Tango is LinkedIn's binary-grid puzzle: a 6×6 board that you fill with two symbols, a sun and a moon, under three rules. Each row and each column must contain exactly three suns and three moons. No more than two of the same symbol may sit next to each other in a line. And wherever the board shows an = between two cells, those cells must match; wherever it shows an ×, they must differ. A few cells are given. The rest is deduction, and — as with Queens — there is exactly one answer and it never requires a guess.
The finished grid for today is on the Tango answer today page; the Tango solver fills in any board you enter. This page walks through the reasoning that experienced players run without thinking, from the moves that are available at the first glance to the ones that finish a hard board.
If you've played Takuzu, Binairo or 0h h1, you know the bones of the game. What LinkedIn added is the constraint signs, and they change the solving order completely.
The three rules, restated so they're useful
Rule 1 — three and three. Every row and column holds exactly three suns and three moons. The consequence to internalise: once a line has three of one symbol, *every* remaining cell in that line is the other symbol. Count constantly.
Rule 2 — no three in a row. Two adjacent suns force a moon on each side; a sun, a gap, and a sun force a moon in the gap. This is the most productive rule on the board and the one beginners underuse.
Rule 3 — the signs. An = between cells means they are the same symbol; an × means they are different. A sign with one side known resolves the other side immediately. A sign with neither side known still constrains: an × pair contributes exactly one sun and one moon to their line, which feeds the count in Rule 1.
The solving sequence
A Tango board is solved in passes, and the passes have a natural order. Running them in that order is the difference between a 40-second solve and a four-minute one.
Pass one — resolve every sign with a known side. Any = or × touching a given cell fills its partner. Do all of these before anything else; they are free.
Pass two — the no-three rule around every pair. Scan every row and column for two adjacent matching symbols and for two matching symbols with a single empty cell between them. Fill the forced opposites.
Pass three — count lines. Any line with three of a symbol gets the rest filled with the other. Any line with two of a symbol and only one empty cell that could take a third without making three in a row is likewise forced.
Pass four — the sign-pair count. In a line with an × pair, those two cells contribute one sun and one moon no matter what. Subtract them and count the rest of the line; often that leaves exactly enough cells for the remaining symbols and forces them.
Repeat. Every placement creates new pairs and new counts. A board that looks stuck after pass three almost always opens on the second pass two.
Deductions that look like guesses but aren't
Some Tango boards reach a point where no single rule fills a cell, and players start guessing. There are two legitimate moves for that moment.
The two-cell exclusion. If a line needs two more suns and has three empty cells, and two of those cells are adjacent, the two adjacent cells cannot *both* be suns (that would make three with a neighbour or leave the count wrong) — so at least one of them is a moon, and the third cell is often forced by the count. Work through the two cases in your head; they usually agree on one cell.
The mirrored pair. An = pair sitting in a line with a known symbol two cells away: if the pair matched that symbol you'd have three in a row across the gap, so the pair is the opposite symbol. This one resolves a lot of "stuck" boards.
A worked board in four passes
A recent weekday board: six givens, three signs — an = in row 1 between columns 2 and 3, an × in column 4 between rows 3 and 4, an × in row 6 between columns 1 and 2 — and a sun given at row 1 column 2.
Pass one. The = in row 1 touches the given sun at column 2, so column 3 of row 1 is a sun. The two × signs touch nothing known yet; note them.
Pass two. Row 1 now has suns at columns 2 and 3 — two in a row — so columns 1 and 4 must be moons. Row 1 reads: M S S M _ _. It needs one more sun and one more moon; nothing forces them yet.
Pass three. Column 2 has a given moon at row 4 and the sun at row 1; scan down: rows 2 and 3 are empty, row 5 is a given sun, row 6 empty. The × in row 6 between columns 1 and 2 means those two cells differ. Column 2 count: one sun (row 1), one moon (row 4), one sun (row 5) — needs one more sun, two more moons across rows 2, 3, 6. If row 6 column 2 were a sun, rows 2 and 3 would both be moons and row 4 is a moon: three moons in a row. So row 6 column 2 is a moon, and by the × row 6 column 1 is a sun.
Pass four. With row 6 column 2 a moon, column 2 needs one sun and one moon in rows 2–3; row 4 is a moon, so row 3 can't be a moon (three in a row with 4 and… no — rows 3 and 4 and 5: moon, moon, sun is fine). Use the row counts instead: row 3 already has two moons elsewhere, so row 3 column 2 is a sun, and row 2 column 2 a moon. From here every remaining cell falls by count. Forty seconds on a clock, four passes on paper.
Common traps
Forgetting the diagonal doesn't matter. Tango's adjacency is orthogonal only. Diagonal suns are fine. People who arrive from Queens often over-constrain.
Treating × as "opposite of the whole line". An × only relates two cells. It says nothing about the cells beyond them.
Counting columns but not rows. Every placement changes two counts. The mistakes come from updating one.
Rushing the last row. When five rows are done, the sixth is fully determined by the column counts. Fill it from the columns, not the row, and it can't be wrong.
The board's difficulty is in the signs, not the givens
A Tango board with many given cells and no signs is easy regardless of how it looks: the counting rules do everything. A board with few givens and a scattering of signs — especially × signs far from any given — is where the time goes, because the first pass gives nothing and you have to start from the sign-pair count. When you open a board, look at the signs first. If most are attached to givens, it's a quick day. If they float in empty space, plan for pass four.
LinkedIn rates its boards internally and tends to run harder ones on weekends; the results screen tells you how your time compared with other players, which is the only public difficulty signal.
Getting faster
Tango rewards a fixed scan order more than any other LinkedIn game, because every rule is local and cheap. Practised players run: signs → pairs → counts → sign-pair counts, left to right, top to bottom, and repeat. They don't look for clever moves until the scan produces nothing. Most boards never get that far.
On mobile, tap accuracy matters: the cells are small and the cycle is empty → sun → moon → empty, so an extra tap costs a full cycle. On desktop, click and there's no such problem. The timer counts from the first tap, so scan the signs before you touch anything.
If you're guessing in Tango, you've skipped a pass. Go back to the signs.— HintSheet Tango notes
Where Tango came from
The underlying puzzle is the binary-determination puzzle known as Takuzu in France and Binairo in the Netherlands, published in newspapers since the late 2000s. The rules are identical minus the signs. LinkedIn launched Tango in October 2024 as its fourth daily game, adding the = and × constraints and the sun/moon theme, and it has become, with Queens, one of the two most-played games in the set. The official help page describes the controls; the strategy above is what the help page leaves out.
Tango versus Takuzu and Binairo
Takuzu is usually 8×8 or larger, uses 0s and 1s, and has no constraint signs; it's a slower, more counting-heavy game. Binairo is the same puzzle under a Dutch newspaper name. Tango's contribution is the signs and the small board: 6×6 with = and × makes for a two-minute puzzle where the interest is in the interplay between local signs and line counts rather than in long counting chains. Players coming from Takuzu tend to over-count and under-use the signs; players coming from Queens tend to look for region logic that isn't there. Tango is its own thing: signs first, then rows.
The scan, as a checklist
For a board that's stalled.
- Every sign with one known side resolved?
- Every pair of adjacent identical symbols has opposites on both ends?
- Every gap between two identical symbols filled with the opposite?
- Every line with three of a symbol filled out?
- Every line with an × pair counted with the pair subtracted?
- Any = pair two cells from a known symbol?
- If all yes and still stuck: the two-cell exclusion on the line with the fewest empties.
Reader questions
"Is there a hint?" Yes — the Hint button fills one cell and is recorded on the results card.
"Do signs ever sit between non-adjacent cells?" No; always between two orthogonally adjacent cells.
Frequently asked questions
How many suns and moons in each row?
Three of each in every row and every column, on the standard 6×6 board.
Can three suns be diagonal?
Yes. Only horizontal and vertical runs of three are forbidden.
What does the = sign mean?
The two cells it sits between must hold the same symbol. An × means they must differ.
Is guessing ever required?
No. Every LinkedIn Tango board has a unique solution reachable by logic. The two-cell exclusion and mirrored-pair moves cover the hard spots.