This question was posed to me, and I was surprised that I could not find a solution (as I thought that all rook tours [open or closed] were possible). Starting from a8, could a rook visit every square on the board once, ending on f3?

I tried a few times, with a few different strategies, but I always ended up missing one square.

It's really easy to burn pairs of rows or columns, so the problem space could be reduced...

...but at some point (4x4), I was able to convince myself that it is impossible (at least at this size and state):

...but it might be possible that shaving off column or row pairs is also discarding a solution?

you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
[โ€“] 1 point 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (1 child)

If you take the rooks movement, and reduce each longer move to a series of single steps a1a2a3a4 for example, this becomes a Hamiltonian problem. The corners have 2 nodes, the edges three, and the core has four. Black and white indicates even or uneven distance in nodes.

  • source
  • parent
  • hideshow 2 child comments