I never realized that I had a Sudoku Strategy until I looked around the Internet. It is surprising to think how such a simple game has built up such a huge following and is taken so seriously. Just a 9 square grid, where you place the numbers 1-9 without repeating them horizontally, vertically or in any of the 9 squares. It sounds easy but the puzzles come with varying difficulties.
Apparently I use more than one Sudoku Strategy. I start out by looking for the 3 x 3 grids or lines with the most numbers already entered and then find the missing numbers by a process of elimination across the grids or lines. That is called ‘scanning’ and works well for the easier Sudoku puzzles. When I reach a dead end with the more difficult games I use a strategy called ‘marking up’. If I have a choice of more than one number I pencil in the numbers in a corner and delete them as used. That works well for the easier and medium difficulty Sudoku puzzles. The hard ones I do not attempt unless I am feeling particularly masochistic.
Howard Gamms from the US who sold the rights to Dell Publishing in 1979 developed the modern Sudoku puzzle. Howard Gamms called the...