My Sudoku

Medium Used from medium puzzles up.

Naked Pair

Two cells, the same two candidates

Two cells of a unit with exactly the same two candidates, say 3 and 7, will hold those two digits, one each. Which way round is not known yet.

Either way, 3 and 7 are used up in that unit: remove them from its other cells.

What to look for

Find two cells of one unit with the same two candidates and nothing else.

Example

4756868923191623727375842382383815479616785689257817891578456317845814825783618259136835689138941289158182567123823879181358642583683468348356784678291585246891489681468183728 112233445566778899
Naked Pair: in column 4, R1C4, R9C4 hold only {6,8}; remove those digits from the other cells of the unit.
  • The cells the technique relies on
  • Cells where it removes candidates, struck out in red

Practise it

In the app, Learn › Naked Pair sets exercises on real positions, then a full puzzle that needs this technique and nothing harder.

Practise in your browser