Ok, I don't understand this game. I've read instructions but I still don't get it. Please tell me how you play, but use simple language. I am not the best math person in the world. Thank you!!!!! xo!!!!!

there are two rules -

use the numbers 1 through 9 once and only once in each row and column

and use the numbers 1 through 9 once and only once in each nine-square grid.

see the big box is made of nine smaller boxes, and each of them has nine places for numbers inside it. so each of the nine smaller boxes has to have 1 to 9 in it, and each overall row and column of the big box, the same.

as to WHY anyone would want to do this, you'll have to ask someone far wiser than I...

Thanks kate.

I'm addicted to these things...I do 3 or 4 every day. There is supposed to be only one and only one solution for a given puzzle. But I think if the puzzle is computer generated, it might be that is more than one solution, and you stumbled upon the a different one than the machine decided was the "right" solutution.


Anyway, that's my story, and I'm stick'n to it :)

To my utter and complete astonishment (I too being a severely math-averse word person) Mike tipped me off to the possibility that some of these are "easy", and in fact, they are! Plus, Birdie, there's NO MATH involved! I mean, nothing has to add up, really (unlike some of the sadistic problems they expect you to solve in Jr. High) it just has to be correctly arranged. You could do them using nine letters instead of nine numbers and they would work just fine.

But (shameful admission) if I stop to check and see how I'm doing with one and it tells me there's a problem, I have to admit I simply abandon ship and start a new one. Not that I do this very often, mind you. Not like every day when I should be doing something else instead of cursing Mike and his virus-spreading ways. Nossir. Much too self-disciplined for that, yes indeed :-)

As with many problems in life, there is more than one perfect answer. I would expect you to find the one on the less trodden path. :)

Sodoku should GO AWAY