Naked Triples

Naked Triples are an extension on naked pairs, but instead of looking for 2 candidates that are in 2 cells, you are looking for 3 candidates that are in 3 cells.

They are harder to spot, and don't occur as often as Naked Pairs, but they are a great technique to know how to apply.

We are looking at the 1, 3 and 8 candidates in the second column.

These 3 candidates have to appear in the highlighted cells - we don't know exactly which number will go in which cell, but we do know that these 3 values have to appear in these 3 cells.

That means we can remove the 1, 3, and 8 candidates from all other cells in this column, i.e. the red highlighted pencil marks.

As you'd expect, Naked Triples can also appear in rows, like this example.

Naked Triples are a little harder to spot - it's a little unusual for all 3 cells to have all 3 candidates, this makes them a little harder to spot.

This Naked Triple does have the 3 candidate values in all 3 cells, but this isn't very common.

Can you spot the naked triple in this Sudoku?

There are 2 examples to find!

Did you spot this one?

What about this one?

Can you spot the naked triple in this Sudoku?

Did you find it?

Last one, can you spot the Naked Triple in this Sudoku??

Did you find it?

That's everything you need to know about Naked Triples!

It is possible to find Naked Quads (i.e. four values contained within four cells), but those are very rare in 9×9 Sudoku Puzzles.

Practice puzzles

Here are 10 Sudoku puzzles where you will need to apply the Naked Triples technique to solve (some will also require Naked Pairs),

Sudoku Academy

Naked Triples

Naked Triples

Practice puzzles

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