NYT Hard Sudoku Walkthrough | June 17, 2026

[00:00:00]Hello, let's do the New York Times hard Sudoku for June 17th, 2026. There's a link in the description if you'd like to try the puzzle yourself, and I'm going to get started right now.

[00:00:12]All right. Um I'm seeing two filled box rows just right away in this puzzle, so I want to do those first cuz they can often seed the puzzle with something good. So, what A box row is just a row within a box, right? 1 1 2 3. We also box columns, right? When it's filled already, what we want to do is look for any digits that are in the other two rows outside of the box.

[00:00:38]And if they're not yet placed in this box, they're guaranteed to either be pointing or placed.

[00:00:44]And so, we can see we actually have this two and this six that aren't yet placed in this box.

[00:00:50]Those looking to here. And now, there's only two places left for two and six in this box, so that's where they have to go. That's a hidden 2 6 pair.

[00:00:59]And so now, these two cells are the other two, which are the 8 9.

[00:01:03]And they're resolved by this nine.

[00:01:05]That's eight, that's nine.

[00:01:06]All right. We're going to follow up on just the 2 6 pair because that's going to be important to remember that we have this pair.

[00:01:13]So, these can't be two. This two looks in here, putting a two in one of these two.

[00:01:17]And these can't be six cuz of the 2 6 pair. This six looks in, this six looks up, placing this six.

[00:01:24]We'll do a regular scan later. I just want to get these seated.

[00:01:27]The reason we did the 2 6 pair is because I might miss it later when I scan them. Just might as well uh get the markings in now.

[00:01:34]All right. Now, this is 4 6 8 filled box row.

[00:01:38]The seven and nine are not yet placed in this box. We actually get another hidden pair. That's a big coincidence. And then, this is a a triple to remain, uh 1 3 5, it looks like.

[00:01:49]Except one of them is not five. So, we're going to follow up on these pairs and in this triple. So, just one digit at a time. Why don't we just go numerically in order? So, the one can't be here anymore.

[00:02:01]Not seeing anything with one. Although, I just noticed we can I'm just scanning ones. I noticed we can place the one in this box.

[00:02:08]These ones look down, and now the 135 looks in, placing this one.

[00:02:12]Maybe we should just pay attention to ones real quick. Um since we just got a bunch of them.

[00:02:19]Uh is there I mean, it's one of these two.

[00:02:24]It's one of these three, one of these two.

[00:02:27]Uh one of these three. Okay, maybe there isn't more to do with ones.

[00:02:32]Right now, it's just three left.

[00:02:34]1 2 3 4 5. Oh, there's Oh, there's also these two left.

[00:02:39]Okay, anyway, yeah. No more with ones.

[00:02:41]Um so, that was one. Three.

[00:02:43]These can't be three. Three looks in.

[00:02:45]Three looks down. Three's one of these two.

[00:02:48]Um the five We do anything with five?

[00:02:52]Uh not that I'm seeing.

[00:02:56]Okay. And then the seven These aren't seven. Seven looks in. Seven looks down.

[00:03:00]That places this seven.

[00:03:02]These sevens put a seven in one of these two. Oh, sorry. Places the seven in here. Even better.

[00:03:07]Can we keep doing and going with sevens?

[00:03:08]They're here.

[00:03:10]Not all three. They're here.

[00:03:12]Um They're one of these two.

[00:03:17]All right. I mean, that's what I get from seven. And then nine. These aren't nine. Nine looks in. Nine's one of these three.

[00:03:23]So, noticing this row has to be That certainly this one has to be limited.

[00:03:26]The row needs a 1 2 What is it? 1 2 5 9.

[00:03:32]So, this can't be one or nine. So, it's 2 5 only.

[00:03:36]So, this is 2 5 9.

[00:03:39]All right.

[00:03:40]And then Okay, that covers the 7 9 pair.

[00:03:49]Great. So, now we're going to go back, and we're just going to do our normal scans, but we've already seeded the puzzle with some good stuff.

[00:03:55]So two, five, and six. So the two These twos look in putting a two in one of these two.

[00:04:03]I'm hoping it's smooth from here. We just got a bunch of info. These two fives look in putting a five in one of these two.

[00:04:10]Five looks down. Ooh, almost uh So these should be limited.

[00:04:15]Because they're not the two seven and they're also not the five.

[00:04:18]So what can they be? They're not one, two, they could be three.

[00:04:22]They can't be four or five. They could be six.

[00:04:26]They can't be seven, eight, they could be nine. So they're down to three, six, nine.

[00:04:30]All right.

[00:04:31]Um that's what we get from fives.

[00:04:33]And then the six Uh looks Oh yeah, six is one of these three.

[00:04:40]Hm.

[00:04:40]>> [clears throat] >> And then I just noticed uh this row's down to three digits and this row's down to four. So let's just do that right away.

[00:04:48]We need a two, seven, nine here. So this is seven, nine only.

[00:04:54]I'll just fill this out. That's not seven.

[00:04:58]And then here we need a one, three, five missing like one, three, four, five.

[00:05:03]This can't be one or four. So this is three Oh, this can't be one, four, or five. So this is a naked three.

[00:05:10]That gives us the five down here.

[00:05:12]And so now this is down to one, four, five.

[00:05:17]Okay. That's not a five, that's not a one.

[00:05:22]What do I do with this three? Can I follow up on it?

[00:05:27]Yeah, three's in one of these two.

[00:05:29]That points down.

[00:05:31]Yeah. Oh yeah, it was a crossing on this four, eight.

[00:05:33]So this can't be three anymore. The three's point down from this box. That's one and that's three. That gives us the four five and one here. Finish the whole row.

[00:05:42]Um I'm going to do what I can in this top band and then I'll look at how they look down.

[00:05:48]So, this box is down to 1789.

[00:05:52]So, the eight's in one of these two. Oh, the eight's placed even better. Sorry, the two eights look up.

[00:05:57]Oh, I have some Yeah, the five looks down, the one looks down. So, the one in this box is placed, looks like.

[00:06:04]Yeah, the one in this box is placed.

[00:06:06]This is now 259.

[00:06:09]Huh.

[00:06:11]Okay.

[00:06:12]Um I said I would look down later, but anyway. Uh we need 179 here.

[00:06:17]Oh, the one is placed in this box, too.

[00:06:19]Are we done with ones?

[00:06:20]We're done with ones. Okay, they got placed.

[00:06:23]That's a 79 pair.

[00:06:26]Ah, this is a 79 pair. So, this has to be the other digit that the column needs.

[00:06:31]Looks like it's a five.

[00:06:32]Seven can still be in these two.

[00:06:36]Huh, these aren't nine, though.

[00:06:38]In fact, we could look at this. This is 279. So, this is only 27. This is only 29.

[00:06:44]Is this limited?

[00:06:46]It's not one Yeah, the column needs 3679. It's not nine. So, it's three Oh, it's not three, either. So, it's only 67.

[00:06:54]Very limited around here. Um yeah, we have this 26 pair. So, the rest of this row is a 3479.

[00:07:04]So, this is 47 Oh, 49 only.

[00:07:07]Not three or seven.

[00:07:09]This is 349.

[00:07:11]I think this is any of them.

[00:07:13]Okay.

[00:07:14]Anything to do with these?

[00:07:16]This column is four digits, so might as well just keep going. We need a 24 59.

[00:07:23]So, this is 459. This is 24 only. It's not 59.

[00:07:29]And then, this is any of 2459.

[00:07:32]Oh, but we have a the 2459 in this box. We have a quad.

[00:07:37]I was thinking about 2459s in this column, but these are also 259.

[00:07:41]Uh so, this is this is a naked quad.

[00:07:46]You can also maybe I mean, there is a hidden triple here.

[00:07:51]The hidden triple is 368.

[00:07:54]We have a 368 here and we have a 368 here.

[00:07:59]I don't know that I would have seen that. I think spotting the quad in this case was easier, but only because they were all three or less. If I hadn't penciled it, maybe not.

[00:08:09]This is a really hard spot. If you're stuck on this puzzle, it's on this.

[00:08:14]But yeah, this is 368. They cannot be 2459. And the important thing that I'm noticing from this is that the four is in one of these two.

[00:08:23]This 2459 needs to place a four and it can't be here. So, it's going to be one of these two. That's going to point up telling us that's a nine, giving us the two and the seven, giving us the nine and the seven here. That's seven and nine. That's a two and a seven and six.

[00:08:38]All right.

[00:08:39]That's not a seven.

[00:08:41]This is a 34.

[00:08:43]That's not a nine. That's not a Oopsie.

[00:08:45]That's not a two.

[00:08:48]I'm getting [clears throat] big déjà vu from this quad as well. I don't know if maybe this is a repeat puzzle. They often repeat puzzles, which is unfortunate, but anyway, um, I don't really have a good way to look up whether it's a repeat.

[00:09:00]Uh, we need a 248 here.

[00:09:05]I'm just going to write it out. That's not a two.

[00:09:08]All right. I feel like I need to get more out of what just happened. Oh, this can't be four, right? Because the four's pointing.

[00:09:14]Get more out of what we just got.

[00:09:18]We have all the odds in this row. We need 2468.

[00:09:21]Oh, what's this column?

[00:09:24]two and six And that's not a two. Okay, so that's six. That's two. That gives us the four and the five and the nine and the two.

[00:09:32]The whole quad resolves. That's five.

[00:09:34]That's two. [clears throat] That places the two for this row or box.

[00:09:39]Giving us the six and two here.

[00:09:42]I think we're just done. Um we just got to pencil the rest.

[00:09:45]So, three digits left on this box.

[00:09:47]Actually, this is six eight only.

[00:09:49]What's the other digit? 4 6 8 It's not six.

[00:09:55]What's this column need? 3 4 8 It's not four, it's not eight.

[00:10:02]Two, we need three, four five and eight.

[00:10:08]So, five is one of those two.

[00:10:12]So, this is three Oh.

[00:10:14]The three looks down. Three is one of these two.

[00:10:16]So, this is 4 5 8, that's not four, that's not eight.

[00:10:20]What's happening here?

[00:10:23]I think I'm just missing an important spot.

[00:10:27]Do I just have to pencil these?

[00:10:35]Mhm.

[00:10:36]Four is one of these two. I don't think I need that, but 3 4 6 Oh.

[00:10:44]Uh what's the other digit this column needs?

[00:10:48]It needs a a nine?

[00:10:52]Yeah, it needs a nine. Yeah, okay. We can just say these nines all look in anyway. That's a nine. That's three and nine. That's four five eight and three.

[00:10:59]That's an eight six and four. We get our eight here with four and eight and three and four and six and three.

[00:11:05]We get our six and five and we're done.

[00:11:10]All right. Um honestly, pretty lucky spot. Was it this quad? The two the 2 4 5 9. That's a pretty lucky spot there.

[00:11:19]I had 2 4 5 9 right on my mind because that's what this column needed and I noticed just I looked at the the box and the only thing I penciled in the box was a 2 4 5 9 quad, so yeah, um I don't know that my technique would have ever spotted this 368 hidden triple because I wouldn't be corner marking those digits in here, but it's right there from the start.

[00:11:42]Um, just a really tough thing to scan.

[00:11:46]All right, cool. Well, how'd you do?