Sudoku solution – New York Times 27 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 Wednesday the 27th of May 2026.

[00:00:18]Uh it's lunchtime already and I haven't been outside yet. I was planning to do a lot of stuff today, but I my computering tasks have taken longer than expected.

[00:00:27]Uh anyway, let's add to the let's add to my computering task by playing a game of sodoku with you. New York Times hard level puzzle. Um it's a good job there's a long time between uh until the next general election in the UK because it will give people a chance to realize just how stupid Nigel Farage's reform UK party is. I mean, of course, most of the reasons why people vote for them is because they don't like people that are pinky white in color. That's the main reason to be honest with you. Uh but you know the other reasons that they do is they jump on this austerity bandwagon which is the thing that killed off Britain in the last 14 15 years right.

[00:01:07]Uh but you know they've got a lot of tries involved in the party now they defected and went there to reform UK but uh you know the local councils where they have become uh majorities in some places promising to reduce the local tax. Well, guess what? They've put up the local taxes in many of them. Uh, lots of people have had to resign because they just don't know what to do or they've or they've gone to another party. But here's a a fun fact for the national um reform set. Uh they are promising a reduction of 450 people uh who are planners 450 planners uh in the civil service. Um but in fact the entire country has only 445. So they plan to fire five more than they actually have. That means they have to what does that mean? Does that mean they have to promote someone to a planner?

[00:02:04]Employ them first so they can sack them.

[00:02:07]Uh it's such I mean these people are so unashamedly ridiculous and dumb. Uh but of course their racist appeal will no doubt continue to appeal to those who enjoy such things.

[00:02:23]Anyway, we don't think like that. So, we're going to get on with our game of Sudoku instead. So, we're going to start with digit four, blocking down and up and across there and say, "Hey, you're at four.

[00:02:43]One's blocking across here, giving me a one in that square there.

[00:03:05]I can see a one and nine pair here and there. So, we do know one and nine is somewhere there, but that's not quite enough yet, is it?

[00:04:01]Oh. All right. Nothing obvious yet.

[00:04:56]Six here.

[00:04:59]Six blocking down and across. Or let's just do this. Six blocking this square here. Six blocking those three squares there. Six blocking there.

[00:05:31]Oh, so now we have a pair of one and nine in those squares there, right?

[00:05:36]So I did say they were in those three squares there. So that's something maybe uh one and nine. So threes there. There four.

[00:06:41]Three blocking up here. Three blocking across there. So, three in one of those two squares blocking down.

[00:07:31]Um, so we've got six blocking across here and up here. So that's a pair of sixes. And we've got four blocking like this. So four in one of those two squares blocking across there. Across there. Oh no. I'm sure I saw a four down here.

[00:07:47]Oh, I must be dreaming. I thought I discovered a pair of four and six, but it's not true, is it? Four could be in any of those squares.

[00:08:35]Nine somewhere there.

[00:09:25]I think we've got 1 2 479 here. 1 2 4 79. 1 2 4 7 9 I think. And look at this.

[00:09:32]1 2 and seven in the same column. So that's four.

[00:09:43]So, I definitely don't have a pair of fours up there. I've got fours in those squares.

[00:10:09]Okay, we've got six and eight in in this block here. We don't have six and eight in this column. It means that those squares must be the six and the eight.

[00:10:17]Uh I don't know which is which, but it means that these are not six or eight.

[00:10:21]They are three. Five. And we got three blocking there. There's our three. And there's our five.

[00:11:54]Uh, I know this is one and nine. I should check this out, shouldn't I? Uh, what is that? That's not one nine. It's uh four and seven. Okay, so we got the four blocking there. There's the four and there's the seven. Should have thought of that before.

[00:12:08]Never mind.

[00:12:50]Uh, is this 2356?

[00:12:54]2, 3, 5, 6. 2, three. We've got 2 356 here. It's likely to be. Okay. So, 35 and six are here. So, that should be a two. Oops, wrong key.

[00:13:15]Now, we had one and nine in those squares. So, one and nine block that square there. That's going to put one and nine into those squares and leave you with a seven here.

[00:14:42]Uh, okay. We've got four blocking this square, this square, this square, and this square, and this square in the top row. So, there's our four.

[00:17:20]The only thing I've really discovered is there's a pair of five and nine. I don't know if that helps anywhere else.

[00:18:49]Uh, obviously I'm stuck and I can't sit here all day. So, let's put in the pencil marks and finish the game off.

[00:18:55]Let's put in the one and the nine that go there.

[00:18:59]Let's put in the sixes in the squares that I know they go in, which is there.

[00:19:06]Uh, what else do we know?

[00:20:29]Uh, and I think I'm done. So, not that many pairs really. I was hoping that I was just I just missed something obvious, but if I did, I still have missed it. All right, let's get on and put in the rest of the candidates. We've got two blocking up here, so twos can go in those squares there. Seven. Do we know anything? No.

[00:20:52]Eight. Do we know anything?

[00:20:56]No.

[00:21:01]Okay. Over here. Two.

[00:21:33]All right. See if I found anything.

[00:22:06]I don't see anything. Let's try this block down here. One, two, three. Blocking down there.

[00:22:17]Five.

[00:22:22]And eight blocking. Eight blocking this square.

[00:22:37]Nope.

[00:22:51]Did you Uh 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 and nine. Yes. Done.

[00:23:48]Well, if you're spotting it, you're ahead of me cuz I still haven't seen what I'm looking for.

[00:24:36]Okay, I found two eight and two sorry two seven and eight. So three numbers in three squares there are the two the seven and the eight which means that this can have it seven and eight extracted and two seven and eight can go from there and then we get our pair of 1 nine oh are back to our 1 nine again. So now we've got a pair of one nine here. So we know that is in fact an eight and we can uh do some removals.

[00:25:19]Right now again we've got a one nine pair here. So we know that's going to be seven.

[00:25:25]So, seven there.

[00:25:28]Again, let's take away some uh digits we don't want anymore.

[00:26:02]Yeah. And there's still a block that's not had its candidates put in yet, but I'm just looking to see if there's anything else that we can do to reduce the number of candidates before we go any further.

[00:26:35]Okay, this is the only eight in this row now. So, we can put the eight there.

[00:26:39]That has to be a six. That has to be an eight.

[00:27:10]That's the only place for a two.

[00:27:19]That's the only spot for a two now.

[00:27:50]pointing eights here. So, this can't be an eight. So, that's got to be the eight up there.

[00:27:58]Got a six in this block already. That's a three. Then, that's a seven.

[00:28:05]Seven is our first completed digit.

[00:28:06]We'll just clean up on seven pair of two and five. This can't be a five there. That's got to be the nine.

[00:28:15]Can't be five or nine. Must be the three.

[00:28:26]Six. Sorry.

[00:28:39]pair of one and nine there. So, we can remove our candidates one and nine.

[00:29:16]nine block across and down there.

[00:29:21]There's our nine. There's our one.

[00:29:25]There's one.

[00:29:28]There's one there.

[00:29:31]One. One. One.

[00:29:38]Three, five, eight.

[00:29:44]48.

[00:30:00]Okay, we're almost done.

[00:30:05]That's our New York Times high level puzzle. Oh, it took a long time because I waited a long time to go to pencil marks there. I should have gone a bit earlier and finished it a bit quicker.

[00:30:12]That's it. Thank Thanks for joining me today and I'll see you around. Take care. Bye-bye.