Hidden Pairs

Just like in the “Hidden Single” technique, we first need to find something hidden. But this time, we are looking for the pair that appears in only two cells in a unit


  1. Take a look at this example
Hidden pairs sudoku technique example

  1. As you can see, the values 2 and 6 appear only in two cells of this unit. This means 2 must occupy one of these cells, and 6 must occupy the other
Hidden pairs technique with the pairs highlighted

  1. So you can delete any other numbers in these cells
Hidden pairs technique applied to a sudoku grid

  1. Hidden Pairs can also be found in a column or a row