This past year a combination of five Sudoku puzzle books combined to out sell one of the big best selling books in the book marketplace. Almost every daily newspaper now features a Suduko puzzle right next to it's customary crossword puzzle. Often times, the Sudoku puzzle gets attention before the traditional crossword puzzle.

Sudoku is a puzzle made up of nine cubes featuring nine squares in each cube. These nine cubes combine to make nine rows and nine columns. The puzzle game is sometimes referred to as nine x nine. The goal to complete the puzzle is quite simple. You must use the numbers 1-9 only once in each cube, once in each row, and once in each column.

Each Sudoku puzzle starts with some of the numbers already entered into the puzzle. Depending on how many numbers are pre-entered and the placement of these numbers determine the difficult level of the Sudoko puzzle. Ratings of difficulty very but are often rated from 1 start (easy) to 6 stars (very difficult). Some puzzle creators just call them light and easy, easy, moderately hard, very difficult etc. Other puzzle creators have applied far east martial art terms such as white belt, brown belt, green belt and black belt.

If you have never tried a Sudoko puzzle be sure to start with the easiest level you can find. If you buy a puzzle book they are clearly labeled. If you look in a daily newspaper you would normally find the easiest puzzles at the beginning of the week. Starting with an easy level will help you to develop your puzzle strategy in addition to not completely frustrating you as a very difficult puzzle may do.

The basic strategy that many people use is to go through each number and try to fill in as many of these as the puzzle allows by looking up and down the rows and columns to see where a number has to be placed. If you work your way up from number one through nine, be sure to consider going through this process again and the first time through may have determined some numbers not identifiable the first time through. Next look at the cubes to see which number in a cube may prevent that number from being used in a particular row or column you are trying to solve. Finally try to train your mind to see all nine squares in a row, column or cube. By doing so you will quickly be able to identify the missing number needed in each of these areas.