Sudoku·
Sudoku hard: one candidate at a time
A twelve-minute hard Sudoku sitting — clean candidates, a refused fifty-fifty, and why guessing early cost a restart.
What this sitting was about
Hard Sudoku on this table is mostly housekeeping: keep candidates honest, advance only forced cells, and treat a fifty-fifty as a last resort. This sitting needed about thirteen minutes after one early guess poisoned a box.
What actually happened on the table
Sudoku rewards clean candidates: one forced cell at a time beats ten hopeful guesses. After the restart, I filled only naked singles and a clean pointing pair. The board opened without heroics.
The useful pause was not finding a clever chain — it was refusing to dig when two candidates still looked equal.
One line to keep for next time
If both options feel like a coin flip, you are missing a forced digit elsewhere.