Expert sudoku
Expert is graded by failure rather than by feel. All six techniques this site knows are run at the grid, and it only ships if they cannot finish it, which means somewhere on the board you will have to see further than a naked triple. That step is the one no page here can walk you through.
Hi! I am Ollie. Welcome to Sudoku Springs!
Every grid here is built to expert and checked against it before you see it. Goes past the standard techniques. Take your time. Have fun!
-
Show answer
mountain gate Fill every row, column and box with 1-9. The Mountain Gate board of Sudoku Springs is graded expert, and a level of the trail takes four to six cleared boards.
-
Show answer
golden spring Fill every row, column and box with 1-9. The Golden Spring board of Sudoku Springs is graded expert, and a level of the trail takes four to six cleared boards.
What expert is allowed to ask for
Expert has no ceiling, because it is defined by the absence of one. The six techniques are run at the grid and it only ships when they stall, so the step that finishes it is outside everything the rest of this wing teaches.
Grids are built as you play, so this page never runs out, and each one is proved to have exactly one solution before it reaches you.
A expert grid, opened three moves
This is not a drawing. The engine dug it at expert from the fixed
seed opening:expert:0, so it is here tomorrow too, and it reached you with
26 starting digits. They get 30 moves into it and then run out, which is what puts it here.
Its first 3 moves, in the order the solver makes them. Recompute the candidates from the digits above and you will get the same answer, because nothing below leans on an elimination you cannot see.
- hidden single — In row 3, 4 has only one cell left it can go in. The cell is r3c3, where only 4, 5, 6 and 8 were still legal, so it is 4.
- hidden single — In row 3, 5 has only one cell left it can go in. The cell is r3c2, where only 5, 6 and 8 were still legal, so it is 5.
- hidden single — In row 5, 5 has only one cell left it can go in. The cell is r5c4, where only 2, 3, 5, 6, 8 and 9 were still legal, so it is 5.
The techniques you will meet
- Hidden single
- Naked single
- Naked pair
- Pointing pair
- Box/line reduction
- Naked triple
- and at least one step past all of them
Every one of those has a page with a real worked example, generated by the same solver that grades these grids.
Past the point where there is no technique left to name, the hint stops teaching rather than stopping: the button still works, and what it offers is a full reveal at the normal hint price. That is the honest hint for a grid graded by what the solver cannot do.
Printable sudoku: expert
Each sheet is 12 grids at one level, two to a page, answers at the back. Free, no sign-up, and yours to photocopy for a class.
Other levels: easy, medium, hard.
Under every grid is the first move, in the same words the hint in the game uses: it names the row, column or box to look in and the digit to look for, and never the cell, so it unsticks you at the start without solving anything for you. The answer page names the hardest technique each grid actually needed, measured by the solver that built it. See all four sheets, with a preview of each.
Other levels
- Easy Scan the boxes. No pencil marks needed.
- Medium Pencil marks start to pay off.
- Hard Needs a pair or a locked digit.
If the top of the standard ladder is not automatic yet, the naked triple is the one to own before sitting down with these. The daily grid is built at this level every Sunday, and since everybody gets that same board it is the expert grid you can compare notes on.