The New Sudoku Players' Forum

[crystal759]

i'm stuck. here is what i have done on this so far. Any help is appreciated. I want to solve it so can you help me figure out where I am stuck? Thanks

796 _3_ 4_2
243 __7 1__
___ 429 7__

_2_ 896 _7_
___ 275 ___
_67 314 _2_

659 743 2__
472 ___ 9__
831 952 647

[Ruud]

Hi,

welcome to this forum.

At this stage of the puzzle, you need to work with a list of candidates, like this one:

Code: Select all

.---------------------.---------------------.---------------------.
| 7      9      6     | 15     3      18    | 4      58     2     |
| 2      4      3     | 56     68     7     | 1      5689   5689  |
| 15     18     58    | 4      2      9     | 7      3568   3568  |
:---------------------+---------------------+---------------------:
| 135    2      45    | 8      9      6     | 35     7      1345  |
| 139    18     48    | 2      7      5     | 38     13689  134689|
| 59     6      7     | 3      1      4     | 58     2      589   |
:---------------------+---------------------+---------------------:
| 6      5      9     | 7      4      3     | 2      18     18    |
| 4      7      2     | 16     68     18    | 9      1358   1358  |
| 8      3      1     | 9      5      2     | 6      4      7     |
'---------------------'---------------------'---------------------'

Now if you look at row 3, you can see that the only place a 6 can go is in the last 2 cells. One of those 2 cell will contain a 6, even if you do not know which one of the 2 it will be. That 3x3 box (we call it box #3) will have a 6 in one of those 2 cells, so no other cell can have 6 as a candidate. Start removing them from the grid.

There is a second situation very similar to this one. It is in another row, another box and with another digit, but if you find that one, you are close to solving this puzzle.

Good luck,

Ruud.

[crystal759]

once i pickedup the puzzle again, i saw it right off....it's odd how you look and look and cant see it....then the next time i just about jumps out at you. this was a medium too....i had just finished a hard earlier....;) thanks, hopefully i wont get stuck on this one again!

[Hud]

crystal, Pappocom rated it as a hard. When you use pencil marks as most of have to do eventually. The 7 is naked in box 9.