Brain Teasers and Puzzles

Brain teasers, puzzles, riddles, and other challenges

Difficulty - Easy, Interview Brain Teasers, Logic Puzzles

Guess the Playing Cards

There are three playing cards in a row.

There is a heart to the left of a diamond. There is a five to the right of a jack. There is a club to the left of a diamond. There is a queen to the left of a club.

What are the three cards?

Difficulty - Easy, Riddles and Lateral Thinking

Chain Links Puzzle

You have 5 short chains of 3 links each, that you would like to connect into one long 15-link chain. To connect links, you need to cut open a link, join it with another link, and then close it.

What is the fewest number of links you need to cut to accomplish this?

View Solution

Chess, Difficulty - Hard

Bishop Holds Back the Pawns

A pretty challenging chess puzzle, because there isn’t a pre-determined number of moves. White to play and force a draw.

Difficulty - Hard, Trivia and Knowledge, Word Puzzles

Odd One Out

Which is the odd one out?

catwoman
deus ex machina
parishioner
pyromania
scuba

Difficulty - Easy, Simple Math

24 Game Puzzle

How do you use 3, 3, 8, and 8 to make 24?

Each number must be used exactly once, and only addition, subtraction, multiplication, division, and parentheses can be used.

Difficulty - Very Easy, Rebus

Math Rebus

What math-related word/phrase does this rebus represent?

Solution

Right-angled triangle

Difficulty - Hard, Interview Brain Teasers, Logic Puzzles

5 Pirates Puzzle

Five pirates are figuring out how to divide up a newly plundered treasure of 100 gold coins. From most senior to least senior: Pirate A, Pirate B, Pirate C, Pirate D, and Pirate E. The rules:

The most senior pirate must propose a distribution (for example, giving himself all 100 gold coins and 0 for everyone else), and then all the pirates must vote on it.
If at least half of the pirates vote for a proposal, the proposal is accepted and the gold is split according to that distribution.
Otherwise, if the proposal is rejected, the pirate that proposed it is kicked out, and this process repeats with the remaining pirates.
Each pirate’s main goal is to maximize the gold they receive (but a pirate that is kicked out gets no gold), but are also spiteful enough to prefer kicking out the other pirates, all else equal. The pirates are also distrustful of each other and will not make any side deals, so the distribution of an accepted proposal is final.

What is the greatest number of coins that Pirate A can distribute to himself?

This is a classic logic puzzle, occasionally encountered in tech interviews many years ago.

Preparing for a brain teaser interview? Check out our ultimate guide to brain teaser interviews.