Sudoku AI Coach

What is BUG+1? How to Solve Sudoku

What it is

Late in the puzzle, nearly every empty cell has two candidates, and just one cell has three.

If that cell became a two-way choice too, every cell would stay a two-way choice and the puzzle would have two solutions.

So that cell gets the digit that appears three times in its row (column or box).

How to spot it

When almost every cell is down to two candidates, find the one with three and see which of its digits appears three times.

Example

912753426168412398627175856271494932743959869118576926934369418527748623159532149794786691845573472

Yellow cells are where to look, orange cells are the reason, red digits are candidates you can remove, and the blue digit is the answer.

Every empty cell has two candidates except R4C5, which has three. 9 is the candidate that appears three times in box 5. If R4C5 weren't 9, every cell would stay a two-way choice and the puzzle would have two solutions. So R4C5 is 9.

→ R4C5 is 9.

Practice it on real boards in the app.

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