board games
5 Tricks To Help You Through A Game of Sudoku
As a game that has been around since 1979 thanks to Howard Garns, there’s a decent chance that you’ve played it before. With Modern age Online Sudoku is one that’s on the challenging sides. Given that its presence in most newspapers helps this. Sudoku can be defined as a puzzle where players insert numbers of 1-9 into a 3×3 grid, the gimmick to this is that each number can only appear once in each row, column, and square.
It seems easy, right? Well, yes, but also no. By definition, the game probably does seem easy but when you actually get into it, depending on the difficulty, it’s well, difficult. The game ranges from simplistic, where there are more numbers initially given, and gets harder as fewer numbers are given. With fewer numbers, more techniques are needed to make things faster.
If a sudoku puzzle is really a sudoku puzzle then there should only be one specific solution for the puzzle, this way, there’s no ambiguity involved in it, no chance, and only skill. Again, this makes it potentially challenging. Luckily, there are techniques that can be used such as, scanning, searching for numbers, crosshatching, penciling in, and X Wing.
Scan
Scanning and searching for numbers are very basic techniques. But basic they may be, it doesn’t mean that it doesn’t help. Both are actually very helpful no matter how difficult the puzzle is, scanning especially. This method is done by scanning each row and column. While doing that you try to eliminate any numbers or squares.
Additionally to that, you also try to find squares where only one number would fit in that box. You have to do that for every box since that’s how sudoku works but you’re looking for squares where it’s obvious only one number would fit into that box, nothing ambiguous, sudoku is not a guessing game but a skill game to reiterate what was said previously.
It’s up to you how you go about scanning, it’s mainly about how good you are with identifying numbers and seeing how they fit into the bigger picture, but two ways you can scan is by only going in one direction or two. One direction means left to right or up and down, doing this simplifies the load on your mind, and scanning in two directions is also going perpendicular.
Searching For Numbers
This method essentially piggybacks off of scanning which is not bad to remember if that will help you, but searching for numbers is about identifying what an empty square has around it, what it could have as well as what it can’t have. It’s pretty simplistic but focusing on the process makes the entire puzzle easier to comprehend, especially as you progress.
To be general, if one box has seven numbers already filled, you need to find the remaining two, the remaining two are seemingly ambiguous. It would seem that either number could go in either square, which is why you need to figure out what is around it, doing so will allow you to figure out what couldn’t be in the square. This won’t always work but it’s still good.
When doing a puzzle, be sure not to let yourself be stuck on one singular part as well, chances are you can find other numbers within the puzzle and the portion you’re focusing on isn’t the key to all the other numbers. Focus on another section and then hopefully that will help you with the section that you were stuck on.
Crosshatch
Crosshatching is a very useful tool for you no matter how advanced the puzzle maybe. With crosshatching, you’re trying to focus on one box out of the nine in the puzzle. Within that box, you also focus on one of the squares and you try to figure out what number cannot go in each number.
Crosshatching may seem complicated or unproductive, but once you figure out what can’t go in each square, you can then figure out easily what actually can go in each square. And some of these squares will only have singular potential numbers which make it even easier if a square has multiple potential numbers. You should also write down the potential numbers.
Penciling In
Which is where penciling in comes in. Penciling in is as the name would suggest. Which is that you write down each number that could go in the box, and then crossing out each number that actually can’t fit inside. Penciling in the numbers may seem silly or useless but in truth, it’s not.
Sudoku is a puzzle and simply put, puzzles are confusing and they require brainpower, especially the higher the difficulty. All of this means is that it will be harder for your brain to gather and properly register every detail. Writing down the numbers and crossing them off eases the workload which will only increase your efficiency, which is what you want.
Advanced – X Wing
Now let’s say that you do know what you’re doing, you have all the previous methods totally understood and fully utilized, great, now you can do most sudoku puzzles. But, maybe most isn’t good enough for you, maybe you need more, a bigger challenge. That’s what this method aims to help with. The X Wing ends up giving four potential answers but only two are right.
This method needs criteria though, for squares to meet that, they need to all share a common potential and they need to be in two parallel rows or columns. If you did this right then there should be four squares with the same potential number stretching across four boxes and you should be able to form an X between each (reference picture if confused, light/dark blue).
Using this method, you should be able to do two things: one, remove any potentials that would apply that are not within the X, i.e. the same potential horizontal or vertical or within the same box as the potential in the X. The second thing is that you should be able to narrow down the actual number between the two diagonal pairs, in this case, light or dark blue.
Sudoku Tips and Tricks
Sudoku can be a hard game, but it can be made easier as long as you have the acquired knowledge to understand how to solve the puzzle. From basic scanning to the advanced technique of the X Wing, you can understand how all of the numbers line up together to finally finish the box.
Ignoring the X Wing technique, using the other tricks given, you should be able to complete the majority of Sudoku puzzles you’ll come across. The best thing to do while solving is not to overload yourself with information, make it as easy to comprehend as you can, don’t hesitate to write anything down. The easier it is to understand, the faster you’ll complete it.