Edited by legendary New York Times crossword editor and America's puzzlemaster Will Shortz

Sudoku has taken America by storm! Puzzled by the wordless crossword puzzle? Try one or two of these simple, easy-to-solve sudoku and you'll discover what millions of fans already know: There's nothing as fun as sudoku! Features: Edited by legendary New York Times crossword editor Will Shortz But it’s all based on the simple principles of using numbers 1-9, filling in the blank spaces based on deductive reasoning, and never repeating any numbers within each square, row or column.Will Shortz Presents Let's Play Sudoku: Over the Edge Are you tough enough? Take on this ferocious collection of 200 devilishly difficult sudoku puzzles! Features:

Sudoku rules are relatively uncomplicated – but the game is infinitely varied, with millions of possible number combinations and a wide range of levels of difficulty. This is how the process of elimination works in Sudoku – you find out which spaces are available, which numbers are missing – and then deduce, based on the position of those numbers within the grid, which numbers fit into each space. This means that there is only one space remaining in the far left column where a 1 could possibly go – circled in green. In this case, we can quickly notice that there are already number 1s in the top left and center left squares of the grid (with number 1s circled in red). One way to figure out which numbers can go in each space is to use “process of elimination” by checking to see which other numbers are already included within each square – since there can be no duplication of numbers 1-9 within each square (or row or column). In this Sudoku grid (shown below), the far left-hand vertical column (circled in Blue) is missing only a few numbers: 1, 5 and 6. What do we mean by using “process of elimination” to play Sudoku? Here is an example. Sudoku Rule № 4: Use Process of Elimination.But don’t try to “force” anything – Sudoku rewards patience, insights, and recognition of patterns, not blind luck or guessing. If you don’t know what number to put in a certain space, keep scanning the other areas of the grid until you seen an opportunity to place a number. Sudoku is a game of logic and reasoning, so you shouldn’t have to guess. This means that we should ignore the upper left square for now, and try to fill in spaces in some other areas of the grid instead. By seeing which numbers are missing from each square, row, or column, we can use process of elimination and deductive reasoning to decide which numbers need to go in each blank space.įor example, in the upper left square, we know we need to add a 5 and a 6 to be able to complete the square, but based on the neighboring rows and squares we cannot clearly deduce which number to add in which space. The only numbers missing from the square are 5 and 6. Sudoku Rule № 2: Don’t Repeat Any NumbersĪs you can see, in the upper left square (circled in blue), this square already has 7 out of the 9 spaces filled in.Does it sound complicated? As you can see from the image below of an actual Sudoku grid, each Sudoku grid comes with a few spaces already filled in the more spaces filled in, the easier the game – the more difficult Sudoku puzzles have very few spaces that are already filled in. Each row, column and square (9 spaces each) needs to be filled out with the numbers 1-9, without repeating any numbers within the row, column or square. Within the rows and columns are 9 “squares” (made up of 3 x 3 spaces). Sudoku is played on a grid of 9 x 9 spaces.

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