How to play Mini Sudoku (6×6)

Mini Sudoku is a 6×6 grid divided into six boxes of 2×3. Every row, every column and every box holds the digits 1 to 6, each exactly once. The rules are the rules of a full sudoku on a board that fits a phone screen and a coffee break.

The five rules

Pick a cell, then tap a digit from 1 to 6 (or type it).

Every row holds the digits 1 to 6, with no repeats.

Same for every column, and for every 2×3 box.

A repeated digit is flagged straight away.

Not sure yet? Turn on pencil marks and jot the options down.

One deduction, step by step

Puzlia generates each board around the techniques it wants to ask for, so these three are not tips — they are what the puzzle is made of. Easy needs only the first, Medium adds the second, Hard reaches for the third.

Naked single. Five of the six digits are already in this row, so the empty cell can only hold the sixth. Easy boards are made of nothing else.

Hidden single. This box still needs a 4. Every other empty cell in it sits in a row or a column that already has one, so the 4 goes in the cell that is left — even though that cell could have held other digits too.

Pointing pair. If a digit can only sit in one row of a box, it is gone from the rest of that row outside the box. Hard boards lean on this, on naked pairs and on box-line.

Where to start

Count before you look. Find the digit that already appears most often on the board and place it everywhere it can go: on a 6×6 grid, four copies of a digit usually decide the other two.

Then scan box by box rather than cell by cell. A box has six cells and six digits, so it is the smallest place where «this digit fits nowhere else» can be true — and that is the hidden single, the move Medium boards are built on.

Rows and columns with four or five digits already in them are the other cheap win: what is missing is a short list, and often a list of one.

If you get stuck, turn on Notes and write the candidates down. Nothing on Puzlia ever needs them — every board is solvable by plain reasoning — but a written list turns a hard scan into an easy one.

Questions people ask

Is this real sudoku?

Yes, the same rules on a smaller frame: 6×6 instead of 9×9, boxes of 2×3 instead of 3×3, digits 1 to 6 instead of 1 to 9. Everything you know from a full sudoku works here.

Why 6×6?

Because it fits a phone screen without pinching, and because it takes a few minutes rather than an hour. It is the daily puzzle you finish, not the one you keep meaning to.

Do I need pencil marks?

Never. Every board is checked to be solvable by the techniques listed above, without notes and without guessing. Notes are there for comfort, not to make up for a board that does not hold together.

What changes between Easy, Medium and Hard?

The techniques the board demands. Easy is naked singles only. Medium adds hidden singles. Hard also uses pointing pairs, naked pairs and box-line, and starts from as few as eight given digits.

Can a puzzle have two solutions?

No. Each board is solved exhaustively before it is served, and one with a second solution is thrown away.

Play it

Same daily board for everyone, or unlimited puzzles

Today's Sudoku Start on Easy

How to play Mini Sudoku