1 Favour evidence flow over the clock
After every placement, refresh candidates across the row/column/box. Stable speed emerges from a repeatable logic flow.
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🧠 Sudoku Guide
How to Improve at Solving Sudoku: Technique Progression & Clean Notes
Real improvement comes from the right practice: tidy pencil marks, a staged technique ladder, short post-mortems, and daily, distraction-free sessions.
How to Improve at Solving Sudoku
clean notes • technique ladder • difficulty scaling • post-mortems • ritual • flow
2 Candidate discipline
One style, one location, instant updates. Your grid becomes an evidence log, not guesswork.
3 Technique progression
- Basic: Singles, elimination, pointing/claiming
- Intermediate: Naked Pair/Triple, Box-Line
- Advanced: X-Wing, Swordfish, XY-Wing, UR, chains
Train in order until “what to look for” becomes automatic.
4 Scale difficulty smartly
Keep ~60–70% of sessions flowing and 30–40% challenging. Balance prevents burnout and plateaus.
5 Short post-mortems
Rewind the last 5–8 moves, tag the missed pattern rather than just the mistake. Learning compounds.
6 Cross-train with variants
Diagonal/Killer/Thermo/Kropki sharpen restriction sense. Back on classic, patterns pop faster.
Daily mixed levels on Ozerlyn Sudoku help lock these habits in.