Expert Sudoku — Play Free Online

What earns the Expert label

Every puzzle we serve has been worked through by a solver that only uses moves a person can make, from the simplest single up to the advanced patterns. If the hardest move it needed was one of the last group, the puzzle is Expert: a hidden triple, an X-Wing, an XY-Wing or a Swordfish. That means two things. You will hit at least one wall where nothing simpler helps, and that wall always has a logical way through. You never have to guess and test.

The patterns, in plain words

1. X-Wing. Pick a digit. In two rows it can stand in only two cells each, and those four cells form a rectangle. Whichever way it resolves, the digit takes one cell in each of those two columns, so erase it from every other cell of both columns. Swap rows and columns for the mirror version.
2. Swordfish. The X-Wing stretched to three rows and three columns. When a digit's spots in three rows all fall within the same three columns, the rest of those columns lose that digit.
3. XY-Wing. Three cells with two candidates each: a pivot holding XY, one wing XZ seeing the pivot, another wing YZ seeing it too. Either way the pivot falls, one wing becomes Z, so any cell that sees both wings cannot be Z.
4. Hidden triple. Three digits that, inside one row, column or box, can only go in the same three cells. Those cells are theirs: strip every other candidate from them.

A method for Expert grids

Do the easy work first, all the way: every single you can find, then a complete set of notes. Then go through the Hard moves, pointing and box-line, pairs and naked triples, because they often clear enough clutter for a pattern to show. Only when all of that is exhausted, hunt digit by digit for an X-Wing or a Swordfish, and look for cells with exactly two candidates for an XY-Wing. After any elimination, return to singles before searching for the next pattern.

Expert sudoku on AllFun

A hint here places a number and tells you the pattern that unlocked it, which turns a frustrating wall into a lesson: three per puzzle are free. With mistakes set to Off the game checks nothing, as on paper; Classic allows three. Your Expert best time and streak have their own line in the statistics. Warm up on Hard sudoku if the patterns are new to you, or relax with Easy sudoku between battles. Worked steps for every technique are in our sudoku guide, and more logic games are on the puzzle games page.

Questions

Updated 31 October 2026