The New Sudoku Players' Forum

[Jurnon]

Hello there,

Im not a huge fan of sudoku, but I like to spend some time on it every now and then :> So I got this sudoku in a newspaper, it's marked as "Hard". I tried to solve it for a few hours but managed to write only 5 digits. So Im asking for a hint, what should be my next step ? :>

Starting sudoku:

*-----------*
|... |.2.|.1.|
|67.|... |... |
|9..|6..|8.3|
|---+---+---|
|.2.|4..|..1 |
|..9|... |6.. |
|1..|..7|.9. |
|---+---+---|
|5.3|..1|..2 |
|... |... |.54 |
|.8.|.5. |... |
*-----------*

The point Im stuck at :

*-----------*
|... |.2.|.16|
|67.|... |... |
|91.|6..|8.3|
|---+---+---|
|.2.|4..|..1 |
|..9|... |6.. |
|1..|..7|.9. |
|---+---+---|
|5.3|..1|.82 |
|.9. |... |.54 |
|.8.|.5. |.6. |
*-----------*

[tarek]

If you look at box 6 ...

knowing where 2 & 4 would go ...

will tell you where 3 in column 8 would go.

tarek

[Jurnon]

Thx a lot, took me a while to understand your hint : D

[tarek]

Thx a lot, took me a while to understand your hint : D

Hi Jurnon & welcome to the forum,
I didn't know how experienced you are in solving sudokus & how familiar you are in sudoku terminology.

The technique I described is called a HIDDEN DOUBLE which bascially is the answer to this question (WHERE ARE THE ONLY 2 CELLS WHERE DIGITS X&Y would go ?) ONLY X & Y can occupy these 2 cells & therefore you can eliminate other possibilities from those 2 cells

tarek