Mini Sudoku Answer Today (October 19, 2026)

Six by six, and why that is not just a small nine

LinkedIn Mini Sudoku uses a 6×6 grid divided into six boxes of two rows by three columns, and the digits one to six. Every row, every column and every box holds each digit once. The reduction from nine to six sounds like a simplification and mostly is — fewer candidates per cell, and every board in our archive finishes with singles — but the 2×3 box changes the geometry in a way that trips up players who arrive from ordinary sudoku. The board has three horizontal bands of two boxes and two vertical stacks of three boxes. A digit seen in one box of a band confines the other box's copy to one row of three cells; a digit seen in two boxes of a stack confines the third box's copy to one column, just two cells tall. Stack scans are the sharper tool.

The game launched on 12 August 2025, resets at midnight Pacific with the rest of LinkedIn's games, and numbers its puzzles consecutively. In our archive of 37 boards (3 September to 10 October 2026) the givens ranged from 10 to 16. Monday boards were the most generous, at 14–16, and every board with 14 or more givens finished with naked singles alone. Saturday and Sunday boards carried 10–12, and six of those ten needed hidden singles.

The three techniques, and when each fires

Mini Sudoku needs far fewer techniques than its larger cousin. Three finished every board in our archive.

A scanning order that works

Because the boxes are two rows tall and three columns wide, the board has three horizontal bands (two boxes each) and two vertical stacks (three boxes each). Scan by stack first: pick a digit that already appears in two of a stack's three boxes, and the third box's copy is confined to the one column the other two do not use — two cells, often settled by a row given. Then scan the bands: a digit in one box of a band confines the other box's copy to the other row, three cells. Do this for every digit before hunting cell by cell. Naked singles appear as a by-product; fill them as you see them.

Hidden singles are the weekend move: in our archive, six of the nine boards that needed them ran on a Saturday or Sunday. When the scans stop producing, take any row, column or box with two or three blanks and ask, for each missing digit, which of the blanks it can legally take; a digit with one legal cell is placed there whatever else that cell could have held.

Common slips

Mini Sudoku errors are rarely logic errors. They are:

• Treating the box as 3×3 by reflex and eliminating a digit from a row it does not touch.
• Placing a digit that fits the row and column and forgetting the box, which on a 6×6 board is easy because the box lines are subtle.
• Filling a naked single from four eliminations instead of five — the cell looked forced but had two candidates left.
• Skipping the stack and band scans and hunting cell by cell, which finds the same digits more slowly.

About today's grid, and where to go next

The solution is fetched from the puzzle's structured data by a scheduled job after the reset and checked — every row, column and 2×3 box must contain one to six exactly once — before it is saved; the grid is drawn from that data with the box borders marked. Details are on the editorial policy page. The notes are written here. For the techniques on real boards without today's answer see the Mini Sudoku guide; every grid since 3 September 2026 is in the archive; and the neighbouring logic games — Queens, Tango, Zip — have their own daily pages.

Givens: how many, and what their placement means

LinkedIn's boards in our archive carry between ten and sixteen givens, and the count tracks difficulty closely. None of the nine boards with 14 or more givens needed anything beyond naked singles; seven of the sixteen boards with exactly ten givens needed hidden singles. Spread matters less than you might expect: some boards with no givens at all in one box still finished on naked singles, and one board with exactly two givens in every box (#407) needed hidden singles. Look at the box with the fewest givens first — not to solve it, but to know that the scans will end there. Sunday 6 September 2026 (#391) shows the low end: ten givens, two boxes holding three each, two holding two and two holding none, and not a single naked single available at the start — the first placements come from asking where a digit can go in a row. Monday 7 September (#392) shows the other end: sixteen givens, and naked singles from the first move to the last.

The rendered grid at the top shows the finished solution rather than the starting position, so compare it with your own board to see which cells you were given. If the box that started empty was where you got stuck, that is the board, not you; if you got stuck elsewhere, a scan was missed.

A worked scan

Start with a band — rows one and two, the top two boxes. Suppose there is a 4 given in the top-left box, in row one. The top-right box needs a 4 too, and it cannot go in row one, so it must sit in row two, in one of that box's three cells. If a 4 also appears lower down in one of those three columns, the choice shrinks to two cells; if two of the columns are blocked, it is placed. That is a band cross-hatch: one given confines the partner box's copy to a single row.

Then stacks. The left stack — columns one to three, boxes one, three and five — treats columns the way the band treated rows: a 2 in column one of box one and a 2 in column three of box three confine box five's 2 to column two. Because boxes are three wide, stack scans on a 6×6 are the more powerful of the two; a digit in two of a stack's three boxes leaves exactly one column for the third box's copy, and the box is only two cells tall in that column — one row given finishes it. On #391, for instance, the very first move is of this kind turned sideways: the middle-right box already holds a 2, so the 2 in row three is pushed out of that box's three columns and lands in column three.

Mini Sudoku and your score

After you finish, LinkedIn's results page compares your score with averages for all members, your company and other groups, per the help page; LinkedIn doesn't publish benchmark times. If your results swing from day to day, look at the board first: in our archive Monday boards carried 14–16 givens and needed only naked singles, while weekend boards carried 10–12 and often needed hidden singles. If they swing between boards of the same kind, you are probably scanning in an inconsistent order, and the fix is to adopt the stack-then-band order and keep it.

Frequently asked questions

Recent Mini Sudoku answers

Every past puzzle is in the Mini Sudoku archive. New here? Start with the Mini Sudoku guide.