GridWits
Medium tier Technique 4 of 46 Used by Smart Hint

Box-Line Reduction

All of a digit's candidates in a row or column fall inside one box, so it can be eliminated from the rest of that box.

How it works

  1. 1Row 1 is drawn in full: digit 6 survives only at A1 and C1, and both of those sit in the top-left box.
  2. 2Nothing earlier fires here — no cell is down to one candidate, no digit has a single home in the row or the box, and no digit inside the box is penned into one row or column.
  3. 3Row 1's 6 therefore has to land in this box, so the box's other rows give theirs up — cross 6 off A2 and B3.

Play a Sudoku that needs this technique →

A 1 B 2 C 3 D 4 E 5 F 6 G 7 H 8 I 9 5 6 8 6 7 9 2 1 7 3 1 5 9 4 7 9 1 6 9 3 1 4 5 1 4 7 9 5 6 7 2 6 6 6 6
  • Cells that establish the pattern
  • Where the conclusion lands
  • Candidate ruled out
Next in the ladder Naked Pair →

Two cells in a unit share the exact same two candidates — those digits can be removed from every other cell in the unit.