Tantrix Records (UK/Ireland)

This page contains links to details, pictures and histories of all of the main Tantrix puzzle and game records. The puzzle records may give you something to aim for, while the game records will give you an idea of the extremes that can be reached when playing the multi-player Tantrix game.

Tantrix was only properly introduced to the UK & Ireland after it had been popular in the southern hemisphere for quite a while, so we had quite a bit of catching up to do as far as the puzzle records were concerned. It did not take us too long though - as at 22 May 2003, UK players held all of the Tantrix world puzzle records for solutions using real tiles!

Discovery puzzle records       56-tile puzzle records       Tantrix game records

As explained on the rules card that you get with each Tantrix Discovery set, you can combine sets of ten tiles to produce ever bigger loop puzzles. There are records for the biggest loops solved with real tiles and a record for finding theoretical repeating solutions all the way up to infinity.

UK & World Discovery puzzle records with real tiles

The complete theoretical Infinite Discovery solution

There are two puzzles in the Tantrix Game Pack set that use all 56 tiles. We at Tantrix know them affectionately as the "Unsolved" Puzzles, because for a very long time, that's exactly what they were.

These puzzles were first solved fully with the help of computers in the late 1990s but no one managed to find a perfect unaided solution to the Four Longest Loops puzzle until March 2003, when Jack Kuipers of London/Bristol Uni. managed it after a fight for the record with Rob Morton of Knaresborough which saw the UK record rise dramatically from 108 to the magic 136 over a four-month period.

Four Longest Loops puzzle - UK & World records

The Four Longest Lines puzzle remains unsolved without the help of a computer to this day.

Four Longest Lines puzzle - UK & World records

You can play the multi-player Tantrix game with the 56 tiles in a Tantrix Game Pack set. The shape of a finished game and the final scores can vary a lot, so if you think the game you have just played was a pretty unusual one, you might like to compare the outcome with records based on the well over a million Tantrix games that have been played online over the last few years.

Records based on all online games

Alternatively, there is a page of records for tournament games played both online and offline. These games are played under much stricter conditions, eg. there is a time limit - 15 minutes per player online or 20 minutes per player offline. With lots at stake in tournament games, you can be almost certain that both players are playing to win and are not attempting to create records artificially.

Records in games played under tournament conditions