Sudoku solution – New York Times 10 May 2026 Hard level sudoku

Added: 2026-05-10

[00:00:03][music] [music] Dokans, welcome to Zen and the Art of the Guardian Sedoku puzzle. It's Sunday the 10th of May, 2026. I hope you are keeping well. Uh, this is the New York Times hard level Sodoku puzzle, which I'm going to try to get through as quickly as I can because I've just I've got an online appointment soon coming up in a minute. And, uh, so I should, uh, get this game out of the way fairly quickly. Uh what else is going on? Uh the Republicans are doing everything they can in the US to uh redraw districts after the uh Supreme Court decision. Of course, they are very unpopular uh except with the hardcore Republicans. And so they are managing they are having to kind of redraw districts to try to secure their future.

[00:00:50]One thing that might happen though is they might make a mistake and instead of gerrymandering, they might dummy mander.

[00:00:55]That's where they figure they can uh find the way um for them to win. In fact, they lose because they've drawn them the uh dates that drawn the district in a way that they don't actually win. Uh I guess there's that to hope for for the world. Otherwise, the Republicans will continue to hold power and uh that will be the end of democracy in the US. Let's get on with the game of Sudoku then, shall we? Uh we're going to start with digit one. Like I said, I've got um stuff to do today. So that means I should be turning to pencil marks without much delay if I need to. Oh, we've got a pair of one and seven across there. That's a pair of one and seven.

[00:01:35]So what's in there?

[00:01:38]Uh five nine is it? So five blocking down. There's a five and there's a nine.

[00:02:26]>> [snorts] >> Oh, so we've got a pair of two and three down here. Two and three down there. So, blocking down, blocking down, and two and three across here. So, we've got a pair of two and three in those squares.

[00:03:01]Otherwise, the block is empty. We've got two and three. Let's look at the column first. So, we've got two and three. What are we looking for? 1 67. Is that right? So the one Oh, no.

[00:03:18]167.

[00:03:25]Not sure. 23. Okay. What else can we get?

[00:03:36]Five.

[00:03:52][cough] Uh, I think not enough in this plot.

[00:03:55]It's still too empty. There are several things. We got fives here. We've got eights there. We got nine somewhere down there. But um not enough I think. Uh what was I? Three >> [snorts] >> We can say that sevens up there. We got sevens there. But unfortunately over here, I don't really know.

[00:06:52]Oh dear. [sighs] Um, all right. Hold on.

[00:06:55]I'll do my best to try and find a couple more before hitting the pencil marks because there's a lot to find here.

[00:07:33]>> [snorts] >> Okay. I just don't think I'm going to do this in time. So So I'm going to put pencil marks in anyway.

[00:08:06]uh to finish the game quickly, as quickly as I can. Now, I said this was two and three, didn't I?

[00:08:12]Uh [sighs] sevens go anywhere.

[00:08:27]So, let's explore this block down here.

[00:08:29]So, we get ones in those squares there.

[00:08:35]Um, do nothing about four. Not really.

[00:08:43]Fives are a pair there.

[00:08:48]Six can go in those squares.

[00:09:00]Seven. Eight.

[00:09:05]and nine somewhere down there. Okay. So, did we get anything great there?

[00:09:10]Uh, [groaning] don't know.

[00:09:18]Maybe not. So, let's go ahead and do the pair work now then. So, we got ones across there.

[00:09:25]Uh, we got ones here.

[00:10:37]>> [sighs] >> Yeah, as I thought it's looking pretty bad. There aren't that many pairs and so uh they're going to be a lot of candidates. But never mind. Let's just get on with it and finish the game off.

[00:10:46]And you can if you're looking for a notation free solution, I would look in the comments section because we always have helpful commenters giving a notationfree solution for those people who prefer to play the game in that way.

[00:10:57]Uh, I'm not going to be doing this one in that way for sure. Uh, fours. Oh dear. [sighs] One, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, and nine. Done. Okay. So, that was a four there.

[00:11:54]Okay, that's the only place for a four now.

[00:11:59]Gives me a pair of fours over there as well.

[00:12:03]And we have a pair of six and seven up here now.

[00:12:08]Uh, six, seven, and seven. Okay.

[00:12:13]All right.

[00:12:15]That's looking better anyway immediately. So, let's go along here.

[00:12:19]Threes blocking across there.

[00:12:22]Fortunately, I started the right place.

[00:12:25]If probably if id started down here and got up here, this be the last thing that I saw a single that's available.

[00:12:32]Uh 1, two, three, four, five, six. What do we know about six?

[00:12:40]Not enough.

[00:12:43]Nine. Got it already. Okay.

[00:12:53]All right. In the middle.

[00:12:56]Three blocking like this.

[00:13:01]Four blocking in the same squares.

[00:13:03]Hello. Does that mean it's 2 three four?

[00:13:07]2 3 4. Three numbers in three squares.

[00:13:09]Yes, it does. How about that? Then we got three numbers in three squares. two four 2 three and four in those squares there and so one five the other missing digit is going to be nine now nine blocks down there so we'll get a pair of nines in those squares just there uh that's it then over here one two Three.

[00:13:51]N.

[00:14:04]Okay. Okay, still not getting exactly what I need, but never mind.

[00:14:09]Uh, threes anywhere.

[00:14:14]Fours anywhere.

[00:14:22]Six anywhere.

[00:14:25]And I think nine anywhere as well.

[00:14:27][sighs] Oh dear, what a very unhelpful block.

[00:14:40]All right, one place left to look then.

[00:14:47]One there.

[00:14:51]Two's there.

[00:14:54]Four blocking down here.

[00:15:23]for you. Yes, as uh promised, very heavy on candidates, but still I can usually work my way out of these kind of situations better than I can looking for notationfree solutions.

[00:15:38]uh where there are no small candidates to help me usually. Let's see how it goes today.

[00:16:28]I better check in case I've made some mistakes. That's easily possible.

[00:17:23]Oh yeah, I got pointing sevens here. So we can't have sevens in the bottom row there.

[00:17:32]So in fact, this is the only seven in this column actually. And I get rid of the sevens there at least.

[00:17:46]Uh, now this is the only nine in this row, I believe. Yes, it is. Okay. So, we'll put our nine there. And that'll give us a one there and a five in that square and a nine up there. [sighs] And we shall do some removals.

[00:18:15]Okay.

[00:18:25]Oh, sorry. Hit the wrong square. There we are.

[00:18:38]Okay, we'll do a bit more removal of digit seven candidates.

[00:18:45]And we've got a six in this square here.

[00:19:02]What digits one and eight are finished?

[00:19:04]Now, this is the only five in this row.

[00:19:17]Um, okay. I think we can [sighs] look through the numbers. Let's see.

[00:19:26]Two. How are we doing on two? There's the only two there.

[00:19:52]Just looking at time. I'm getting messages. I'm should be hurrying up here to get online. Coming soon.

[00:20:00]Get rid of that six.

[00:20:15]That's the only nine Okay, let's just do a little bit more removals. Threes.

[00:21:15]Okay, we're almost there. [sighs] Okay, so once again, just needed to find one thing basically and everything falls into place off there. Thanks for joining me. I'll see you another time. Take care. Bye-bye.