QED Logic quod erat demonstrandum

An Easy 10×10 Puzzle Solved with Line Confinement in 14 Steps

10×10 · easy · 14 steps

Play this board yourself →
A
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10
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This 10×10 board rates as easy (difficulty score 561). Solving it from scratch takes 14 logical steps, using 5 techniques: Single cell, Row/column exclusion, Adjacency clear, Region confinement, Line confinement. Every step below is forced: nothing here is a guess.

  1. First, place a marker at F10. Region has exactly one open cell left. Placing here clears the rest of row 10, column F, and its region. Placing here also clears its 2 touching neighbours.
  2. Next, every open cell left in this region sits in row 1, so its marker has to land there; that clears every other open cell in the row.
  3. Then, every open cell left in this region sits in row 2, so its marker has to land there; that clears every other open cell in the row.
  4. After that, place a marker at G3. Region has exactly one open cell left. Placing here clears the rest of row 3, column G, and its region. Placing here also clears its 1 touching neighbour.
  5. Now, place a marker at E1. Region has exactly one open cell left. Placing here clears the rest of row 1, column E, and its region. Placing here also clears its 1 touching neighbour.
  6. From there, place a marker at C2. Region has exactly one open cell left. Placing here clears the rest of row 2, column C, and its region.
  7. Following that, every open cell in column J belongs to the same region, so that region's marker has to be somewhere in this column; that clears every other open cell in the region.
  8. First, place a marker at I5. Column 9 has exactly one open cell left. Placing here clears the rest of row 5, column I, and its region. Placing here also clears its 2 touching neighbours.
  9. Next, place a marker at H8. Column 8 has exactly one open cell left. Placing here clears the rest of row 8, column H, and its region.
  10. Then, every open cell left in this region sits in row 9, so its marker has to land there; that clears every other open cell in the row.
  11. After that, place a marker at J7. Region has exactly one open cell left. Placing here clears the rest of row 7, column J, and its region.
  12. Now, place a marker at A6. Region has exactly one open cell left. Placing here clears the rest of row 6, column A, and its region.
  13. From there, place a marker at D9. Region has exactly one open cell left. Placing here clears the rest of row 9, column D, and its region.
  14. Finally, place a marker at B4. Region has exactly one open cell left.

The key move here was Line confinement. Once you can spot that, this board falls quickly.