Sudoku solution – New York Times 20 July 2026 Hard level sudoku

[00:00:03][music] [music] Hello fellow sodokans and welcome to Zen and the art of the guardian sedoku puzzle. It's Monday the 20th of July 2026. I hope you are keeping well, enjoying life, ready for a hard week ahead or an easy week ahead whichever the case may be. And uh we're playing the New York Times Sodoku puzzle and it is the New York Times that I want to mention today uh because they have uploaded an interview that they did with Zoran Mandani uh candidate that they tried everything they could to uh not get him chosen as New York mayor. Uh but they have interviewed him after he has become mayor and it's a reasonable interview. It's very long actually. Um but you could watch parts of it I think and uh it's quite interesting in many ways. Uh he's again a brilliant interviewee. I think he's just such an excellent performer for media. Talks common sense and uh you know logical and in a logical fashion which is always good for a Sudoku channel, right? We want we're interested in logic here. And um yeah, so a good performance I think there. kind of note. One interesting note is that uh the interviewer asked him about uh his previous uh mention that if uh um um BB Netanyahu tries to come to uh New York that he should be arrested and uh because apparently uh Netanyahu said he's going to go to the UN. And I thought his answer was uh as best as could be. He said he would try every he would you know consult with the team of lawyers and consider every possibility but of course while staying within the law uh that staying within the law so whatever the law allows him to do. So it may be that there's a way to arrest him uh or it may not be a way there's that that he can arrest that you know that New York could arrest Netanyahu if he arrives in uh New York.

[00:02:09]interesting point. If he does, uh, let's hope he is. Of course, Trump will try everything he can to protect him. That's the problem. Um, you know, as I've said yesterday about birds of a feather flocking together, uh, when it comes to war criminals, sex criminals, they all love each other. Let's get on with the game of Sedoku, then. This is a New York Times uh, hard level puzzle. I think I've got something going on with digit eight here.

[00:02:37]I have indeed got an eight in that square there and eight across here and across there.

[00:02:50]Eight blocking like this.

[00:03:04]H I think we might even be able to put it out of its misery.

[00:03:11]Can indeed. That was the last digit.

[00:03:13]Eight. Okay, good. That was a good good number to start with, wasn't it?

[00:04:19]Nothing is looking immediately great.

[00:04:22]So, I can see we have threes in those squares and those squares.

[00:06:46]I think that's part of the movie where we came in, isn't it? Five.

[00:06:50]Oh, no. Maybe not.

[00:06:53]Five blocks up here. So, we got five in one of these two squares blocking across. Oh no, it's not enough.

[00:07:02]Oh, it is.

[00:07:04]Five is in. Let's try that again. Five blocks up here. Five is in one of these two squares blocking across. Five down, five up there. Gives me five in that square.

[00:07:16]Okay, it just leaves me with fives there.

[00:07:45]Okay, now we got three blocking this square, this square, and this square.

[00:07:49]So, we get three in that square.

[00:10:24]Let me shift around on the chair so I'm more comfortable.

[00:13:47]I think I'm going nowhere with this.

[00:13:56]If there's a pair there, I haven't spotted it, as is often the case, of course.

[00:14:38]six is being very unfriendly today.

[00:14:44]I think I'm going to put in the pencil marks now.

[00:14:49]I am going to do that. Okay, let's put in the one and the six that go in these squares here.

[00:14:55]Uh, let's put in the one blocking up here. So, one in those squares there.

[00:14:59]One in those squares there.

[00:15:04]One somewhere across there.

[00:15:07]Two blocking up and across here gives me a pair of twos in those squares there.

[00:15:13]Two blocking down here means that's the twos there or there. And twos up here in those squares there. Two is somewhere here.

[00:15:24]Threes are like this.

[00:15:34]Four. What do we know?

[00:15:39]Pair there.

[00:15:44]Fives are here and there.

[00:15:53]Six is pretty awful.

[00:16:03]Pair of sevens in these squares and pair of sevens up there and another pair up there.

[00:16:17]And all we're left with is nine, which goes in those squares there.

[00:16:27]There. Somewhere down here.

[00:16:31]Uh, am I missing something else here?

[00:16:32]Yeah, twos. I need to put in these squares here as well.

[00:16:45]That dear Sudokans I think is about all I can do in terms of pairs. Um six has been very ugly. Uh let's just go up here because I've got a lot of candidates here already. So, one, two, three, four.

[00:17:14]Seven. Oh, I think we've got a single six here.

[00:17:18]Is this a six?

[00:17:23]Uh, yeah, we got Yes, that's a six because we got seven, eight, nine already. Okay, so I found a single there. That's good. Hopefully that'll take us a bit further before we need to add too many more candidates. We might be okay here. Six now blocking and six now a pair in those squares. And we get six. Oops, sorry. In that square there.

[00:17:51]And a pair of sixes up here. That's much nicer. And we've got a one here already.

[00:17:56]This has got to be a pair of sixes, hasn't it? Has it? Yeah. Six blocking across there. Across there. So, that's now a pair of six and two. And so, this is going to be our nine.

[00:18:09]And we can get rid of the candidate nines there.

[00:18:15]Nine blocking up gives us a pair of nines where we have a pair of twos. And so, makes this square not two or nine.

[00:18:21]It must be a four. And then down here for the one.

[00:18:26]and a pair of ones in those squares there.

[00:18:30]Have we finished this block? One, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine. We have. So that's got to be a nine.

[00:18:39]And that will give us nine blocking up here, up here, and across there makes that nine.

[00:18:46]And we end up with a pair of nines at the top there. And we can remove this candidate nine.

[00:18:55]And uh not quite so daunting I think.

[00:19:02]See if we can find any more.

[00:19:06]Remember the only block that I've filled in all candidates is this one here. So everything else is incomplete at the moment. Got to be careful of that. I've got two six down here. So actually I can say that this must be a four, mustn't it?

[00:19:21]Okay.

[00:19:47]Got a pair of fives in those squares now.

[00:19:55]A pair of sixes up here.

[00:20:07]Okay, so our pair work is done now. Um, how are we doing over here? Uh, four blocks here and there. So, that must be the four for this row. Let's put it in.

[00:20:18]And then we know we've got two in here and we can get rid of candidate fours.

[00:20:23]This block is done now. So that's got to be a seven in fact.

[00:20:28]So we get rid of the seven there. We get rid of the four there.

[00:20:37]And up here we can place a two.

[00:20:42]So two blocking across and across that way gives me two in that square. And we can take away that candidate too. Don't need it.

[00:20:58]One blocking up here gives us a pair of gives us a one in this square here, I should say. And so not there.

[00:21:07]Uh I see five blocking across. So that's our five.

[00:21:11]And this is indeed a three.

[00:21:15]and five blocks down here up there. So that's for sure five and this is not.

[00:21:27]We have two blocking down here. So that can't be a two. And I think this block is complete, isn't it? So that's got to be a four.

[00:21:38]And that's our one.

[00:21:40]Seven goes there. Four is in this square.

[00:21:45]Seven there and a removal of a candidate there.

[00:22:08]Threes are in those squares.

[00:22:15]Four blocks up here and across there.

[00:22:16]That gives us a pair of fours there.

[00:22:20][clears throat] Fours in those squares as well.

[00:22:25]Fives are there.

[00:22:35]That's the only slot for a seven. Now seven across.

[00:22:41]across there up there.

[00:22:44][clears throat and cough] Excuse me.

[00:22:45]Gives me seven there and a nine and a four.

[00:22:54]Like I say, I haven't completed all of the candidates, but um still trying to keep it keep it to a minimum if I can. Six. We still need to fill in.

[00:23:06]Uh let's start again with one. Any news?

[00:23:09]That's the missing digit here. Let's put it in.

[00:23:13]That's all done. Two.

[00:23:18]Two is the missing digit in this block.

[00:23:20]Let's put it in.

[00:23:23]Uh so we end up with a unique rectangle of two six. And then that's going to be our three there.

[00:23:30]So that's our two. That's our six. Two in that square. Six over here.

[00:24:04]and six to finish. So, uh once you spot that single, uh you're all right. You're laughing because that is the block that gives the everything else. Thanks for joining me today. I'll see you around.

[00:24:15]Take care. Bye-bye.