Tips and Techniques For Solving Sudoku Puzzles

Sudoku is a puzzle/game that first appeared in the 1970’s, but remained in relative obscurity until the early 2000’s. Since then it’s become a mainstay in newspapers across the world, and spawned dozens of offshoots and variations.

What is Sudoku?

First let's get started with some terminology so you'll know what the heck we're talking about when we dig into some strategies.

Sudoku Terminology

Now that you’ve got some terminology under your belt, and understand the most basics element and goals of the game, let’s dig into some strategies to help you start filling in the blanks.

Sudoku Beginner and Intermediate Strategies

The first is Squeezing. This is the simplest way to sniff out hidden singles. With this technique, we're going to break the board down into separate boxes of 3 rows or 3 columns, and look for instances of 2 numbers within those columns or rows.

Medium Solving Sudoku Techniques

Let’s now look at some of the more complex strategies individually. Let’s start with one of the more well known advanced strategies, X-Wing. Take a look at the board below, which is set up to demonstrate this technique.

Advanced Sudoku Solving Strategies

When things just aren’t falling into place like they should, you have one last resort, and that is Guessing. Now there is some debate about whether ‘guessing’ is a legitimate tactic or not.

Alternative Strategies and Sudoku Variations