Sudoku Rose

Killer Sudoku: The Boredom Killer Loved by Many

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What do you do in your rare and precious spare time? Read books? Play games with your family? If you play games, then what kind of games are they? Are they interesting? If the answer is yes again, would it be the Killer Sudoku?

Killer Sudoku is the name of a puzzle which combines the elements of Sudoku and kakuro. Compare to standard Sudoku, Killer Sudoku is somewhat easier to solve. However, success still depends on the player’s knowledge and mental calculation.

This puzzle game was a famous variant of Sudoku in Japan on the 90s. The game was first known as Samunamupure which comes from an English word "sum number place". Killer Sudoku was launched in English-speaking countries all over the world in 2005.


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What are the rules for playing Killer Sudoku?

The aim of this game is to complete the grid with numbers from one to nine. However, the following rules should be strictly followed:

1. Each number from 1 to 9 should not appear more than once in a grid.

2. Each grid must have only one of each number.

3. The total of all the numbers in a grid should match the small number printed on it.

Though Killer Sudoku has been popping up everywhere from online to offline (newspapers, magazines, books, etc.), many players find it difficult to solve. What they do not know is that solving the Killer Sudoku is just as easy as the original Sudoku. The only difference is that the new version provides a lot more of information.

However, when playing it is still important for you to follow some specific strategies. Below are some of the strategies that have proven useful.

• Look at the ins and outs


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You should begin with the obvious – every row, column and grid, when added up, will give you a sum of 45. This will not be helpful when the boxes fit accurately into every row, column or grid. However, when they cut separately then you can assume more.

• Work for the pairs

The simplest boxes to manage with are those that hold just 2 numbers. When two or more of these numbers occupy the same column, grid, or row then it is possible to begin removing possibilities of paired numbers. The easiest numbers are 3, 4, 16, and 17. But when there are many possibilities you can always work with it.

• You can try a combination but you have to be careful

Using all the potential combinations for a specific box can only be useful under the right conditions: if you have many limitations on the combinations, you will surely end up with an unnecessary big list of possibilities. So, I suggest that you should not use a strong combination for your first tactic. Instead, there are many ways you can use to limit potential combinations. However, it is important that you should be careful of particular combinations which can be dead hits.

The list of tips will surely help players hooked on Killer Sudoku win the game. Actually, there are many other techniques which can be used for solving the puzzles. But the above tips will allow you to solve for more or less every Killer Sudoku that you see on the internet, in newspapers or in magazines. However, the tips may perhaps not be sufficient for the more difficult puzzles.

To gain more knowledge of and practice with this puzzle, there are many sites available on the internet. Most of these sites have hard level puzzles, including puzzles harder than what you see in the newspapers.

In addition, you will also have to search for other advanced techniques which are helpful for solving extremely difficult Killer Sudoku puzzles. You must always keep in mind that it is a puzzle that you are going to play. There may be times that you feel you are only going around in circles, but in fact you are not. Puzzles can be very confusing, so you also need to be patient.

After you have mastered the basics of Killer Sudoku, try some of the difficult ones. In this way, you can practice not only your skill but also your ability to adjust to a different level.