<![CDATA[Sliding coins puzzles]]>There are many beautiful puzzles with coins. I don’t mean those which have to do with the value of the coins, but with the puzzles in which you have to move coins around. Neither do I want to discuss the puzzles which are about arranging coins in a straight line. These are often represented as planting trees in a row, and I discussed them here.

While on holiday in France this summer, I bought two puzzle booklets in the ‘aires’, the road stops with a restaurant, a gasoline station, a toilet and some more. One of them, ‘Best of jeux de vacances, 700 jeux’ by Pascal Naud, contained at least two of them, both classics, so I can reproduce them here without encountering copyright problems.


  1. 5 coins in a row*/*****

    2. Move 1 coin so that there are 5 coins in both rows,
    5 coins in a row exercise

    You can check your solutions here

  2. Pyramid*/*****

    3. Turn the pyramid upside down by moving 3 coins.
    Coins pyramid exercise

    You can check your solutions here

Many similar (and much more difficult) problems can be found on youtube.


  1. Move 3 coins to make a circle







At the beginning of the summer I was asked to become one of the elders in our church. It unfortunately means that I am not able to keep up the rate of a puzzle a week. Having a fair collection of posts in stock, I was able to keep posting puzzles weekly. But I’ve about run out of puzzles in stock. So be prepared there will be 2 puzzles a month from now on till the end of the year.

You are still welcome to comment on puzzles here, or to buy my book.

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