Sudoku solution – New York Times 28 May 2026 Hard level sudoku

Added: 2026-05-28

[00:00:09]Hello fellow Sudokans. Welcome to Zen and the Art of the Guardian Sudoku puzzle. It's Thursday the 28th of May 2026.

[00:00:19]My cat Joanie is hiding uh behind the desk where it's very difficult for me to get him out. um which because he knows that he's going to hospital today and uh he always hates that and so he tries to run away. Uh but the main reason he's hiding is because he saw me putting up a new bottle of uh um saline. I have to give him saline infusions every day.

[00:00:44]Some days I forget, I must admit. But he uh um usually most days of the week he gets in uh saline infusion.

[00:00:51]And uh when the bottle runs out I have to change the bottle right for a new one. And when he sees that, he runs away and hides. So I think he but he does know also that he hasn't been to the hospital for some time and it's been long enough and he has to go today. So he's hiding away. But I'm hoping he might come up since he hates Sudoku. We have a if he hates Sudoku enough, he'll come up and try to disturb my game. So I've left the door open in the hopes that it will come up and disturb the game. If he does, I might stop the game and go and give him his infusion just because it's the only way I can get a hold of him.

[00:01:26]Right.

[00:01:29]Um, who's not not taking fluids or who's taking only fluids? Uh, possibly uh in people in ICE detention in um New Jersey. So, since we're playing the New York Times Sodoku puzzle, we should be quite close by and talk about something going on in the neighboring uh area of New New Jersey. Uh the ICE enforcement agents have uh um pepper- sprrayed a Senator Andy Kim. Well, they did that yesterday or so. And uh they hunger strike is going on. Uh hunger and labor strike. Yes, you heard that right. Labor strike. Because American prisons are run for profit and big companies make a hell of a lot of money out of prisons. One of the reasons why America likes to imprison so many people is private profit. Private profit makes a lot of money from this. Uh that particular one in New York is owned by Geo Group, one of the biggest uh prison companies in the US. They make a fortune out of it.

[00:02:33]Absolute fortune. Um so uh go ahead with your hunger protests and labor protests and people outside protest. Uh these things are no better than concentration camps uh that they have set up across the US. Now the detention camps they are vile vile places. Uh people are dying from uh poor uh sanitation and poor nutrition and stuff like that across the US.

[00:03:02]So, it's time to uh uh close those places and you know get get the uh policies reversed. I know it's not easy, but you got to try everything you can to do so if you are American.

[00:03:16]All right, shall we get on with our game of Sodoka then? Let's turn to the grid and see what we can see. First thing that hits me as soon as I look at the grid is that we have sevens blocking across here and up here. This is New York Times hard level puzzle, of course.

[00:03:35]We have seven blocking this square, blocking this square. And over here, I can see that seven is going to continue down. So, seven is either here or here.

[00:03:42]That can't be a seven. That must be a seven there.

[00:04:56]Uh, three blocking across here. So, three is in one of these squares blocking back and three down here down there.

[00:05:22]Six and eight are in this block here.

[00:05:24]And we don't have six or eight in this row yet. So it means they're going to be in those two squares there. That has to be a pair of six and eight.

[00:05:32]So what does it mean over here? It means one. Okay, so we got the one there and uh not six or eight. So that's a nine.

[00:05:44]And then if this is six and eight, these squares are 15 9.

[00:05:58]Okay, over here we've got five and two.

[00:06:18]uh this is eight and nine I think eight's there nine's there yeah one this is a pair of one and nine yeah that's six and eight uh so what are we left with over here we've got eight nine so this is three 4 six I think.

[00:06:41]Okay.

[00:09:15]Yawning again.

[00:11:17]Uh, well, I'm not seeing anything, but it's a very empty grid, so I'd prefer I wish I could see something because uh there's going to be a lot of candidates if I start at this point.

[00:11:50]Um but I can't sit here forever. So I better put in some pencil marks then. So we'll have six and eight in those squares. We'll have one and nine in these squares. We'll have eight and nine over here. And we'll have whatever's left here, which is the threes in those squares, the sixes in those squares, and the fours anywhere.

[00:12:13]Uh, now we've got eight blocking here.

[00:12:15]So, we've got a pair of eights in those squares there.

[00:12:20]What else do I know? Uh, we've got ones up here.

[00:12:24]We got ones in those squares there.

[00:12:28]Ones are somewhere there.

[00:13:31]Oh, sorry.

[00:13:34]Where am I going to put it? There it is.

[00:13:36]Sorry.

[00:13:58]Well, I was hoping it was going to reveal pairs that I had just had overlooked, but it didn't do that, did it? There really aren't that many pairs going on there available. So, that's a shame. Of course, there's nothing down here for me to do yet. So, uh, shall we go up the right hand side? Seems to be slightly more populated.

[00:14:22]Uh, what are we looking for? Four. Any news on four? No.

[00:14:29]Eight.

[00:14:32]No.

[00:14:36]Nine.

[00:14:40]That should be it, right? 47 89 47.

[00:14:43]Okay. And then up here, three blocks like this. Oh, I forgot to put in a pair there.

[00:14:52]Four, six, eight.

[00:15:38]Nope.

[00:16:04]Ah, have we got a six here?

[00:16:09]I think we have. I think this is a six, isn't it? Let's see if we've got everything. One, uh, two. Yes. Three, four, five, six, seven, eight, and nine. Yes. Okay. So, we've got six in this square here.

[00:16:22]That's good.

[00:16:27]And it'll give me a pair of sixes over there as well. It means that this is a six and this is an eight. Now, so that's two.

[00:16:40]Six will be up there somewhere.

[00:16:45]And the twos go there.

[00:16:48]Now that means 48 here. So this has to be a 48. It can't be eight here, can it?

[00:16:52]So that's the eight and that's the four and four blocking up and four blocking up here and four across there. There's a four.

[00:17:03]So this can't be a four.

[00:17:22]This is one nine. So that's going to be a one nine pair up there as well.

[00:17:41]Pair of twos there now. So and a pair of twos there.

[00:18:19]eight blocking up and up and across here. So that means we can place an eight in that square. And it means that this square here can't be an eight.

[00:19:20]Okay. So, let's go ahead and finish off the candidates then. Uh, this is done.

[00:19:25]Is it 1457? Yeah, that is done. Um, so over here, uh, five. What do we know?

[00:19:32]Five plucking up there.

[00:19:39]and nine can go in those squares there. So, it looks like we've got five here. One, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine. Yes, we have. So, that's a five there.

[00:19:53]So, we can get rid of all of these fives.

[00:19:56]And that gives us a seven and a four.

[00:20:01]And we get rid of the seven. And we get rid of the four and we end up with a pair of one and five.

[00:20:18]Four. Seven has to go.

[00:20:23]This is the only place for a seven now in this block.

[00:20:28]And that's our first completed digit. 4 8 9. We got a pair of eight and nine here now. So we can get rid of that nine and we end up with three and four in that column.

[00:20:54]Five here. That can't be a five.

[00:20:58]That must be the five.

[00:21:03]Five blocking like this gives us five in this square there. One there and possible ones. Oops. Still in those squares there.

[00:21:22]Two now blocking across and up there. So that's the only place for a two. We can delete that two. Put the two there.

[00:21:33]Two must be there.

[00:22:29]one blocking like this and blocking up there and there. So this is in fact the only one there. That's one there. Can we be removed? Uh next number we need is three.

[00:22:43]three blocks across there. So, we've got a pair of threes in those squares there.

[00:22:48]Next number we need is four.

[00:22:56]Then we need a six.

[00:23:00]We have pointing sixes here. So, this can't be a six. That must be the six there. That's the four. That's a three.

[00:23:08]That's a six up there.

[00:23:17]nine blocks across here. There's our nine. There's our three.

[00:23:38]Uh, what are you? eight nine finishes the game off. Okay, a nice game there. I like that. I think it was quite tough. I couldn't find a way in even though there was a single there, but uh you spot you have to kind of keep the other stuff in your mind as to where the other candidates go to spot that six. Thanks for joining me. I'll see you another time. And take care. Bye-bye.