Ken Ken Puzzle

How to Solve KenKen® Puzzles

If you like Sudoku, there’s a good chance you’ll love KenKen. If you hate Sudoku, there’s a good chance
you’ll love KenKen. Invented by Japanese mathematics teacher Tetsuya Miyamoto in 2004, KenKen is an
elegant and rich logic puzzle with a few easy-to-understand rules, which helps explain why New York
Times Puzzle Editor Will Shortz called it “The most addictive puzzle since Sudoku.”

KenKen and KenDoku are trademarked names for a style of arithmetic and logic puzzle invented
in 2004 by Japanese math teacher Tetsuya Miyamoto, who intended the puzzles to be an
instruction-free method of training the brain. The name derives from the Japanese word for
cleverness ( 賢 , ken, kashiko(i)).
KenKen’s rules are straightforward:
Fill in each square cell in the puzzle with a number
between 1 and the size of the grid. For example, in
a 4×4 grid, use the numbers 1, 2, 3, & 4.
Use each number exactly once in each row and
each column.
The numbers in each “Cage” (indicated by the
heavy lines) must combine — in any order — to
produce the cage’s target number using the
indicated math operation. Numbers may be
repeated within a cage as long as rule 2 isn’t
violated.
No guessing is required. Each puzzle can be solved
completely using only logical deduction. Harder
puzzles require more complex deductions.
Instructions
Fill in the blank squares so that each row and each column
contain all of the digits 1 thru 4 (or whatever the size of the
puzzle is).The heavy lines indicate areas (called cages) that
contain groups of numbers that can be combined (in any order)
to produce the result shown in the cage, with the indicated math
operation. For example, 8× means you can multiply the values
together to produce 8.
Note that I use a slash (/) to indicate division instead of the
traditional symbol (÷) to avoid confusion with the plus sign (+).
Numbers in cages may repeat, as long as they are not in the
same row or column.
Take a look at the answers page if you get stuck!
Each cage in a KenKen contains a target number and most contain an operator. If you see a single-cell cage
with just a number and no operator, it means that the value in that cell is the target number. Such single-cell
cages work like givens in Sudoku puzzles. You won’t see these in every puzzle, but when you do see one,
you should start there. In this puzzle, we can immediately place a 4 in the upper right cell:

Here’s a sample puzzle that we’ll use to illustrate solving

techniques:
Whenever we place a number, this narrows down the
possibilities for other cells, so we want to look for that. In
this puzzle, we know that the 7+ cage in the third column
must contain 3 & 4, since that is the only possibility that
adds to 7. Given the 4 that we just placed, combined
with the rule that we must use each number exactly once
in each row and each column, we can now tell which of
the cage’s cell contains a 3 and which contains a 4:
We can now tell that the two empty cells in the third
column (in the 4× cage) contain 1 & 2, but we don’t
know the order. However, given that information, we
can place a 2 in the lower right cell to make the cage’s
product be 4:
Remember that a cage can repeat numbers in an
irregularly shaped cage as long as no number is
duplicated within a single row or column. In this puzzle,
before we knew the two values in the 7+ cage, we
didn’t know if the 4× cage contained the numbers 1, 1,
& 4 or 1, 2, & 2. Now that we know about the 2, we can
immediately finish the 4× cage because we know the
second 2 must be in the third row:
For more complex deductions, it can be useful to take
notes in the puzzle, which you can do by using the right
side of the on-screen keyboard, holding down the Shift
key while typing on a physical keyboard, or switching to
Pencil input with TouchWrite. In the 2÷ cage in the upper
left, there are only two possibilities — 1 & 2 or 2 & 4. The
latter is excluded by the 3 & 4 already in the row, so we
can deduce that two cells contain 1 & 2 (in an unknown
order). Since knowing this doesn’t let us place any
additional numbers immediately, we can use notes to help
us remember it for future use.
Next, we can look at the 1- cage in the first column.
Without knowing any constraints, the cells can contain 1 & That also lets us place the 3 in the bottom row and
2 or 2 & 3 or 3 & 4. But our notes show us that the first then the 4 in the second row tells us how to place the
column will already contain either a 1 or 2, which means 1 and the 4 above it:
the 1- cage cannot contain 1 & 2. This means it must have
either 2 & 3 or 3 & 4. Whichever it is, it means the 1- cage
will definitely contain a 3. And that means the bottom left
cell cannot be a 3, which means it must be a 4:
Now we can place the 2 and then the 1 in the top row: Next, we finish up the first column, and
we can tell the order because the third
row already has a 2 in it:
 Finally, we wrap up the puzzle by placing the last two numbers in the fourth column:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?
v=VA9imqx6Z5Q

Note that this is just one way to solve this puzzle. Because this is an Easy puzzle, there is more than
one deductive path for solving. With harder puzzles, this is not always the case.
Example no, 2
! Puzzle completed! Although there is only one
solution to every KENKEN puzzle, there are many
different paths to that solution. Try this grid a few
more times, each time starting with a different cage.
Thank you for Watching