🗓️ Daily Samurai Sudoku

📅 How the Daily Samurai Works

Every day at midnight, your local time, a new Samurai board appears on this page. It is built from the date itself, so a player in Toronto and a player in Manila who open the page on the same calendar day get exactly the same five grids. Nobody gets an easier draw, which is what makes the daily leaderboard worth looking at.

The board is a full Samurai: five classic 9×9 grids joined at the corners into one 21×21 layout. The centre grid shares a 3×3 box with each of the four outer grids, and those shared boxes have to work for both grids at once. If you have never played the format, the Samurai Sudoku page explains the rules in detail and lets you practise on as many boards as you like.

You get one daily board per day. When you finish it, the page shows your time and a countdown to the next one. Your progress is saved in the browser as you go, so you can close the tab halfway through and pick up later the same day. Only today’s board is kept: a half-finished puzzle from yesterday is replaced by the new one.

🧩 How Hard Is Today’s Puzzle?

The daily board is always Medium. Of the 369 playable cells, 185 start filled in and 184 are empty, every single day. We measured that across 120 consecutive daily boards rather than assuming it, and the count never moved. Easy and Hard Samurai boards stay on the main Samurai page.

Each board is checked by the same solver that builds every puzzle on Sudoku Leader, and a cell is only removed if the puzzle still has exactly one solution afterwards. You never need to guess. Every placement can be reached by logic, even if some days it takes a while to find the next one.

Plan on a proper sitting. The Medium Samurai solves recorded on this site so far have taken between about 26 and 40 minutes, and a first attempt at the format usually takes longer than that. The pause button stops the clock if you need a break.

🔢 How Everyone Gets the Same Board

There is no list of puzzles stored anywhere. When the page opens, it turns today’s date into a number and uses that number to seed the puzzle builder. The builder fills all five grids with digits, then empties cells one at a time, checking after each removal that the puzzle still has a single solution. It stops when 184 cells are empty.

Because every step follows from that one number, any browser that starts from the same date ends up with the same board, cell for cell. That is also why the board changes at your local midnight: a new date means a new number, and a new number means a new puzzle. Building it takes a fraction of a second, so the board is ready as soon as the page loads.

📊 Daily Samurai vs the Daily Sudoku Challenge

Sudoku Leader has two daily puzzles. They suit different days, so here is how they compare.

Plenty of players do both: the classic daily over morning coffee, the Samurai when there is an evening to spare.

🏆 Today’s Fastest Leaderboard

The board beside the puzzle shows the five fastest players on today’s board, one row per player. If you solve it more than once on different devices, only your best time counts. It resets at midnight along with the puzzle.

Times are ranked with penalties included. Each hint adds 120 seconds, and so does each number you place that clashes with another, so a clean 35-minute solve beats a 30-minute solve that leaned on three hints. The clock starts when you first tap a cell, not when the page loads.

You can play without an account. To put your time on the board, sign in with Google or choose “Save as Guest” after you finish. Your first solve each day also earns the same XP as a Medium Samurai on the main page, which counts toward the 🌍 Global Leaders table and your profile rank.

🌟 Weekly Top 5

Below today’s board is the Weekly Top 5, the same idea as on the Daily Sudoku Challenge. It adds up the XP each player has earned from this week’s daily boards, Monday to Sunday, so playing every day counts for more than one fast time. Only your first saved solve of each day earns XP, and the table shows how many days each player has solved. It starts again every Monday at midnight, your local time.

💡 Tips for Your Daily Solve

• Start in the corners where grids overlap. Those four shared 3×3 boxes take constraints from two grids at once, so they usually give up the first placements.
• Turn on Notes early. With 184 empty cells, pencil marks save you from re-checking the same row three times. The notes strip shows the marks of the selected cell in a larger size.
• Watch for red cells. A number that clashes with another in any of the grids it belongs to turns red straight away, and it counts as a mistake on your time.
• Move to another grid when one stalls. A digit you place in an outer grid often unlocks the centre, and the other way round.
• Save hints for when you are truly stuck. Two minutes per hint adds up quickly on a board this size.

🎌 More Daily and Samurai Puzzles

Finished today’s board and want more? The Samurai Sudoku page builds a fresh board every time, at Easy, Medium or Hard. If you prefer paper, the Samurai Sudoku Printable makes PDFs with answer keys. For a shorter daily habit, the Daily Sudoku Challenge gives everyone the same classic 9×9 puzzle each day, usually a 5 to 15 minute solve.

❓ Daily Samurai Sudoku FAQs