General Instructions: |
If you have played Sudoku with this website before, the last game you played is saved in a cookie. The website gives you a choice to pick up where you left off. If this is the first time you have used this website, or if you choose to play a new puzzle, you get to choose a puzzle size 9x9 or 16x16. Next fill in puzzle from the newspaper or http://www.Sudoku.com. Before you click on SUBMIT, there is a choice to print the puzzle with the suggestions filled in or not. Choosing YES prints the puzzle while leaving out the missing elements in printed array. This is helpful in proofreading that what you have entered is correct. Most of the time, click NO, then click on SUBMIT to see suggested answers. They are in red. The words Basically, you will be going back and forth between SUBMIT and the Back Arrow until you solve the puzzle. |
Pitfalls |
If you enter a wrong number, keeping track of what you have done lets you back out of a puzzle until you get to the error. I use the following notation: 123 means row 1, column 2, insert the number 3. If you get to a place in the puzzle and there are no numbers in red, you have to take a guess. Choose one of the numbers in a bracket. If it is a bracket containing only 2 numbers, there is a 50% chance you have made the right choice. If you reach an inconsistency, such as two 9's on the same row, then back out to the guess, and choose the other number in the square brackets. . |
How the toolkit works |
The numbers on the right are the numbers missing from that row. The numbers on the bottom are the numbers missing in that column. The square brackets enclose the numbers missing from both the column and row, minus the numbers in the nearby 3x3 or 4x4 box. |
Non Implemented suggestions | If a row, let's say, has two choices in two square brackets that are identical, then the same two choices can be eliminated from other sqare brackets in the same row. This is very hard to follow in the abstract. An example will help. |
Printing | I suggest you use your browser's File>Print Preview to see a page before you print it. Sometimes you have to adjust scaling factor or portrait or landscape to see the whole page on one printed page. |