Techniques › Hidden Pair › Practice
Practise the Hidden Pair
Two digits that can only go in the same two cells own them, whatever else those cells show.
8 real positions, each taken from an actual puzzle at the moment this was the cheapest move available. Two steps: find the cells that form the pattern, then find the candidate it rules out. A near miss tells you how many you had right, so getting it wrong is worth something.
| 2 | 3 | 5 | 14 | 46 | 146 | 7 | 8 | 9 |
| 4 | 7 | 1 | 9 | 3 | 8 | 2 | 5 | 6 |
| 8 | 9 | 6 | 7 | 2 | 5 | 3 | 4 | 1 |
| 6 | 8 | 7 | 24 | 1 | 24 | 9 | 3 | 5 |
| 9 | 1 | 2 | 5 | 7 | 3 | 8 | 6 | 4 |
| 3 | 5 | 4 | 6 | 8 | 9 | 1 | 2 | 7 |
| 7 | 46 | 3 | 8 | 9 | 46 | 5 | 1 | 2 |
| 15 | 24 | 9 | 3 | 45 | 124 | 6 | 7 | 8 |
| 15 | 26 | 8 | 12 | 56 | 7 | 4 | 9 | 3 |
How to spot it
Count homes per digit within a house. Any two digits with exactly two homes each — and the same two — are a Hidden Pair.
Full explanation on the Hidden Pair reference page.
Practise something else
- Naked Pair Two cells in a house holding the same two candidates lock those digits away from the rest.
- Hidden Triple Three digits restricted to the same three cells clear everything else out of them.
- Claiming A digit confined to one box inside a line clears that digit from the rest of the box.