Techniques › Naked Pair › Practice
Practise the Naked Pair
Two cells in a house holding the same two candidates lock those digits away from the rest.
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.
| 5 | 1 | 4 | 2 | 38 | 38 | 6 | 9 | 7 |
| 8 | 3 | 7 | 5 | 69 | 69 | 2 | 4 | 1 |
| 9 | 6 | 2 | 1 | 7 | 4 | 5 | 3 | 8 |
| 1 | 9 | 6 | 4 | 5 | 38 | 38 | 7 | 2 |
| 3 | 7 | 5 | 689 | 2 | 689 | 89 | 1 | 4 |
| 2 | 4 | 8 | 39 | 1 | 7 | 39 | 6 | 5 |
| 6 | 2 | 9 | 7 | 4 | 5 | 1 | 8 | 3 |
| 4 | 5 | 3 | 89 | 89 | 1 | 7 | 2 | 6 |
| 7 | 8 | 1 | 36 | 36 | 2 | 4 | 5 | 9 |
How to spot it
Look for two cells in a house with identical two-candidate lists. They do not have to be adjacent, only share a row, column or box.
Full explanation on the Naked Pair reference page.
Practise something else
- Hidden Pair Two digits that can only go in the same two cells own them, whatever else those cells show.
- Naked Triple Three cells sharing three candidates between them lock those digits away.
- XY-Wing A pivot and two pincers. Whichever way the pivot falls, one pincer takes the digit.