At first glance, this looks like one of those questions you can answer in about two seconds.
A shirt has a neck opening, two sleeves, and a bottom opening. Easy, right?
But then you notice the two large tears in the front of the shirt.
Suddenly, that simple question becomes a surprisingly tricky little brain teaser!
So, how many holes are actually in this shirt?
Take another look at the picture before you answer. Don’t rush it—because the wording of the puzzle is doing a lot of the work here.
Look Closely Before You Answer
The shirt in the image has the usual openings you’d expect to find on a short-sleeved shirt:
- One opening at the neck
- One opening at the left sleeve
- One opening at the right sleeve
- One large opening at the bottom
That gives us 4 obvious openings.
But there are also 2 visible tears in the body of the shirt.
So if we’re simply counting the openings and holes we can see in the picture:
4 + 2 = 6
That makes 6 holes the straightforward answer.
But wait…
There’s a sneaky detail hidden in this puzzle that can completely change the way you count the holes.
And that’s where this seemingly easy question gets much harder
The Trick Behind the Shirt Hole Puzzle
This is where the classic shirt-hole puzzle gets sneaky.
The answer depends on exactly what you mean by a “hole.”
If you’re counting only the openings that are clearly visible from the front, the answer is 6:
4 normal shirt openings + 2 tears = 6 holes.
But some versions of this puzzle add another twist.
If the two tears go completely through the shirt, you could argue that they create additional openings because you can see through them.
And if you interpret the question more literally, you also have to consider whether the shirt’s openings connect to the inside and whether the tears pass through both the front and back layers of the shirt.
That means the puzzle isn’t really testing your ability to count.
It’s testing whether you notice the assumptions hidden inside the question.
So, what should you answer?
👉 The straightforward visual answer is 6 holes.
But depending on how the shirt is constructed and how the tears pass through it, other answers can be argued.
That’s exactly why this puzzle catches so many people off guard.
Did you get 6—or did you come up with a different answer? 👕🧠