Frequently Asked Questions

The Knight's Tour is a classic chess puzzle where you move a knight across a chessboard, visiting every square exactly once. It is one of the oldest mathematical puzzles, dating back over 1,000 years. On this site you can tackle boards from 5x5 to 10x10 — start a game to see if you can complete a tour.

The knight moves in an "L" shape: two squares in one direction (horizontally or vertically) then one square perpendicular, or vice versa. It is the only chess piece that can jump over other pieces. This unique movement pattern is what makes the Knight's Tour puzzle both challenging and fascinating.

Not always. For odd-by-odd boards smaller than 5x5 there is no valid solution. On this site all available board sizes — 5x5 through 10x10 — have at least one valid Knight's Tour solution. See the solutions demo for an example.

An open tour ends on any square that is not a knight's move away from the starting square. A closed (re-entrant) tour ends on a square from which the knight could return to the start, effectively forming a loop. Closed tours are rarer and harder to find. The solutions demo demonstrates a complete 8x8 tour.

If the knight has no valid moves remaining and you have not yet visited every square, the game ends. You will see your final move count and time. You can then start a fresh game and try a different approach. See the rules page for full gameplay details.

Yes — you can undo your last move during a game. Each undo adds a 10-second time penalty to your elapsed time, and undo moves are tracked and shown in your statistics. Minimising undos is a good measure of how cleanly you solved the puzzle.

Warnsdorff's Rule is a heuristic for solving the Knight's Tour: always move the knight to the square that has the fewest onward moves available. This greedy strategy dramatically reduces the chance of getting stuck and often produces a complete tour on the first attempt. It works reliably on boards up to 10x10.

Corner squares have fewer exit moves, making them harder to visit late in the game. Starting near the edges and working inward is generally better — corners are easier to include early while your options are still wide open. On smaller boards like 5x5 the starting position has a bigger impact on whether you succeed.

The 8x8 board (standard chessboard) is arguably the most approachable because it has been extensively studied and Warnsdorff's Rule works very reliably on it. The 5x5 board looks small but has fewer escape routes and can be surprisingly tricky. Try different board sizes to find your preferred challenge level.

Look ahead before each move — count the onward moves each candidate square offers and favour the one with fewer options (Warnsdorff's Rule). Avoid isolating corner squares too early in the game. If you do get stuck, use the undo button to backtrack and try a different path.

Creating an account lets you track your full game history, see personal bests, and earn badges for completing different board sizes. Your statistics are saved across sessions so you can follow your improvement over time. Register for free — it only takes a moment.

Every completed game records your time, move count, board size, and whether you used any undos. Your profile page shows totals, averages, and personal bests for each board size. Games played as a guest are not included in your permanent stats. Create an account to start tracking.

You earn a badge each time you successfully complete a Knight's Tour on a new board size (5x5 through 10x10). Completing all six board sizes earns the Grand Tour badge. Badges are displayed on your profile and are a great way to track which difficulties you have conquered.

Yes — once you complete a Knight's Tour, a Download Board as Image button appears on the board. This feature is available to signed-in users and saves your completed board as a PNG image.

Yes — the board is fully touch-enabled and the layout adapts to any screen size. Tap a highlighted square to move your knight. On small screens a 5x5 or 6x6 board offers the best experience. The site works in all modern mobile browsers without requiring an app install.

For logged-in users your active game is tracked server-side, so you can return after closing the browser. For guest users the game state is held in the current session and will be lost if you close the tab. Create a free account to persist your progress across sessions.

Your game timer starts when you place your first move and stops when you either complete the tour or run out of moves. Time spent on the start screen before your first move does not count. Your best time for each board size is saved to your profile if you are signed in.