Ten Link Strategy: 3 Hints to Spot Trap Pairs (Daily Challenge 10.8)

Ten Link The JoyPlus Soft Planning Team October 23, 2026

If you have read the beginner guide, you know the basics: two numbers of the same color always pair up, and pairs that sit side by side in reading order are safe. As the month goes on, Daily Challenge boards get bigger and the tempting pairs multiply. On boards from the second week (about 38 numbers), the first screen shows about 17 pairs you could clear, and about half of them are traps. Clearing at random finished only about 17% of these boards without adding numbers. Let's play the Daily Challenge for October 8, 2026 and learn to tell the two kinds apart.

Daily Challenge 10.8. 32 numbers. The first screen has 14 pairs you could clear, and 7 of them are traps.

Hint 1: Side by side in reading order is always safe

Picture the board as one line of text and write down only the colors, row after row. Every Ten Link board starts out built so that you can empty it just by removing two of the same color that sit next to each other in that line. And it does not matter in which order you remove such pairs: the line always shrinks to nothing in the end. That is why these pairs are always safe, and why at least one of them is always there until the board is empty, as long as you have not stepped into a trap.

Warm-up: six pairs side by side, numbered in order. None of them can hurt.

Hint 2: For a vertical or diagonal pair, clear what is between

A vertical or diagonal pair jumps over all the numbers that lie between its two squares in reading order. So before you take one, look at those numbers and clear them in your head: remove any two of the same color that sit next to each other, again and again. If nothing is left, or just one number of the pair's own color, the pair is safe. If anything else is left, it is a trap.

On the first screen, the 1 in the top row and the 9 diagonally below it are hard to resist. Between them in reading order (blue): 3 7 5 9 1 5 7.

Clear them in your head. The 3 and 7 go, then the 9 and 1, and now the two 5s are next to each other and go too. One 7 is left. So this pair is a trap.

Here is what happens if you take it anyway. After every pair you can still find, eight numbers are left and none of them pair up. We had a program check every possible line of play: once that 1 and 9 are gone, this board cannot be finished without adding numbers.

So leave the 1 and the 9 alone for now. As you will see below, each of them has its own partner much later in the game.

Hint 3: When everything between clears, take the shortcut

After the warm-up: the 1 in the second row and the 1 right below it. The only numbers between them in reading order are two 5s (blue), and they pair with each other. Safe.

A safe vertical or diagonal pair is a shortcut. You do not have to take it, because reading order would bring the two together later anyway, but it saves time. The test is quick when only a few numbers sit between the two squares. When there are many, it is usually faster to keep clearing in reading order.

The rest: across cleared squares

8. The 5 in the second row and the 5 at the start of the third row.

9. The 5 at the end of the top row and the 5 in the second row.

10. Two 5s in the third row, across the cleared 8s and 1.

11. The 9 from the trap pairs with the 1 at the end of the third row. That row disappears.

12. The two 7s. The second row disappears.

13. The 1 from the trap finally meets its partner in the bottom row.

Look at moves 11 and 13. The 1 and 9 that seemed like such an easy pair on the first screen each had a partner of its own. Clearing them together right away would have ruined both.

Habits for bigger boards

Clear the pairs that sit side by side in reading order first. They are always safe.
Before a vertical or diagonal pair, clear the numbers between them in your head.
Anything left besides one number of the pair's own color? Leave that pair alone.
Use the test when the gap is short. Long gaps are slow to check, so keep going in reading order instead.
After every pair, look around the new gap. The next pair is usually right there.

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