Tips and Tricks: Sudoku Lesson 1.2 Round-Up

For a different challenge, try The Greatest Maze on the Web

Sudoku Homework Walkthrough, 1.2

Tips and Tricks: Sudoku Lesson 1.2 Round-Up

On the right you'll find the same Sudoku Puzzle #1005 you found in Lesson 1.2, with four yellow squares added with the relevant numbers. Haven't read Sudoku Lesson 1.2? Didn't print out the game board? Would you like to learn about Sudoku Eggs? Before proceeding, go back and check it out here:

How to Play Sudoku: Tips and Tricks, Lesson 1.2

If you reminded yourself to complete a full Sudoku Sweep (see Sudoku Lesson 1.1) after every successful step, you should now begin to make some progress. The next sweep should help you uncover another two numbers, and the following sweep should add three more numbers to your total without forcing you to pull a muscle. Let's see what our Sudoku Puzzle #1005 looks like now:

The black circled numbers indicate the first Sudoku sweeping round; the blue numbers were found during the second Sudoku sweep.

The solution we are posting here is not the most elegant solution; it is the most straight forward. We solved for the original Sudoku eggs, and then completed two Sudoku sweeps without searching for additional Sudoku eggs. However, there are several. If you felt confident enough with your Counting Your Sudoku Eggs skills to follow them through on every step, then we salute you. In later lessons on this site, you will find our solutions relying more and more on the Sudoku Egg method; when that happens, you will be a step ahead of everybody else.

Sudoku Homework 1.2: Proceeding with Sudoku Sweeps

This is the ground-level, the foundation of our Sudoku strategy. Learning the basics will help you solve any Sudoku puzzle, however difficult.

Sudoku sweeps and Counting Your Sudoku eggs - at first these will feel like two different techniques. Soon, however, you will use them both interchangeably without flinching. As you become comfortable with these early methods, we suspect that you will learn to rely on Counting Sudoku Eggs more and more. This is a good thing. Just remember this: when you reach the most advanced puzzles, the Sudoku Sweep will help you keep your Eggs organized without requiring you to muddy up the paper of your Sudoku puzzle. It will remove all the guess work from your gaming.

As usual we separated the following sweeps by color, so take a look to the right. How are you doing? If you have used our method, relying on the basic Sudoku sweep, your board probably looks like ours does. Perhaps we should try to Count Sudoku Eggs instead of attempting another Sudoku sweep. Without much effort, we can identify some potentially attractive Sudoku Eggs. The ninth column has only a single remaining empty square, so let's fill it with a 4. Afterward, the center-right 3x3 box will also have only a single empty square, giving us another easy solution: the number 3.

Now take a look at the second row: two empties remain (4 and 5) and we can easily solve them if we sweep the board for those numbers. Additionally, the center-middle 3x3 box has two empties in a single column (3 and 9). Even though we cannot solve those squares yet, we can use them to sweep the board, allowing us to solve a square in the top-middle 3x3 box (9); and thus another square at the bottom of the column, in the bottom-center 3x3 box (2).

Time Out.

What do you say? You're a short, down-hill jog to the end, aren't you? The question is rhetorical, but the answer is yes. You are nearly done. Perhaps you felt the road was bumpier than the last lesson's path. There's no shame in repeating this lesson. One exercise you might try is this: return to the original lesson and print out a new Sudoku Puzzle #1005. Pretend we didn't find those original eggs. Instead, focus on the seventh column. In that column, there are four empty squares (1,2,7,9). Using the Count Your Sudoku Egg method, you should be able to solve for one of those squares immediately. In the end, your solution will be the same as ours (see below), but your path will look somewhat different. At any rate, regardless of the road you chose, we are providing you with a clean, beauteous solution to Lesson 1.2, Sudoku Puzzle #1005. Where is it, you ask?

The Power of the Sudoku Egg

Right here. Done and done. You're probably feeling pretty good about yourself. Well, you should. Maybe you're asking yourself, "What does Sudoku Tips and Tricks want me to do next?"

Lesson 1.3 will develop the power of the Sudoku Egg. Learning how to manipulate those Eggs into potential solutions will bring you into the higher realm of Sudoku puzzling. Successfully solving Sudoku Lesson 1.3 will earn you some status, too. White Belt no longer. Yellow Belt you shall be.

How to Play Sudoku: Tips and Tricks, Lesson 1.2

For a different challenge, try The Greatest Maze on the Web

Before Learning Sudoku Tips and Tricks, Lesson 1.2

Once again, make sure you are familiar with the basics of Sudoku and Sudoku puzzle rules. We are jumping directly into Sudoku Lesson 1.2, so we suggest you scan the following links to make sure you are on the right page, that there isn't a better place for you to begin:

1. Sudoku: Rules of the Game
2. How to Play Sudoku: Tips and Tricks, Lesson 1.1

You're in the right place? Good! Let's get to the good stuff:

Tips and Tricks: Sudoku Lesson 1.2

Sudoku White-Belts: on the right, labeled Sudoku Lesson 1.2 - Game 1005 is a fresh Sudoku puzzle for you to consider. We're certain (or nearly) that you've completed How to Play Sudoku: Tips and Tricks, Lesson 1.1. You are acquainted with our Sweeping the Sudoku Board technique, so why not give it a try with Game 1005? Click on the Sudoku puzzle, print it out, and proceed with your Sweeping. Remember two tricks: try to make mental sweeps rather than pencil sweeps; and do your best to trust the technique itself. See how far it takes you.

Adding Power to your Sudoku Method

Once again, please remember that cleaning up the Sudoku board is always the first thing to do when beginning a puzzle, and always the next thing to do when you've successfully completed a different step. Don't worry: this will make more sense as you proceed with these Sudoku lessons.

If you have tried to clean the Sudoku Puzzle #1005 board already, and if you stayed faithful to our method, you may be eying your results rather fretfully. Understood. Brothers and sisters, we feel your pain. After all your hard work, after three rounds of sweeping, you have only uncovered four new numbers. No, there's no point in attempting a fourth round until you've picked up a new Sudoku technique.

So. On your right, you have Sudoku Puzzle #1005 after three rounds of cleaning the puzzle board. Now it's time to add the Counting Your Sudoku Eggs tool to your Sudoku belt.

Counting Your Sudoku Eggs isn't difficult; however, whereas the Sudoku Sweep cashes your paycheck without any overtime work from you, Counting Your Sudoku Eggs greatly benefits from a touch of finesse and some intuition on your part. With that in mind, have another look at your Sudoku puzzle board. Take a minute to locate the 3x3 boxes, and the columns, and the rows, which at this moment have the most numbers already solved.

Sudoku Tips and Tricks gave our puzzle the old eyeball, in search of Sudoku Eggs. Intuition told us that the 3x3 box in the bottom-left of the Sudoku puzzle was a good bet (there are only two empty squares remaining), as was the seventh row from the top (three empty squares remaining). Check out the image on the right if you don't believe us.

Now that we've targeted two baskets that we hope will surrender up Sudoku eggs, what do we do? First, let's consider what information we have:
* In the bottom-left 3x3 box, the two remaining empty squares contain (1,3), in some order.
* The empty squares in the seventh row contain (1,6,7) in some order.

Can we use this information in any way?

Tips and Tricks: Using Sudoku Eggs

Simply stated: yes.

These Sudoku Eggs are the secret to Sudoku success. Right now, we're going to demonstrate only one quick use for your new Eggs. Have a glance over to the right. In the 3x3 box at the bottom-left of the Sudoku puzzle, we determined that those empty squares would one day be filled by the numbers 1 and 3.

Sure, we have no idea which number will go in which square. But we can still use that information, can't we? Let's use that information to help us complete a special Sudoku Sweep. Draw a mental line horizontally through the 1 and 3 across the board, and then complete full board sweeps for each of those two numbers. Remembering that the two empty squares in the bottom-center 3x3 box (again, consult the image to the right) must be filled with either a 1,6 or 7, we can now fill in a brand new shiny number 3 (in the yellow square).

What do you do after every successful step? That's right: do another Sudoku Sweep. And now you're on your way to solving Game #1005. If you make clever use of your Sweep technique AND the Sudoku Eggs in the seventh row from the top, you should be able to solve those three empty squares as well. Give this puzzle a try. DON'T FORGET: AFTER EVERY SUCCESSFUL STEP, DO ANOTHER SUDOKU SWEEP.

Finished? Check your work here:
Sudoku Tips and Tricks, Lesson 1.2 Walkthrough

Bag O' Tricks: Sudoku Links