The New Sudoku Players' Forum

[Romulus74]

Hi everyone,
It's my first post on this forum. I just created this account to look for help with a puzzle I'm stuck in.

As a good anaesthesiologist, i play little bits of sudoku games when my patients sleep for hours.
The fact that I'm stuck with this puzzle puts lives in danger as I have to spend a lot of time looking at my phone and can't monitor the patient's vital signs at the same time.
It is therefore critically important that you help me solve this one.

(Please don't take the above message seriously).

Anyway, i would greatly enjoy receiving a 'tip' about what the next move could be and why without getting the full grid completed . At the moment, the only way i see is making trial & errors and I find it not so elegant.

Due to "uploading quota reached", here's the grid : https://ibb.co/n39QMMX

Thanks a lot in advance for your expertise

[SteveG48]

The first thing that you need to do is to complete your pencil marks (PM). I can tell you that you haven't made any mistakes so far in assignments. However, your pencil marks are obviously incomplete since you have three instances of two cells in the same sector with the same single candidate. That can't be.

Once you've completed the PM, look at row 2. You'll see that there is a set of 3 cells with only 3 possible candidates (a naked triple). That will allow you to eliminate those candidates from the other cells on row 2 and solve the puzzle.

[Leren]

Puzzle:

Code: Select all

*-----------*
|37.|..2|41.|
|...|...|.6.|
|5..|.7.|9..|
|---+---+---|
|...|49.|1.7|
|...|.1.|3..|
|1.6|...|...|
|---+---+---|
|..4|5..|6.2|
|2.7|6..|8..|
|61.|...|..9|
*-----------*

This is where you appear to be :

Code: Select all

*----------------------------------*
| 3  7   89 | 89  6   2   | 4 1 5  |
| 4 *2   19 | 19  358 35  | 7 6 38 |
| 5  6   18 | 138 7   4   | 9 2 38 |
|-----------+-------------+--------|
| 8  3  #23 | 4   9   6   | 1 5 7  |
| 7  4   5  | 2   1   8   | 3 9 6  |
| 1  9   6  | 37  35  357 | 2 8 4  |
|-----------+-------------+--------|
| 9  38  4  | 5   38  1   | 6 7 2  |
| 2  5   7  | 6   4   9   | 8 3 1  |
| 6  1   38 | 378 2   37  | 5 4 9  |
*----------------------------------*

r2c2 (the cell marked *) is a naked single, so you can mark it off. Then r4c3 (the cell marked #) is a hidden single in Column 3, so you can mark that off. Other singles will be exposed all the way to the solution.

Leren

[Romulus74]

Wow! Thanks a lot to you two.
I must admit, I'm a real amateur. I don't know any special techniques to solve sudokus except for the basic rules of columns/rows/squares. And the pencil marks were (until now) just reminders of where one value can go.

I'll make sure to have a look at the techniques you mentioned and once again, i greatly appreciate your help!