Box Brain Sudoku
Learn › Naked Pair
Medium · technique 9 of 18
Naked Pair
Two cells in a house share the same two candidates, and nothing else.
How it works
Those two digits must fill those two cells, so remove them from every other cell in the house.
A worked example
Naked Pair: in row 4, the cells in columns 1 and 4 can only hold 2 and 7, so those digits are removed from the rest of the house.
- The area to look at
- The cells that make the pattern
- Candidates it rules out
A real position from a puzzle in the app. Small digits are the candidates the step looks at; coloured digits are already solved.
Practise it in Box Brain Sudoku
The app teaches Naked Pair on this same board, then hands you puzzles that need it. When you are stuck mid-game, a hint first points you to the right area, then names the technique and shows the move.