how to play Numbered Boxes game?

Question

How to play with the game of "Numbered Boxes" .

the game is like this ,

in a 3 x3 matrix boxes are are kept in each cell and they have some values ......... only at one place i.e (3,3) is kept blank .....you will be told to move the boxes from a(i,j) place to a(j,k) place ...... box can move one step at a time either horizontally or vertically.
Now , you need to find the minimum number of steps in doing any operation.

I think ...its standard problem.

I would like to play with this game ..............i am new to this game ...........is there any trick or rule exists to find minimum number of steps ?

Answer 1

There are 9! = 362,880 possible patterns for this puzzle. The minimum number of steps to solve depends on the starting configuration and the ending configuration. Half of these patterns (181,440) are "left-handed and the other half are "right-handed". It is not possible to move from a "left-handed" to a "right-handed" configuration. To change from one orientation to the other you must swap two pieces, or boxes, by removing one from the puzzle.

With so many possibilities, determining minimum number of steps is next to impossible.