Old Tricks
No. 014 · THURSDAY, 5 NOVEMBER 2026 · MOVES · ●●●○○

The disc tower

An arcade game cabinet called Tower Swap. On its screen are three pegs, and the first peg holds a tall tower of coloured discs, wide at the bottom and narrow at the top. A boy in front of the machine rests his chin on his hand, thinking.

In the arcade game Tower Swap, you move a stack of discs from one peg to another. There are three pegs. You may move only one disc at a time, and a bigger disc may never sit on a smaller one.

The game's hardest level has 13 discs. Jun wants to know how many moves the best players need.

What is the fewest moves needed to move all 13 discs to another peg?

Type a whole number.