Sudoku solution – Der Spiegel 19 July 2026 Medium level sudoku

[00:00:03][music] [music] Hello fellow Sudokans. Welcome to Zen and the Art of the Guardian Sudoku puzzle. It's Sunday the 19th of July 2026. I hope you are keeping well. It's super early in the morning here in Bangkok, but I'm off for a morning appointment at hospital quite early. So, um, but I I figured I'd get in a medium level game of Sodoku before I left. So, one that shouldn't take too long. Let's hope it I can get this one done fairly quickly. At least there's something for people to play along with. Uh, and it's the uh Durbigle medium level game I'm playing in the moment. Uh, what's going on in the UK?

[00:00:47]Um, which do you think would waste more?

[00:00:49]Which do you think would save more water? A hose pipe ban or stopping all of the leaks that are caused by the water companies? Uh, yes, you guessed it. How much more? Five times five times more water is wasted by water companies leaking pipes than uh could be saved uh through a hose pipe ban. Once again, you know, probably the government will ask for a hose pipe ban because it or local authorities will ask for a host pipe ban because it, you know, the the the little person is always blamed and the onus is often put on that uh smaller person. Uh the individual uh it's the case with so many things. I mean, we're asked to save, you know, turn off lights and stuff like that. It's not that that's not it's not that that's a bad thing to do. Um it is a good thing to do but when you compare with the waste the industry has etc. Uh it's always massively outsized that's the way life is.

[00:01:50]Shall we get on with our game of sodoku then?

[00:01:54]There's a completely one er area in the middle but there are a lot of digits around. So I think we'll just take them as as they come one by one.

[00:02:16]somewhere. There's got to be the first number.

[00:02:24]Is this it?

[00:02:26]I think we've got enough threes blocking across and up and down to get ourselves a three there.

[00:03:01]Six and eight block across here. That puts six and eight into those squares.

[00:03:05]Leaves me with a nine here.

[00:03:14]Seven blocks this square. We need seven in this row. So that's the seven. This has to be a four.

[00:03:22]Four blocking across will give us four in that square. And the missing digit here is a two.

[00:04:12]Uh, so I've got a pair of two and seven in this column and this column. They block down here like this and a two and seven across there. So we've got a pair of two and seven in those squares there.

[00:04:24]Uh, how does it help?

[00:04:47]Not sure. [snorts] There's probably something even easier to be had somewhere.

[00:05:03]Oh, maybe not.

[00:05:06]Maybe.

[00:05:10]Nine like this. Nine blocking like this and nine down there.

[00:05:15]And then nine to the top.

[00:05:21]It should be the last digit. Nine, I think.

[00:05:27]No, it's not. Oh, we've got one in the middle still.

[00:05:35]That was the last digit nine. We'll start again because I think all we should really need to do here is just play the simple digits.

[00:05:44]Uh it is a medium level game. Um like I said though, you know, I need to play something easy here.

[00:06:07]Okay, we got one blocking across here and down here. So, one is in one of these two squares here, blocking across.

[00:06:13]One blocking across there, one blocking down there. That has to be a one. One blocking up here, up here, across there.

[00:06:21]There's a one. One across here, across there, up there, giving me one in that square. One to the bottom.

[00:06:29]Should be the last one. No, it's not the last one.

[00:06:33]here again in the middle.

[00:06:37]That was the last one.

[00:07:06]Okay. So, threes.

[00:07:20]Five blocks like this. So, five is in one of these two squares blocking across. Five blocking across there. That has to be a five.

[00:07:43]Six there. Eight there.

[00:07:46]Make cross and up here.

[00:07:49]I think that's probably the end of the game. Let's see. We need seven there.

[00:07:53]What do we need here?

[00:07:55]uh two and we need one thing up here which is eight.

[00:08:02]That means we over here we need a four and it means four blocks. Oh, let's just do this one actually. Uh eight again I think.

[00:08:12]And we've got four blocking down here and across there and four blocking up like this.

[00:08:26]which is the last digit four.

[00:08:32]Uh down here, what are we looking for?

[00:08:33]Seven. Okay, seven blocking across and across.

[00:08:41]Seven blocking up here. That's our seven. This is our two.

[00:08:47]Seven blocking across gives seven in that square there. back over here for uh an eight and eight blocking across. So, this is really like a beginner's game. I thought it might be a bit more difficult than this, but that's okay. Something just to wake me up, get me ready for my hospital visit.

[00:09:12]And this is uh five five blocking down there. There's a five.

[00:09:20]And this is uh half a dozen.

[00:09:25]And what are we left with? Five in that square and eight in that square. So that's a sub 10-minute game as usual. Uh thanks for joining me today. Uh I'll hopefully I'll be able to play something later on in the afternoon today. Take care. Bye-bye.