Sudoku solution – Los Angeles Times 9 May 2026 Expert level sudoku

Added: 2026-05-09

[00:00:03][music] [music] >> Hello fellow Sudoku ins. Welcome to Zen and the Art of the Guardian Sudoku puzzle. It's [snorts] Saturday the 9th of May 2026. I hope you are keeping well enjoying life as best you possibly can.

[00:00:20]Uh evening time here in Bangkok. Daytime there in Moscow. Red Square particularly where they will be having the uh 9th of May Victory Day parade in Russia. Uh historically an interesting parade, you know, because it was there of course to celebrate the victory over Nazi Germany.

[00:00:41]You know, younger people often remember or learn that America stepped in to win the war at the end.

[00:00:48]Uh but without the Russian fighting Germany from the East, they probably wouldn't have probably wouldn't have happened.

[00:00:55]>> [clears throat] >> And the Victory Day parade was there to celebrate uh as I say the the win over Nazi Germany. Uh but of late Putin has taken over the taken it over and used it for his own propaganda purposes.

[00:01:09]Uh they don't mention anything about it when they got their asses kicked in Afghanistan though.

[00:01:13]>> [laughter] >> We'll forget that. We'll conveniently forget that.

[00:01:17]Um by the Mujahideen.

[00:01:20]Uh um now uh Trump begged Zelenskyy not to fire any drones on the Victory Day parade of course for his buddy Putin. I really want to live long enough to find out what it is that they have on Trump.

[00:01:34]I just I mean I guess that it's financial. It's just that he owes so much money to the Russian mob.

[00:01:40]Uh I presume that's it, but it could be some other form of compromat and I would just love to know what it is before I before I die before I shuffle off this mortal coil. I want to know I want to know um what did Putin have over Trump?

[00:01:55]Uh whatever it was.

[00:01:57]I just want to know what it was.

[00:02:00]Uh, anyway, so Zelensky has agreed to us to a 3-day ceasefire just to uh, let them have the uh, celebration. Uh, I don't know if that's a good idea actually. Maybe it would have been a good idea to send a few drones across. There have been drones attacking Moscow in fact.

[00:02:16]Uh, some parts of Moscow. So, uh, it's not impossible for them to do that.

[00:02:21]Anyway, let's see how it works out.

[00:02:24]Shall we get on with our game of Sudoku then? This is the Los Angeles Times expert level puzzle. We're going to start with digit one blocking down here, down there, giving me a one here, one across here, one across there, one down there. And giving me a one in that square there.

[00:02:40]Any more for any more?

[00:02:51]>> [snorts] >> Seven's blocking down like so.

[00:03:06]>> [snorts] >> Six blocking down here.

[00:03:23]Missing digits there, two and nine.

[00:03:36]>> [snorts] >> And we've got three blocking this square, three blocking this square. So, that's a three.

[00:03:49]And the missing numbers there have to be four and eight.

[00:04:17]Okay, we're looking for 2 3 7 in the bottom uh a row there and two and seven attack this square here, so that should be a three.

[00:04:28]Take threes northwards.

[00:04:38]Uh and like I say, we've got two and seven over here if that's useful or not, I don't know, but that's what we've got.

[00:05:27]All right, I think I'm stuck in the mud, so let's uh see what we can do by clicking on the numbers in order and going, "Oh, look at that."

[00:06:19]>> Mhm.

[00:06:21]Okay, well we see where the sixes go.

[00:06:42]Mhm.

[00:06:56]Uh okay, nine is in one of these empty squares here, so we block that square there. Nine blocking there, nine blocking there, nine blocking there, so that'll be a nine there.

[00:07:07]And nine down and across here, across here, and of course in one of those empty squares makes that the nine.

[00:07:39]Five blocking up here across there.

[00:07:45]So, five and six in the top two rows means that that's a pair of five and six in those squares.

[00:07:51]And these squares can't be five or six.

[00:07:53]They must be uh four and eight. And they can be, I think. Don't know any reason why they're not.

[00:08:03]It also means that that's got to be a pair of four and eights as well because we already know what goes there, two and nine.

[00:08:10]And I believe it can be four or eight, so that seems to be in order.

[00:08:17]Uh certainly we'll have two in one of these squares. We've got two blocking across here, so two in one of those squares blocking back two up there.

[00:08:30]>> [snorts] >> Mhm.

[00:11:43]>> [snorts] >> Uh we've got one blocking like this, so we've got a pair of ones there. We've got sevens. Oh, actually we have one and seven in the same in those rows. I didn't realize that.

[00:12:12]Same difference. We've still got the same thing. We've got one and seven up here, so that's a pair of one and seven.

[00:12:18]Uh does it help? Don't know, but that's one and seven, so this is 4 8 9.

[00:12:26]So, yes. So, now we know that nine uh can't be in those squares, so that's the nine there.

[00:12:38]And we'll be left with 4 8 in those squares, like so.

[00:12:50]That's the 4 8, isn't it?

[00:13:29]There we get a nine there. So, we've got five and six in those squares, so four eight in those squares there.

[00:14:22]Don't have any completed digits yet.

[00:15:48]>> [sighs] >> Oh dear.

[00:16:56]Okay, I think I've got a pair here.

[00:16:58]Uh now, two and six are in this block here, right? So, that can't be two or six. We've got two and six blocking this square.

[00:17:05]And we've got the six up here, and two is in one of these empty squares blocking there. So, we've got a pair of two and six in those squares, right? Now, what can we say now that we know that's two and six?

[00:17:17]uh it means that this square, this square, and this square are not two or six.

[00:17:22]They are four, five, eight.

[00:17:35]Uh thanks for nothing.

[00:17:37]>> [laughter] >> Uh 4 5 8, but I don't think I can get anything there, can I?

[00:17:51]No.

[00:18:00]Oh, damn. So frustrating.

[00:18:13]Annoying when you think you've found something and you don't get it.

[00:18:20]Um so, I think I'm going to go ahead and put in the pencil marks because otherwise I should be here could be here for a long time. So, I will do that again. Now, what did I say? 6 2 in that square and 6 2 in that square.

[00:18:33]So, that's a pair of six and two. Let's do that. Two and six. So, that's at least one by value cell that we've got. Now, we've got five [snorts] and six over here. We've got, of course, our four eights all over the shop. One and seven here.

[00:18:48]4 8 there, there, there, and there.

[00:18:53]And uh 4 8 in this square as well.

[00:18:58]Let's just put that in.

[00:18:59]Because this is two and nine.

[00:19:06]And we have a pair of twos up there as well.

[00:19:12]And in fact, we have four in that square we have eight in that square.

[00:19:18]So the top [clears throat] sheet is already finished.

[00:19:21]Uh for candidates.

[00:19:23]Uh and what else do we know? We got a pair of ones down here. We've got Uh what else do we have? Something else.

[00:19:34]Two and seven over there.

[00:19:40]And [groaning] uh So what else? Threes in these squares.

[00:19:58]Got to remember not to overwrite this cell.

[00:20:01]Or this one.

[00:20:02]Got to remember not to overwrite them.

[00:20:05]Uh we've got eight blocking here so that's going to be four or five, isn't it?

[00:20:11]Try to remember that as well. So I'm going to put four, five, and eight here.

[00:20:15]So then I know that that row I mustn't touch that row.

[00:20:19]Don't let me touch that row. Don't touch that dial.

[00:20:22]Uh because my memory is so poor I'm likely to over forget it. Now we don't have any completed digits as I said.

[00:20:29]So let's see. Um can we do any more?

[00:20:31]We've got twos down there.

[00:20:44]Threes done, isn't it? Four.

[00:20:50]That could be a four.

[00:21:03]Four across there. Oh sorry, not there.

[00:21:14]Okay, that's a pair of fives now. I was going to I mustn't put the five there cuz that's two or six only.

[00:21:33]You could be a six.

[00:21:38]You could be a six.

[00:21:40]You could be a pair of sixes.

[00:22:23]All right. Now, did I discover anything really good there? I don't know.

[00:22:32]Uh not sure. So, I've done by values. Those that I am sure of.

[00:22:38]But, I haven't seen it. I don't seem to have finished it.

[00:22:45]Uh So, I shall go ahead and do a bit more.

[00:22:53]So, now the five uh and the eight can both go in those squares, can't it not? We got four sorted out already, but I think five and eight can also go in those squares there. Five and eight go there.

[00:23:09]Right now, on this right hand side uh let's see what else. One digit two is not complete yet. So, we've got two blocking across here. So, two could also appear in those squares there.

[00:23:24]Three, four blocks up here like this. Now, it can't We know it can't We forget have to forget about those for a moment, but four can go there.

[00:23:36]Five is done.

[00:23:38]Six is done. Seven is done.

[00:23:43]Eight blocks up here. So, eight could be in those squares as well.

[00:23:49]And that's That right hand side is sorted out. 2 7 8 2 7 2 4 5 6 2 9 4 8. Yeah, so the right hand side is sorted out. The top sheet is sorted. The right hand side is sorted.

[00:24:00]Let's work on this uh block down here. 1 2 3 4 5. Hello, digit five. What do you want to tell us?

[00:24:09]Nothing, really.

[00:24:13]Six blocks down there.

[00:24:20]Uh So, again, nothing new.

[00:24:28]All right.

[00:24:28]>> [sighs and gasps] >> So, this block called that block much of a muchness, I think.

[00:24:33]We've got two blocking down here and two blocking across here. So, two can still appear in those squares there.

[00:24:42]Three is done.

[00:24:44]Uh four Uh four blocks down here like this. And of course, we mustn't do anything about this row here.

[00:24:55]So, four can still go in those squares there.

[00:24:59]Five blocks down here, and again, we're not concerned with that.

[00:25:05]So, five there.

[00:25:07]Six is done.

[00:25:09]Seven blocks across here like this.

[00:25:15]And eight, nine are done.

[00:25:20]>> [sighs] >> Uh Okay, so the last block down here then.

[00:25:27]So, we've got ones in those squares there. Well, how are we doing on five?

[00:25:35]Five blocks like this.

[00:25:43]And I think that's it. One, two, three Have we done anything two, three?

[00:25:51]Four Yes, five is okay.

[00:25:57]Six, seven eight and nine. Yeah, so okay, so finally in the last block that we look in, we get our digit six.

[00:26:05]And that'll give us a three there.

[00:26:08]And a three there.

[00:26:09]And that's our first completed digit.

[00:26:11]Well done, digit three.

[00:26:15]Two, seven four, eight. Okay, that seems to be okay.

[00:26:21]>> [sighs] >> Right, where's the rest of you then?

[00:26:34]Should we click on the numbers and see if anything comes to mind?

[00:26:38]Might help out a little bit.

[00:27:11]>> Ah, here we go. I've just seen it. We've got a pair of one and five in this row.

[00:27:15]So, that has to be the nine.

[00:27:18]Which gives us a nine over here and a two there.

[00:27:21]And a two there.

[00:27:24]And we'll remove candidate two from there.

[00:27:29]And we've got our pair of one five, so this has to be a six.

[00:27:34]Which gives a six there, five there.

[00:27:48]This is the only seven in this column.

[00:28:10]>> [sighs] >> All right, where are we now?

[00:28:23]Let's get rid of the six there. Let's get rid of the one there.

[00:28:27]So, we're left with five eight.

[00:28:32]Uh, one is finished. How about twos? What do we know?

[00:28:39]Not quite enough for >> Go and get rid of that seven.

[00:29:12]We've got an eight here, so this must be a six.

[00:29:23]Get rid of the six there.

[00:29:28]All right.

[00:29:29]>> [sighs] >> Finally get our fours and eights sorted out.

[00:30:18]And ending up with the fours and the fives around everywhere. What am I doing? Oh, something at the bottom here.

[00:30:24]There we go.

[00:30:25]Uh, took me a long time to play that.

[00:30:28]Sorry about the uh long game there, but um I should have probably gone for pencil marks a bit earlier.

[00:30:35]Anyway, that's it. Thanks for joining me today. Take care. Bye-bye.