Daily Sudoku for October 2, 2026
The daily sudoku challenge for Friday, October 2, 2026 — a free medium 9×9 puzzle with a verified unique solution. Friday closes the workweek at medium difficulty, with enough bite to keep you honest before the weekend.
Starting grid
Puzzle Facts
- Difficulty: Medium · Clues: 33 of 81 cells (48 to solve)
- Clues per digit: 1 ×6, 2 ×4, 3 ×3, 4 ×4, 5 ×4, 6 ×4, 7 ×3, 8 ×2, 9 ×4
- Digit 1 is the most clued with 6 appearances.
- Warm-up hint: the 5th row has the most clues (6) — a good place to start.
- Watch the 1st column: only 1 of its nine cells are clued, so it holds 8 of the puzzle's open questions.
- Box note: the 3rd 3×3 box is the emptiest with just 2 clues — it will demand the most cross-hatching.
Puzzle snapshot for the 275th day of the year.
Technique focus for this grid
Re-scan after every placement. The most common cause of getting stuck is stale information. After placing a digit, immediately re-check its row, column, and box for new singles before hunting anything else.
Clue map
Prefer solving on paper? Transcribe today's grid from this list:
- Row 1: c2 = 2, c3 = 9, c5 = 1, c7 = 4, c9 = 5
- Row 2: c2 = 1, c3 = 3, c5 = 6
- Row 3: c4 = 3, c5 = 5, c6 = 9
- Row 4: c3 = 2, c4 = 1, c7 = 9
- Row 5: c2 = 5, c3 = 1, c4 = 8, c6 = 4, c7 = 3, c8 = 2
- Row 6: c3 = 7, c6 = 6, c7 = 1
- Row 7: c4 = 6, c5 = 8, c6 = 7
- Row 8: c5 = 4, c7 = 7, c8 = 9
- Row 9: c1 = 1, c3 = 4, c5 = 2, c7 = 5, c8 = 6
Everyone who played on this date solved the same puzzle: it is generated deterministically from the date itself, and the starting grid above shows exactly what appeared on the board that day. Your in-progress game saves automatically in your browser.
Other Recent Daily Puzzles
- Sunday, September 27 — hard
- Monday, September 28 — easy
- Tuesday, September 29 — easy
- Wednesday, September 30 — medium
- Thursday, October 1 — medium
- Saturday, October 3 — hard
- Sunday, October 4 — hard
- Monday, October 5 — easy
- Tuesday, October 6 — easy
- Wednesday, October 7 — medium
- Thursday, October 8 — medium
- Friday, October 9 — medium
- Saturday, October 10 — hard
Looking for today's grid? Play the current daily sudoku challenge, or generate unlimited puzzles on play sudoku online. Prefer paper? Grab a set from the printable sudoku library. New to the game? Start with the rules of sudoku.