Water Sort Puzzle Strategy & Tips

1. Protect your empty tubes

An empty tube can accept any top color, so it is your most flexible workspace. Before filling your last spare, find a move that will empty another tube. It is fine to use both spares when you can see a way to reclaim one.

2. Expose a color you can use

Look one layer below the top block before pouring. Revealing mint is useful when another tube has mint on top and enough room. Revealing a color trapped beneath full stacks may leave you with fewer choices.

A move does not have to complete a tube to help. Uncovering a match can start a chain of pours that clears an entire mixed stack.

3. Consolidate matching stacks

Combine partial stacks of the same color when the destination has room. This can free a source tube while collecting one color in one place. Remember that a pour moves the largest matching block that fits; you cannot choose to move only one segment if two will fit.

Leave full single-color tubes alone. Moving a finished color into an empty tube just relocates the same stack and spends a move without creating more space.

4. Avoid blocking both spares

Putting unrelated colors into both empty tubes can leave neither available for the next exposed color. Before using the second spare, check whether either spare's color can be consolidated elsewhere.

If every destination is full or has the wrong top color, retrace the last decision that used your flexible space.

5. Plan two or three moves ahead

1. First pour: which color will it uncover?
2. Second pour: where can that exposed color go, and is there enough room?
3. Third pour: does the sequence empty a tube or finish a color?

You do not need to memorize a full solution. If a short sequence leaves more useful space, play it and reassess the new board.

6. Undo before the mistake gets buried

If a pour blocks the opening you meant to create, undo it before piling more colors on top. Undo restores the previous board and removes that pour from the move count. Restart returns to the same starting puzzle when you want a clean attempt.

Use Hint when you cannot see an opening. It suggests a source and a destination without playing for you. A suggestion labeled “Possible move” is legal, but the bounded search has not proved a route to the finish from it.

Put one idea into practice

Try protecting an empty tube in free play, or apply a short sequence to the daily puzzle. The rules and examples explain legal pours; the FAQ covers saves, stars and daily resets.