Sudoku X Wing Strategy
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Sudoku x wing strategy. Load example or. In this article i use one of my hand crafted very difficult puzzles that has a known x wing pattern. X wing sudoku puzzle solving guide step. One of the more complex sudoku strategies is the x wing and its cousin the swordfish.
The first three are pictured here but you can load the puzzle into the solver to see the remaining examples. How to identify sudoku x wing. Load example or. X wing is a strategy in which you find a candidate that appears twice in two different rows and those appearances are both in the same column or the candidate appears twice in two different columns and those appearances are both in the same row.
The first is a 2 wing. Y wing example 1. If you haven t mastered the x wing strategy yet you ll likely find this strategy frustrating and possibly useless. Image via learn sudoku.
From the start i have found a superb tough sudoku puzzle with a sequence of five y wings and this illustrates the full range of this strategy. It s an advanced strategy for sure. X wing example 2. Note that the orientation is in the columns this time as opposed to rows as above.
The x wing pattern appears in tricky sudoku puzzles when two rows or columns contain just two cells that hold matching candidates. X wing tutorial diagram1 x wing column sudoku strategy diagram 2 now shows where i have managed to fill in cells by a process of elimination and also my pencilled notations where i have been unable to whittle the answer down to a definitive number and so shows a number of possible candidates. From the start in this second example i ve chosen a sudoku puzzle where an enormous number of candidates can be removed using two x wings. In looking for twins and permutations we restricted ourselves to looking at possibilities within a single group.
After you have tried all the easier strategies and find no new squares to solve you can start looking for x wings in the puzzle. A sudoku x wing pattern occurs in many of the more difficult sudoku puzzles. The yellow high lighted cells show the x wing formation.