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Singles Chains Parallel Elimination

The Medusa 3D Parallel Elimination Sudoku solving technique is similar to the Medusa 3D Elimination technique. The difference between these two techniques lies in the first step. For the Medusa 3D Elimination, the first step is to identify a 3x3 square where all cells with a certain candidate are located in one row and one column within the square. For the Medusa 3D Parallel Elimination, the first step is to identify a 3x3 square where all cells with a certain candidate are located in two rows or two columns.

Next, we need to find two cells outside of this square with the same candidate in the selected two rows or columns that are elements of a Medusa 3D chain with the same color. If both outside candidates are ON, all candidates inside the 3x3 square will be eliminated. This scenario is invalid. To avoid the elimination of all inside candidates, we need to remove both outside candidates of the chain as well as all other chain candidates with the same color. All chain candidates with a different color are valid Sudoku solutions.

Following is an example of the Medusa 3D Parallel Elimination technique.

Medusa 3D Parallel Elimination Example The 3x3 square in the bottom right corner has three candidates '8' (marked orange) located in rows G and I. A Medusa 3D chain has five elements marked red and green. One of the red candidates '8' in the Medusa 3D chain is located in row G (G4), and another is in row I (I2) outside of the selected 3x3 square. If the red candidates are ON, all '8' candidates in the selected 3x3 square will be eliminated, making the Sudoku invalid. Therefore, we can remove all Medusa 3D red candidates. The green candidates '4' are valid values and can be assigned to cells I2 and G4.

Medusa 3D Parallel Elimination Example An image on the left shows another example of the Medusa 3D Parallel Elimination technique. A 3x3 square in the middle of the top row has four candidates '1' (marked orange) located in rows B and C. The Medusa 3D chain has nineteen red and sixteen green elements. Two of them are located in rows B and C outside of the selected square: candidate '1' in cell B1 and '1' in cell C8. Both candidates are red, and if the red candidates of the Medusa 3D chain are ON, all '1' candidates in the selected 3x3 square will be eliminated. To avoid this scenario, we should remove all red candidates of the Medusa 3D chain. All green candidates are valid, and their values can be assigned to the cells.