No doubt you’re all familiar with the game of sudoku (even if you’ve never played it before!), with the aim being to fill every cell in a 9x9 grid with a number from one to nine, making sure that each number only appears once in every row, column and block.

While the name might perhaps suggest that sudoku originated in Japan, the very first iteration of the game is usually attributed to Swiss mathematician Leonhard Euler in 1767, but it seems it can be traced back even further than that to Korean mathematician Choi Seokjeong in 1700.

The first modern version of the game was published in a 1979 issue of Dell Puzzle Magazines in New York, although it was called Number Place rather than sudoku. 

The game didn’t really light the world on fire at first and it wasn’t until 1984 when it was discovered by Maki Kaji - the president of Japanese firm Nikoli - who published it in his own puzzle magazine. He called it Suji Wa Dokushin Ni Kagiru (“the digits must be single”)... and this was later abbreviated to sudoku.

How do you improve sudoku skills?

As with any game, practice makes perfect so try to do a Sudoku puzzle or two a day if you want to improve your skills.

Looking at the grid as a whole can be overwhelming, so just focus on one row, column or square and take it one step at a time.

Trying out different techniques is another way to upskill and you might find the Number Pairs strategy effective. Here, you simply take a number and then look for instances where two of this number appear within the same set of three squares, thereby eliminating spaces and working out where the remaining instance of that number will need to go.

You’ll soon get a feel for the game and you’ll soon start trying to find more challenging puzzles to put yourself to the test. Have fun!