Naked Single
The Naked Single is categorized as a solving technique but you can hardly call it a technique. A naked single is that what remains after you have applied your solving techniques, by eliminating other candidates.
A naked single is the last remaining candidate in a cell. Alternative terms are Forced Digit and Sole Candidate.
The easiest way to find naked singles in the grid is using pencilmarks. Cells with a single pencilmark are easy to spot. Without pencilmarks, you need to inspect the peers of the cell and see if there is only a single digit missing in the peers. You need a good short-term memory to do it this way, but many players prefer to solve easy Sudokus without pencilmarks.
Most players do not mention the discovery of singles to other players. When a Sudoku can be solved with singles only, the entire puzzle is not worth a discussion.
Example
The following Sudoku has two Naked Singles for digit 8.
Sudoku Games
- Sudoku 9981
- Samurai Sudoku
- Sudoku Printer
- Word Sudoku to Learn English
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Free Sudoku Script for Your Website
Sudoku strategies
- Coloring
- Singles
- Fish
- Chains and Loops
- Intersections
- Subsets
- Wings
- Single Digit Patterns
- Uniqueness
- Almost Locked Sets
