Problem

Source: 2019 Dürer Math Competition Finals Day2 E8 https://artofproblemsolving.com/community/c1621835_2019_

Tags: combinatorics



A chess piece is placed on one of the squares of an $8\times 8$ chessboard where it begins a tour of the board: it moves from square to square, only moving horizontally or vertically. It visits every square precisely once, and ends up exactly where it started. What is the maximum number of times the piece can change direction along its tour?