How To Solve Sudoku SO Good You Stop Guessing

Added: 2026-05-09

[00:00:00]Are you tired of getting stuck on a Sudoku and guessing the next solve?

[00:00:05]I will show you my top five tips that with a little practice will get you so insanely good at Sudoku that you stop guessing forever. And with that, it's solving time. So, tip number one is to go from quickest to slowest strategies.

[00:00:24]Notice with the twos here that you have these twos in rows four and six and this two in column four, where can a two go in block five? It can only go right here. And then if you follow these twos up here to block two, you can immediately see there's only one place to put two right there. That's cross-hatching. That's the quickest Sudoku strategy there is.

[00:00:47]Greetings, friend.

[00:00:48]I've solved thousands of classic Sudokus and I stopped guessing a long time ago.

[00:00:55]This puzzle from my latest rewards puzzle pack is perfect to show you my top five tips to stop getting stuck and start getting insanely good at Sudoku.

[00:01:07]So, tip number one is to go from quickest to slowest strategies.

[00:01:12]Tip number two is to have a method to minimize your backtracking. You want to keep a clear thought process going as you solve this puzzle and you'll solve it so much quicker. So, some people might look at the top rows and then the middle and then the bottom. That's okay. I like to do digit restrictions from one to nine cuz I can remember how many digits I've gone through and how many there are left to go. So, if you look at where the ones can be, you notice that there's two possibilities here in block six. So, you can mark that. If there's only one possibility solve it, there's two, mark it. If there's more than two, just move on. And with the ones, there's no other spots where you can mark or solve candidates. So, move on to the twos. And this is as far as you're going to get with the twos right now.

[00:02:04]But if you move on to the threes, you have some more things you can do here. So, what you might notice is with this three and this three, the threes are restricted in block six to the same column, column nine.

[00:02:20]And since they're in the same block, this is called a pointing pair.

[00:02:24]And so, since threes have to be one of these spots, you cannot put a three anywhere else in the column outside the block. So, with these threes and this three and the three right here, you can restrict the threes to these two cells in block three.

[00:02:38]But this also brings me up to tip number three.

[00:02:41]Scan for multiple candidates at one time. So, I'll show you what I mean here.

[00:02:48]Notice that you have a three coming down column five and a three cutting across row seven. And so, you would see that the threes would be right there.

[00:02:57]However, if you look at the threes and the nines, you'll notice the three and nine are in column five and the three and nine are in row seven. So, the three and nine are restricted to same two cells. This is called a hidden pair. And if you see this using what I call double scanning, you're going to create more restrictions and get more solves much quicker. Cuz now with those threes and this three, you can restrict the threes right there.

[00:03:27]And you already have some information you know about the nine by doing that.

[00:03:32]Okay, move on to the fours.

[00:03:35]What you might see is that with these three fours looking in the block, you can solve for four in block five right away. And then just follow these fours, cross-hatch over here, solve for four in block four. Okay, how about the fives?

[00:03:54]Well, with this five coming down, you only have two possibilities now for a five in block eight because you saw that double scanning, you created further restriction there. But that's what the with the fives.

[00:04:05]Move on to the sixes.

[00:04:07]And you might see you have a six and a nine here in column three.

[00:04:13]So, where can the six and nine go here?

[00:04:16]These two cells. So, it creates another hidden pair using that double scanning.

[00:04:22]And in case you're wondering, this green cell, you solve this green cell, put it through a decoder that's in my puzzle pack and it'll give you a letter.

[00:04:31]Solve the green cells in all the puzzles, you get five different letters, you come up with the final solution, answer you give to me, you get a shoutout on the channel.

[00:04:39]And so, we want to figure out what this green cell's going to be.

[00:04:44]Okay, what else can you do with the sixes? You'll notice since this is a pointing pair of sixes, the hidden pairs act as a pointing pair. You have a six there and a six there.

[00:04:52]Restricts the sixes here in block seven.

[00:04:56]And then see if you can do double scanning again. You notice a six and a seven in row three. Well, where can the six and seven go?

[00:05:03]They can't be in those two cells there.

[00:05:04]They have to be up here. So, it's another hidden pair up in block two. This is beautiful stuff that Yoshi Broshe put into this puzzle. And it'll restrict the three sixes now here in block three. Awesome.

[00:05:19]All right, how about the sevens?

[00:05:21]Well, with this seven cutting across, you know that you got two sevens there. Three spots here for a seven, not going to mark that.

[00:05:29]But this does bring me up to tip number four. You want to revisit your breakthrough points.

[00:05:34]I also call this returning to the scene of the crime. I'll tell you what I mean.

[00:05:37]Since you put the six seven here and you'd made some restriction down here, look at what it does.

[00:05:44]Cuz this eight, this has to be an eight now and that has to be the one, only place it can go in block two.

[00:05:51]And then kind of go back and look at the impact on that. Once you made those solves, you can see that you now have a one and five here, one there. The one's got to be there, displace in that five. And the only place left for seven to go is right there in block eight. And now go back up here to this scene of the crime. Well, that's got to be your six now. That's got to be your seven. You make all of those solves so quickly by going back and revisiting those breakthrough points.

[00:06:23]And what it does here in block five is now the seven and eight are restricted to these two cells.

[00:06:29]And then in block four, this can only be a five and a seven. So, you know now the sevens have to be in rows four and six in blocks four and five. So, where can the seven be now?

[00:06:42]In row five. Can't be here.

[00:06:45]Can't be here cuz there's seven eight or the seven there. So, this has to be your seven. You can solve that right away.

[00:06:50]And then you can finish the row cuz the only digit remaining is eight nine. So, you get all those solves very quickly.

[00:06:59]And then you can finish up with the sevens. With these sevens and knowing the sevens have to be in one of these cells, you can mark sevens in block one.

[00:07:07]And then with these sevens and this seven, you can mark sevens right here.

[00:07:10]Because you did more solves, you get more marking, more information.

[00:07:15]You're moved a lot further along in this puzzle.

[00:07:19]Okay, after the sevens, you can look at the eights.

[00:07:22]And besides the seven eight there, nothing else you can do with the eights.

[00:07:25]Move on to the nines.

[00:07:27]And what you might notice is now with this nine, you can clean up the three nine here.

[00:07:33]You can finish this block here. And this is uh kind of brings you up to like the second part of my five-step solving method. The first method, the first part and step is to go through digit restrictions one to nine. Now that you're at the nines, you want to go back through, see if there's any easy solves.

[00:07:51]So, you notice you got the three nine there. With this three, look at the impact. You can displace the three right there, solve this for a three in block six.

[00:08:02]And then in block five, you can mark the five and six.

[00:08:06]Make a pair. But that's about it unless you see the next step, which involves hidden pairs. And before I show you that, I want you to know you may be able to find it easy to solve puzzles like this by joining the Smarty Party and getting the rest of this pack. Like this Smarty Party member said, you can use these packs to develop new solving skills that will help to mentally improve your brain for up to 20 years. Click on the pinned comment to learn more.

[00:08:37]And so far, I've showed you the easier hidden pairs to find, the ones that are within one block. So, like the six and the nine right there. And what you do with the three nine here, the six seven up here.

[00:08:50]But tip five requires you to shift your focus from block to row column. Now you want to look for restrictions across an entire row or column. These are the harder hidden pairs to find. I'll show you what I'm talking about. Row three has five digits filled out. 1 6 7 8 9.

[00:09:11]So, I call it a heavy house, at least five cells filled out.

[00:09:14]You're going to have more restriction in a heavy house than one that's not a heavy house. Notice that you have a two four looks at this cell.

[00:09:22]And a two four looks at that cell. Using a little double scanning, you'll notice where can the two four be in row three?

[00:09:28]Well, they can only be in these two cells right there. And I'll highlight that in red.

[00:09:34]Well now, notice the symmetry in this puzzle.

[00:09:38]You have the five digits here in row seven. You also have that two four and that two four. Where can the two four be in row seven?

[00:09:45]Can only be in these two cells. So, that makes it a hidden pair. So, nothing else can be in these two cells, otherwise you wouldn't have enough room to put the two and the four. So, you can eliminate all of possibilities. And this is absolutely brilliant when you put these together cuz now what you notice is you have a 2 4 hidden pair here and here, but it creates a 2 4 naked pair in column one and a 2 4 naked pair in column nine.

[00:10:11]I've only seen this in one other puzzle before. This is beautiful. It actually acts like an X-wing, a much more complicated strategy because you know, if this is a four the twos have to be there and that has to be a four. But if this is a two the fours would have to be there and that would be a two. So now you can eliminate twos and fours from all of these cells in the puzzle. And so what does that mean? Well, use this 2 4 here and use this 2 4 cut across, you know this can't be a two or a four because of the naked pair, where can the 2 4 be in this puzzle? In this block, it can be there or right there. You You create another hidden pair, right? You know the two and four cannot be in this cell anymore. One of them has to be here, the other has to be there.

[00:10:58]And do the same thing with this 2 4 and this 2 4 you know a 2 4 cannot be here because it has to be one of these red cells.

[00:11:07]You create another hidden pair 2 4 across row one.

[00:11:11]So the two and four would have to be in these two cells. This is beautiful. And you have to consider the impact of this.

[00:11:18]You might be wondering, can you do the 2 4 down here in row nine? The answer is no because you have a two in row eight and a four in row nine. So you can look for it, but it's not quite there. However, I'm going to show you the next solve.

[00:11:30]Notice now because you have these two fours, these two fours what ends up being in these cells? You have a 3 5 here.

[00:11:41]And then you have a 5 8 remaining in here. It's a naked pair.

[00:11:44]Well, with this five cutting across and this five coming up and a five can't be there anymore you end up with a nice pointing pair of fives here in block three. The five has to be here or there.

[00:11:57]So five cannot be anywhere else in this column. You cannot have a five there anymore. Once you have a five there, you have no place to put a five in block three. So now you can solve this four and eight. And now it's going to lead to a bunch of solves. Eight and a five there means that has to be your three, that has to be your five displacing three, displacing the six, and you see all the solves you get. Now I need to go back to the other strategies, other tips I've been giving you to figure out next solves. Go from easiest to hardest and see where else you can go after making some of these solves. For example, with these fives and this five, little crosshatching tell you this has to be a five.

[00:12:34]And now with this two and this two and remembering with the 2 4 naked pair, a two can't be here, where can the two be in block nine? It has to be right there, right?

[00:12:46]Because one of the two and four have to be in these red cells. So that is going to be your two in block nine and now you can solve all these red cells. That's a four, that's a two, that's a four, that's a two and that is your four. So let's get rid of those colors and you want to see where you can move on to in the next part of the solving cuz you still got to solve this green cell, right?

[00:13:10]And so after doing all the twos and fours you'll notice that you can look at the threes.

[00:13:21]Okay? You got a three here three there, got the three there.

[00:13:25]You know this three can displace the three here and solve for a three right there. So easier than filling out cells is to see if you can attack some of these marks that you've made.

[00:13:34]And after doing the three in block seven you might notice here you have pretty heavy house in column three.

[00:13:41]You have a three, four, you have the five seven there, a six and a nine, you just need a one two and eight. Well, if you notice the two and eight both see this cell and the two repeats here, you can solve all three using my neat naked triple trick.

[00:13:53]This has to be a one, the only place is a two goes right there and this is going to be your eight. Beautiful stuff.

[00:14:01]Now where do you want to go? Go back to block seven. Remember, go back to seeing the crime. You have a 6 7 8 here.

[00:14:06]Well, you see that the two eights can mean a six and eight can only go right there which will displace your six and allow you to solve this cell now for a seven. Okay.

[00:14:20]You create a restriction across row eight and nine. Well, you can displace the seven now, solve this for a seven.

[00:14:27]And now you're solving more than one cell at a time, so it's beautiful. What do you have remaining in row eight? You just need a four and a nine. Well, pull the pull that four down, solve this for a four, solve this for a nine.

[00:14:38]All right.

[00:14:39]And now what you have left here is a one and a six. We'll pull the six down.

[00:14:44]There's your six, there's your one. And now you can immediately look and hunt down that mark and solve that for a one. And then if you notice now in column seven, you have a 1 2 3 4 5 6 7, you need eight and a nine. Well, with this eight right there, you know that's the eight and that's going to be your nine. And now you can solve for the nine here in block six and you can solve, it looks like a one and an eight up there. Just pull that eight up.

[00:15:09]There's your eight and there is your one. And now with these ones you can solve for the one there displacing that seven. And then what do you have left up here? Five and a nine.

[00:15:18]Well, with this five solve for the five right there displacing that nine. Now it's time to solve this green cell.

[00:15:25]Since you solved this nine right here, you know the nine can only go here in block four and your green cell is going to be a six. So I just gave you 20% of the solution to my puzzle pack right here. Click on the pinned comment, get the rest of this pack and stop guessing on Sudoku forever.

[00:15:45]Follow this up now with this six.

[00:15:47]This is your six, that's going to be your five.

[00:15:50]There's your five, there's your seven.

[00:15:52]Here's your seven and your last cell is an eight.

[00:15:57]Now challenge yourself to use the five tips I just gave you to solve this next puzzle without guessing.

[00:16:03]Thank you so much for watching.