Claiming sudoku technique

Intermediate level Appears in puzzles rated SE 1.9 – 2.5

Claiming is the mirror image of the pointing pair. This time you scan a row or column: if every place a digit can still occupy on that line falls inside a single 3×3 box, then the line has claimed the digit for those cells. The box must give up the digit everywhere else — its other two mini-rows lose the candidate.

How to find a claiming

  1. Pick a line — a row or a column — and a digit it still needs.
  2. Mark where on the line the digit can go.
  3. If all the marks fall inside one box, erase the digit from the other cells of that box.
  4. Follow up inside the box: the eliminations often leave a hidden single behind.
From the table: Pointing and claiming are two directions of one idea, and mixing them up costs nothing — both say: a digit trapped in the overlap of a line and a box disappears from the rest of both. Solvers who internalise the overlap stop thinking about which name applies.

The pattern on the grid

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Row 7 confines digit 3 to the bottom-right box (blue) — the rest of that box loses its 3s (red).

Worked example

Scan row 7 for digit 3. Placements in other columns block every cell except r7c7 and r7c8 — both inside the bottom-right box. Row 7 has claimed the 3 for that box's middle band, so the box must surrender its other 3 candidates: the marks at r8c8 and r9c9 go.

When it fails

Do not mix up the direction of the eliminations: claiming clears the BOX (outside the shared cells), pointing clears the LINE. Erasing along the row here would be wrong — the row is the side making the claim.

Related techniques

All solving techniques