How to Play Sudoku - Easy to begin hard to master

Back in the eighties there was a time when everyone was talking about the Rubik's Cube, I am sure you know what I am talking about. I remember seeing a guy solving one of these with his feet once - in record time. The media and puzzle equivalent of today is without doubt the Sudoku puzzle.

Here we will discuss how a Sudoku puzzle is solved, then it will be up to you which body part you want to hold the pen with ;-)

This remarkably addictive puzzle that can be found anywhere from newspapers, magazines, textbooks, and on the Internet. A series of grids constitutes the Sudoku puzzle, and they usually involve one big 9 x 9 grid that holds, nine smaller grids of 3 x 3 tiny squares.

Your task as a player is to put the numbers 1 to 9 into each of the grid units. In Sudoku, you do not have to make any mathematical calculations, although the game is based on numbers.

As with any good game, the rules are very simple. In fact there are only three rules in Sudoku:

1.  Each of the numbers from 1 to 9 should only be placed once in each column.
2.  Each number from 1 to 9 can be placed only once in each row.
3.  The numbers 1 to 9 can appear only once in each 3 x 3 grid

How to play a Sudoku puzzle

All you have to do really, is to follow the rules outlined above. However, here are a few practical tips on how to go about solving a Sudoku puzzle.

Sudoku isn't a game of guessing, if think about it carefully you will eventually arrive at the correct solution. The best way to start of with any Sudoku is by searching for the clues. Many skilled players begin by looking for the numbers that seem to appear of the in the puzzle . For example, you may encounter many fours. Look in the 3 x 3 boxes if the number 4 is preset in several of them. Start looking for where the 4 could now be placed in the rows and columns.  Keep in mind, the number 4 can be placed only once in each of the 3 x 3 boxes, rows or columns. If there, for example, is already a 4 present in columns 1 and 3, then you can't place any more 4's in any of those 2 columns. Thus, we can logically determine that 4 should be replaced in column 2. After disqualifying other potentials you should be able to place your number.

When you are all finished looking at all the 3 x 3 boxes, you should now work on filling in the numbers 1 to 9 in the rows and columns that contain most of the numbers. If only two numbers are not present in the row or column you can always employ the elimination method to find out where to place the last two numbers. Check the rows and the columns to come up with the missing numbers. As you eliminate possibilities you will complete the line you are analysing.

The two steps mentioned so far will help you solve most simple Sudoku puzzles quite comfortably. For the more difficult puzzles though, you will need to know how to look for the possibilities of the puzzle more i depth. Regardless of skill, there will be times that there is actually no way to remove a possibility, so a player must simply pick any of the numbers. In this scenario, it is important to keep track of where you have chosen a number, so that you can easily start over if you where wrong.

Basically that's are there is to playing Sudoku!