Easy sudoku

This board only ever needs two techniques to finish: a naked single (a cell with exactly one possible digit left, once you rule out everything already in its row, column, and box) and a hidden single (a digit that only fits one cell in a row, column, or box, even if that cell still looks like it has other options at a glance). Nothing here requires holding two possibilities in your head at once.

We'll occasionally point at a specific square using its row and column, like r4c7 for row 4, column 7, counting from the top-left corner. You'll see that shorthand on hints and on the technique pages.

Who easy suits

If you're new to sudoku, learning the rules for the first time, or just want five quiet minutes without the board fighting back, this is the level. It's also the right place to teach someone: every step has a reason you can point to out loud, because the reasoning never goes more than one layer deep.

Not by clue count

We don't grade difficulty by how many starting numbers you get — a puzzle with few clues can still be easy if every empty cell falls out through singles alone, and a puzzle with lots of clues can be deceptively sticky if one of them needs a less obvious technique. Every puzzle on this site is graded by the hardest technique it actually requires, checked by running our own logical solver against it — not by counting givens.

Ready for the next step up? Medium adds one more technique — locked candidates — to the mix.