Knight's Tour puzzle
Land a knight on every square of the board exactly once. It is one of the oldest chess puzzles there is. Start on a 5×5 board, move up to 6×6, then try all 64 squares.
How it works
- On 5×5 you start on a1; on 6×6 and 8×8 the start is random. Dots show the legal moves, and a square you have visited cannot be used again.
- Turn on the onward-moves hint to see how many exits each square has.
- On the first two levels a card tells you as soon as a move makes a full tour impossible. On the full board a tap that is not a legal move adds 2 seconds.
- Stuck? Take back to the last good square, use a hint, or watch a solution.
What it trains
The classic rule of thumb, Warnsdorff's rule, is to jump to the square that has the fewest onward moves. Playing with the onward-moves hint turns that rule into a habit, and it is the same skill as keeping your pieces from running out of safe squares.
Questions
What is the Knight's Tour?
A sequence of knight moves that visits every square of the board exactly once. If the last square is a knight move from the first, it is a closed tour.
What is Warnsdorff's rule?
At each step, move to the square with the fewest onward moves. It is a simple heuristic that finds a tour in most cases, and the drill can show those counts on the board.
Is a 5×5 tour possible?
Yes, from the right starting squares. Some starts on odd-sized boards have no full tour, which is why the drill tells you when your route is lost.