HOW TO GET GOOD AT MAKE10
The mistake almost everyone makes in their first few games is clearing every ten the moment they see one. It feels productive. It's the main thing keeping scores low.
Here's what's actually going on, and how to play deliberately. If you haven't played yet, start here — none of this will mean much otherwise.
SMALL TILES ARE FLEXIBLE, BIG TILES ARE DEMANDING
A run of any length clears as long as it totals ten, which means tiles are not equally useful.
A 9 needs exactly one thing: a 1. An 8 will take a 2, or a 1 and a 1. By the time you're down at 2s and 3s, a tile has dozens of ways to be part of a ten — 3+7, 3+2+5, 3+4+2+1, and so on.
So big numbers are commitments and small numbers are glue. When you're deciding where to put an awkward 9, remember it will sit there until precisely a 1 shows up next to it. Small tiles can afford to go almost anywhere, because almost anything completes them.
The five straight pairs are still the ones you'll spot fastest — 1+9, 2+8, 3+7, 4+6, 5+5 — but they're the floor now, not the ceiling.
WHY CLEARING GREEDILY LOSES
Score isn't per tile — it's multiplied by the chain. A pair cleared on its own is worth the base rate. The same pair cleared as the third link of a chain is worth three times as much.
So every run you clear the instant you see it is one you spent at the cheapest possible rate. Two or three deliberate chains will beat an entire game of tidy single clears.
HOW CHAINS ACTUALLY HAPPEN
Chains aren't a bonus the game hands you — they're a consequence of gravity, and you can engineer them.
When a pair vanishes, everything above it drops. Those falling tiles land next to new neighbours. If any of those new neighbours sum to ten, they go too, and the whole thing repeats.
Which gives you the recipe: stack a column so that removing a tile low down brings two partners together higher up. You're not looking for pairs that touch now. You're looking for pairs that will touch after something below them disappears.
Vertical columns matter more than horizontal rows for this, because gravity only pulls one direction. A neat row of tiles across the board does nothing when something under it clears — a loaded column collapses into itself.
OVERLAPPING RUNS GO TOGETHER
If a tile belongs to two runs that both total ten, all of it clears at once. A row reading 3 7 3 has 3+7 and 7+3 in it, and all three tiles go.
This is the cheapest big clear in the game. Look for places where one tile can serve two directions at once — a tile completing a run across and a run down takes both with it.
THE TWO DANGER COLUMNS
New pairs always appear in the middle two columns, at the very top. The game ends when there's no room for them — not when the board is full, but when those specific squares are blocked.
So the middle two columns are not storage. Push your awkward tiles — the orphan 5, the 8 still waiting on a 2 — out to the edges, and keep the centre as clear as you can. Plenty of games end with two-thirds of the board empty and a stack in the middle.
THE TENSION NOBODY WARNS YOU ABOUT
The game speeds up based on how many tiles you've cleared, not how long you've survived. A huge chain scores beautifully and immediately makes everything fall faster.
So there's a real decision in there. Chain hard and you'll bank a big score and then have much less time to think. Play conservatively and you stay in control but score slowly. Good runs tend to alternate — set up, cash in, then spend a few pieces tidying at the higher speed before doing it again.
USE THE PREVIEW
The next pair is shown beside the board. It's easy to ignore and it's the difference between placing a tile somewhere legal and somewhere useful — if you know a 7 is coming, the 3 you're holding has an obvious home.
SHORT VERSION
- Don't clear a run just because you can
- Build columns that collapse, not rows that sit there
- Keep the middle two columns low — that's where you lose
- Edges are for tiles waiting on a partner
- Big numbers are commitments; small numbers go anywhere
- Every big chain buys points and costs you thinking time