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Hit & Blow Strategy and Tips

Here is how to think about winning at Hit & Blow, split into short lessons. Each one reads on its own, and each one comes with a real position: press Try it on the board and you play the move yourself.

Use all six colours in your first two guesses

Lesson 1

With four of six colours and no repeats, there are 360 possible answers. Only two colours are missing from the answer, so if your first guess uses four colours, hits plus blows is always 2, 3 or 4. Counting them all, a total of 2 comes up in 144 answers (40%), 3 in 192 (about 53%) and 4 in 24 (about 7%). A total of 0 or 1 never happens.

The total tells you how many of the four colours you used are in the answer, so the two you left out account for the rest: four minus the total. A total of 2 means both unused colours are in. That is why your second guess should always include the two colours you did not use — after two guesses you know about all six.

Fill the other two places of your second guess with colours from the first guess, in the same places. If the new total only covers the two new colours, the two you kept are out, and you also learn which colours made the first guess's hits.

Zero hits means “not in these places”

Lesson 2

Zero hits means that none of the four colours you placed is in the place you put it. It looks less exciting than a blow, but it rules out four colour-and-place pairs in one go — a strong clue.

When the total is 4 you know all four colours, and only their order is left: 24 possibilities. A zero-hit result cuts that to 9. If you then shift the same four colours one place along and score zero hits again, only 2 remain (counted with the same scoring the site uses).

Moving the colours without changing them means any change in the result is purely about places, which makes it easy to read. In this exercise every colour misses in three places, so each has exactly one place left.

Use your opponent's guesses too

Lesson 3

On this site two players take turns guessing the same hidden answer, and both see every guess and its result. So your opponent's guesses are clues for you as well: each of theirs gives you as much information as another guess of your own.

Look at how your guess and theirs differ. Compare two guesses that differ in a single place, and the results tell you about that place. Here both of you scored three hits and no blows, and the guesses differ only in the fourth place. If the fourth colour were a hit, both could not have scored three, so the hits are red, blue and yellow. The fourth colour is neither green nor white — pink is all that is left.

It works the other way too. A guess that misses but narrows the answer down to one possibility hands the win to your opponent on their next turn. Remember you are both reading the same board, and think about when to close in.

How many guesses it takes on average

Lesson 4

With no repeated colours (the default) there are 360 possible answers. If every guess is simply one that fits all the results so far, the answer is found in about 4.1 guesses on average, counting both players' guesses, and about two games in three are over by the fourth guess (counted with the same scoring the site uses). Choose your guesses more carefully and five guesses are always enough.

Here two players take turns on the same answer until solved by default. With the 8 guesses setting, eight guesses in total without solving it end in a draw. With around four guesses needed, you usually get only two or three turns yourself, so every guess counts.

With repeated colours allowed there are 1,296 possible answers — the same six-colour, four-peg puzzle that has been studied for decades. In the 1970s D. E. Knuth showed that starting with two colours twice each, like red, red, blue, blue, you can always finish within five guesses. Koyama and Lai (1993) worked out the strategy with the lowest average: about 4.34 guesses.

Try it on the board

Pick a lesson and the board starts from that position. Start over as often as you like.

Now put it to work

Play with friendsLearn how to play (3 min)

Last updated 2026-09-18 · Run by Qdan, Inc.