Partial Trio Sudoku by Philip Newman
(This post is part of the Genuinely Approachable Sudoku (GAS) series.)
Philip Newman goes back to the number 3 with today’s Partial Trio Sudoku. In this variation on Trio, you’ll have to determine the low/middle/high grouping of the blank cells.
or solve online (using SudokuPad)
Author/Opus: This is the 93rd puzzle from Philip Newman, part of the Genuinely Approachable Sudoku (GAS) team.
Rules: Standard Sudoku rules (insert a number from 1 to 9 into each cell so that no number repeats in any row, column, or bold region). Also, orange circles contain numbers from {1, 2, 3}, blue squares contain numbers from {4, 5, 6}, and green diamonds contain numbers from {7, 8, 9}.
GAS Time Standards (highlight to view): Two party hats (🎩🥳): 9:00; One party hat (🥳): 18:00. All other solvers earn a 🦕: Joyous Jobaria.
Thomas Hits the GAS (highlight to view): 5:15 on a harder version without as many clues, with SudokuPad replay file shared as a download for now (requires loading via settings menu with improvements expected before people should use this regularly).
Solution: PDF and solving video with explanation from GAS team.
Note: Note: Follow this link for other less common variations of Sudoku.
Note 2: Comments on the blog are great! For a more interactive discussion, please also consider using our Daily GAS discussion post on the GMPuzzles Discord. Not a member of the Discord? Click this link for basic access.
The rules in Sudokupad are incorrect, they say that Blue Squares are 123, Green Diamond are 456 and Orange Circles are 789.
The ones stated in the blog are the correct ones.
Thanks for spotting this. We asked Philip to make the shapes and colors more consistent with clover!’s recent Trio Sudoku, but in doing so it looks like the text was not updated on the SudokuPad post. The puzzle is still really fun if you can look past this last-minute editing issue today.
I got a hat! The instructions are written wrong, but the clues in the shapes give it right.
Funny story: I tried solving it using the instruction even though the given digits didn’t follow the instructions and it was really fun until it failed and I realized Mr. Newman wasn’t playing some weird, clever game with my mind.
The explanation for the puzzle on sudokupad does not match this post’s explanation (which appears to be correct).
Sorry about that! Here’s the corrected link until the short URL is updated: https://sudokupad.app/philip-newman/20260303-partial-trio-v2