turn onto an empty intersection by sliding it along a straight line through two other points, one already occupied and one still empty, so that start, middle and end all lie on the same line of the star. Every move must follow this three-point rule, which rewards planning several placements ahead rather than trial and error. The puzzle admits a systematic method for reaching a full solution from any starting point, rather than depending on luck. Under the name estrella magica, or magical star, the same pattern has also circulated in Mexico as the basis for a street confidence trick, in which an operator invites onlookers to bet that they cannot complete the placement, trading on how quickly one wrong early move can make the rest of the puzzle unsolvable. It belongs to a wider family of peg and stone placement puzzles worked out on fixed geometric grids rather than played against an opponent.
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1. Pentalpha (Wikipedia)
Introduction, first sentence
Pentalpha is a puzzle where the goal is to place nine stones on the ten intersections of a pentagram.
entity record, description lead (player-count)
Pentalpha is a single-player placement puzzle played on a five-pointed star, or pentagram, marked with ten intersection points. Nine stones or counters are set out, and the solver places each one in turn onto an empty intersection by sliding it along a straight line through two other points, one already occupied and one still empty, so that start, middle and end all lie on the same line
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