How to get good at TenUp

This guide assumes you already know the rules. If you do not, read how to play first — it covers which pairs are legal and, more importantly, which numbers count as neighbours. What follows is about deciding which of the legal moves to make, which is a different problem and the one that costs people levels.

Most players lose in the same way. They clear whatever they spot, spend all five adds trying to dig out of the mess that leaves, and then run out of board. Nearly all of that is avoidable, and the fix is arithmetic rather than eyesight.

The five families

A pair clears if the numbers are equal or if they sum to ten. Follow that through and the nine digits fall into five closed families:

• 19
• 28
• 37
• 46
• 5

Every number in a family pairs with every other number in it. Take the threes and sevens: 3 with 3 is a pair because they are equal, 7 with 7 likewise, and 3 with 7 because they make ten. No arrangement of a family is ever wrong. Equally, nothing pairs across families — a 3 has no legal partner that is not a 3 or a 7, ever.

The fives are their own family and the only one with a single digit in it. Two fives are equal and they make ten, so a five can only ever be cleared by another five.

The parity rule

Here is the consequence worth internalising. Every move you make takes exactly two numbers out of exactly one family. So the parity of each family — whether it holds an odd or an even count — never changes while you play. Odd stays odd, no matter how well you play the rest of the board.

Which means the board tells you its own ending before you touch it:

A level can only be cleared completely if all five families were dealt an even count.

If the deal contains seven fives, you will finish with a five stranded and no legal move for it. Nothing in the next two minutes of play changes that. The same goes for an odd number of 3s and 7s taken together, or 1s and 9s, and so on.

Parity is necessary, not sufficient. An even board can still strand you geometrically — two 8s marooned in opposite corners with live numbers on every line between them. But odd is a guarantee of failure, and that is the useful direction: you cannot count your way to a win, you can only count your way out of wasting a minute on a board that was never going to close.

Counting it in practice

You do not need five running totals. Sweep the board once and track only what is odd — usually one or two families, often none. Fives are worth counting first because they are the family that most often strands, and because a lone five is invisible until the board is nearly empty and it is too late to do anything about it.

What adding a row really does

The add key copies every number still on the board to the bottom. The obvious reading is that it gives you more to work with, which is why people reach for it when stuck and then wonder why the board got worse.

The precise reading is better. Copying every number doubles every family's count — and doubling anything makes it even. So:

An add always resets every family to even parity. It is the only thing that can.

That reframes the whole resource. An add is not a shovel for a board you have made a mess of; it is the repair for a board that was dealt unclearable. If you counted at the start and found an odd family, you know from move one that exactly one add is going in, and you can plan the rest of the level around having four.

It also explains the timing. An add copies whatever is still there, so adding with a full board floods you with numbers, and adding with six left costs you six. Same key, wildly different price. Clear down first, add late.

Spending the five

You get five adds a level and each one you do not use is worth 50 points when the level closes — 250 if you finish clean. That is half again on top of the 500 for the level itself, so adds are not really a safety net. They are the score.

Nothing is ever deducted, which has a real strategic consequence: there is no such thing as a bad clear, only a badly timed one. You cannot lose points by playing. You can only lose the bonus by spending adds, and lose the 500 by not finishing.

So, in order of what actually matters:

• Finish the level. 500 dwarfs everything else on the table. A level cleared with all five adds spent still beats a level abandoned with all five in hand.
• Then protect the adds. Each one is worth five cleared pairs. Reaching for an add to avoid thirty seconds of looking is a bad trade.
• Then hunt whole rows. An emptied row pays 40, is removed, and shifts everything below it up — which rewrites every reading-order neighbour underneath. It is the one move that pays you and reshuffles the board in the same tap.

Seeing the board properly

Read the wrap first

Reading order runs off the end of a row and straight into the start of the next, so the last number of one row and the first of the next are neighbours. Eyes do not naturally do this — they scan rows as separate units and the wrap pairs stay invisible. Make it deliberate: before scanning anything else, check every row-end against the next row-start. There are only ever a handful of them and they are the pairs everyone else misses.

The board gets easier, not harder

Cleared squares stop blocking, and lines see straight through the gaps. So every pair you remove opens new sightlines along rows, columns and diagonals for the numbers that are left. A crowded board early on is not a sign you are losing — it is the hardest the level will ever be. This is the main reason to keep looking rather than adding: the position is improving with every clear, and adding throws that progress away by refilling the gaps you just made.

Break up the corners

The failure case on an even board is a survivor with no line to anywhere — a number in a corner, walled in by live numbers on its row, its column and its diagonal. When you have a choice between two clears of the same family, take the one that opens a line through the middle of the board rather than one that tidies an edge. Gaps in the centre are worth more than gaps at the rim because more lines pass through them.

Hints are a savings account

You start with one hint and earn another for every level you clear, and unused hints bank up rather than expiring. Since levels get harder and hints do not get scarcer, a hint spent on level 1 is worth strictly less than the same hint spent on level 9. Spend them when a board has genuinely defeated you, not when you are impatient.

One practical note: if you ask for a hint on a board with nothing left to find, the game points you at the add key rather than telling you off. That makes the hint a cheap way to answer "is there anything here at all?" when you suspect a board has closed out on you.

The short version

• Count the fives, then the other four families. Odd anywhere means an add is coming.
• Adds fix parity. That is what they are for.
• Add late and cheap, never early and expensive.
• Check row-end against next row-start before anything else.
• Prefer clears that open lines through the middle.
• Chase whole rows: 40 points and a reshuffle.
• Finish the level. The 500 is the game.

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