How to play Mini Sudoku
Mini Sudoku is the six by six version of classic sudoku. The grid is split into six boxes, each two rows tall and three columns wide. The rule is short:
- Every row must contain the numbers 1 to 6, once each.
- Every column must contain 1 to 6, once each.
- Every box (the two by three blocks) must contain 1 to 6, once each.
Tap or click a cell, then pick a number from the pad below the grid, or type 1 to 6 on a keyboard. Use the arrow keys to move around and Backspace to clear a cell. The numbers you add show in colour so you can tell them apart from the starting clues.
Tips for beginners
- Start where it is crowded. Look for a row, column or box that already has four or five numbers. The missing ones are quick to place.
- Hunt one number at a time. Pick a number, say 5, and find every row, column and box it is missing from. Often only one cell is left for it.
- Never guess. Every puzzle here has one answer you can reach by logic alone. If you feel stuck, you have missed a clue, not run out of them.
Where Mini Sudoku comes from
Sudoku is younger than most people think, and it is American before it is Japanese.
- 1979 Number Place Architect Howard Garns publishes the puzzle in Dell Pencil Puzzles and Word Games under the name Number Place.
- 1984 Sudoku Japanese publisher Nikoli brings it to Japan and gives it the name Sudoku.
- 2004 A worldwide craze The Times in London prints its first Sudoku on 12 November 2004, and newspapers around the world soon follow.
- Today Mini Sudoku The same single rule on a 6 by 6 grid with 2 by 3 boxes: a full game in a few minutes.
- Also known as
- Number Place, 6 by 6 Sudoku
- Puzzle family
- Latin square logic
- Our board
- 6 by 6, six 2 by 3 boxes
- What it trains
- Scanning and elimination
Did you know? Sudoku is short for a Japanese phrase meaning "the digits must be single". Garns never saw his puzzle become famous: he died in 1989.
Is this the same as LinkedIn's puzzle?
No. This is our own Mini Sudoku, in the same six by six style. It is generated here and checked to have exactly one solution, so the answer will not match any official daily answer. It is free, needs no account, and your streak is saved in your own browser.