He only makes notes in what he calls an “either/or situation,” where a number can be placed in only two cells within a box. Snyder, on the other hand, uses a different method. She says that you shouldn’t be afraid of making notes, since they can help you spot patterns and apply logic to the grid in a way you might not have before. A clip of her solving notation can be seen in this Google tech demonstration. Sudoku Championship winner, says that while many notation techniques focus on which numbers go into a certain cell, her preference is to do the opposite - she focuses on which cells can a certain number go into, drawing lines to mark them. It will sometimes show you numbers that theoretically could go into a cell, but a closer look at the puzzle will reveal there’s no way they ever would. This can be a good place to start, but it can also be inefficient. Many online Sudoku interfaces (including The New York Times’s) feature an automatic candidate mode, which shows the solver every single place that every single number can fit into. There are plenty of good strategies, but the best one is the one you’re most comfortable with. Nearly everyone we spoke to for this article said that having a good strategy with how you annotate your puzzle can jump-start your Sudoku solving. Some people call this “pencil marking,” since many solvers write small numbers or other notes in pencil to denote a possible solution. No, not like someone running for office in an election - a candidate in Sudoku is a digit that could be placed into a cell, but you’re not totally sure it goes there yet. You’ll begin recognizing patterns that will help you solve more efficiently. Maybe there’s a box with seven or eight numbers filled in already, or a row with six digits done. As you get more practice, your pattern recognition will improve. Once you start thinking about the numbers this way, you can start looking closely at the geometry of the grid. You are looking at the digits you have the most of, which are going to be the easiest digits.” Snyder says, “When looking this way, you don’t have to care about 1, 2, 3. Now, try and place the third instance of that number, finally looking in the other direction (e.g., if you’ve been looking at a row, now look at a column) to see where it fits in the remaining space. Then, find any number that you see twice between those lines. First, look between the bold lines that separate groups of three rows or columns. Thomas Snyder, a three-time World Sudoku Championship winner, says that his advice for beginners is to think about how to look at the information a grid is giving you in a way that makes sense. On beginner puzzles, there are usually one or two obvious ones lurking somewhere and they are an easy way to start making progress. The first step to any successful Sudoku solve is to scan for cells that can only contain a single digit. So, then, how do we figure out what goes where? Scan for Singles For a clear example of this, look at an easy version of a New York Times Sudoku, then compare it to a hard one. A grid with more digits will tend to be on the easier side, and one with fewer will probably be harder. One bonus here is that this makes it easy to gauge just how hard a puzzle will be. Unlike a crossword puzzle, the only clues you’ll get here are the numbers that are already placed for you in the grid. It sounds simple written out like this, but some of these puzzles can be quite twisted. The digits must be placed so that each appears only once per row, column and box. The goal is to fill in each of the cells with a number from one through nine. There’s no correct way to solve a puzzle, but we hope that, using the techniques demonstrated here, you can become your best Sudoku self.īut first, the basics: A classic Sudoku has nine boxes, each subdivided into nine cells, for a total of 81. We asked some of the best Sudoku solvers in the world for their tips and tricks, and we’ll be sharing some of those with you here. By the end of this article, you’ll be equipped to tackle intense puzzles in a way you find both challenging and fun. Maybe not right now, maybe not without some practice, but trust me, it’s possible.
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