Can you solve the dominoes on a chessboard puzzle?

Puzzles Explained
Puzzles Explained
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Published 2022-08-28
This is the dominoes on a chessboard puzzle. Here’s how it goes. Let’s say I give you a chessboard, but I’m going to take off the top-left and bottom-right corners so we only have 62 squares. Now I’m also going to give you 31 dominoes to place. Each domino covers exactly 2 squares like this. Here’s the question: Is it possible to cover every square on the board with dominoes? By the way, you can place dominos sideways too, just not diagonally. Also, they can’t overlap. So with that being said, do you think it’s possible to cover every square?

0:00 Puzzle 1 - Dominoes on a chessboard
0:37 Solution - Dominoes on a chessboard
1:26 Puzzle 2 - Tetrominoes on a chessboard
1:58 Solution - Tetrominoes on a chessboard

I explain interesting logic puzzles and riddles in short animated videos.
All Comments (8)
  • @kennethgee2004
    actually yes it is possible. You just have to accept that some dominoes will overhang the edge of the board
  • @weirdboi3375
    This channel is underrated AF. That's a great animation though!
  • @ramonhamm3885
    "Not just diagonally" is totally different than "Just not diagonally".😆
  • @spentinescratch1403
    Can you create the Conway's Soldiers game? I recreated it on Scratch (lmao) but it is quite an interesting problem. The only problem with the idea is that the explanation wouldn't be something that the average viewer will be able to understand.
  • @jasonpatterson8091
    No, every domino has to cover a light and dark square and you took away 2 light squares. There will inevitably be 2 dark squares showing. I have a feeling I'm going to be hearing that in the next 3 minutes. :-)
  • @TVPE35
    I'm impressed that I actually solved the second puzzle. I did something really simillar: - I counted all the squares which sums up to 60 - I dived 60 with the amount of squares that a tetromino holds (4); 60/4=15 - And then I thought that since there is the same amount of white and brown squares, that meant that there should be 2 types of Tetrominoes, and so I divided by 2; 15/2=7.5 - Since 7.5 isn't divisible by 4 that must mean that its impossible to fit all tetrominoes in the chessboard