Daily Sudoku for October 3, 2026

The daily sudoku challenge for Saturday, October 3, 2026 — a free hard 9×9 puzzle with a verified unique solution. Saturday is a hard grid: fewer clues, deeper logic chains, and zero guessing required.

Starting grid

Daily Challenge

Mistakes: 0 Time: 00:00

Puzzle Facts

Difficulty: Hard · Clues: 26 of 81 cells (55 to solve)
Clues per digit: 1 ×2, 2 ×5, 3 ×2, 4 ×4, 5 ×1, 6 ×3, 7 ×3, 8 ×1, 9 ×5
Digit 2 is the most clued with 5 appearances.
Warm-up hint: the 3rd row has the most clues (5) — a good place to start.
Watch the 2nd column: only 2 of its nine cells are clued, so it holds 7 of the puzzle's open questions.
Box note: the 6th 3×3 box is the emptiest with just 1 clues — it will demand the most cross-hatching.

Puzzle snapshot for the 276th day of the year.

Technique focus for this grid

Let the grid pick your next unit. Rank all twenty-seven units (rows, columns, boxes) by how many digits they still need and always attack the most complete one. It turns a vague puzzle into an ordered checklist.

Clue map

Prefer solving on paper? Transcribe today's grid from this list:

Row 1: c1 = 2, c5 = 4, c8 = 9, c9 = 6
Row 2: c1 = 6, c5 = 1
Row 3: c1 = 1, c3 = 9, c4 = 3, c7 = 7, c9 = 2
Row 4: c4 = 2, c8 = 7
Row 5: c3 = 4, c5 = 5
Row 6: c2 = 3, c6 = 6
Row 7: c1 = 4, c3 = 2, c6 = 7, c7 = 9, c9 = 8
Row 8: c5 = 9
Row 9: c2 = 9, c5 = 2, c9 = 4

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

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.