GridWits

Hidden Pair

Hard Used by Smart Hint

Two digits appear as candidates in only the same two cells of a unit — strip those cells down to just those two digits.

A 1 B 2 C 3 D 4 E 5 F 6 G 7 H 8 I 9 1 5 8 3 9 2 1 5 7 4 6

How it works

  1. In this box, digits 1 and 5 only appear as candidates in G1 and H2 — no other cell in the box can hold either digit.
  2. That makes {1, 5} a Hidden Pair: strip every other candidate from those two cells, removing the 8 and 7 that were also sitting there.

Play a Sudoku that needs this technique →