Solving Sudoku Puzzles In Two Simple Steps
Michalis 'BIG Mike' Kotzakolios


Defined Tag: Sudoku Puzzles.

Unless you've been living on a desert island somewhere, maybe participating in one of the latest reality shows, or habiting in a cave on the South Shore of Hawaii, you've heard about Sudoku puzzles. These puzzles are seemingly ubiquitous and wherever they're not, they're sure to come shortly.

Sudoku puzzles are great as they are simple in rules yet really force a person to utilize his or her logical reasoning abilities and even, at times, a bit of intuition. The name Sudoku comes from the Japanese phrase "suuji wa dokushin ni kagiru," which translates as 'the numbers stay singular.' With this in mind, the basic means by which one can solve Sudoku are only two: vector comparison, also called cross hatching, and simple counting assessment.

With vector or row comparison, a player must first pick a number that is not found within a smaller 3 x 3 box grid and then see if said number is to be found in any of the rows that trisect the mini box. If a number is to be found in a row going through the mini box, then the chosen number simply can't be in that row, par for the rules of the game. When this idea is repeated with all available rows, with any luck there will be only one box that is not eliminated from being a possible "home" for a number.

The second means for solving Sudoku puzzles is best accomplished once a row or square is nearly filled in. Then, by determining which numbers have yet to be represented both by mini boxes and the rows that apply, numbers can be determined, or even simply guessed at. Guessing, as in all other ventures in life, tends to have mixed results and so should not be relied upon.

While they may seem daunting initially, the secret to solving Sudoku puzzles is really straightforward patience. Yet patience alone will not solve anything without practice. When these two ideas are married, as with any venture, nothing will stop a person from solving even the most difficult puzzle.

BIG Mike is a well known author, developer and Adsense expert as well as the owner of Niche Maniacs - a unique Adsense Marketing System designed to build long-term passive income streams from Adsense, YPN, Chitika and other PPC services.