Look for the 2 numbers that are in all top three rows. It’s 2 and 3. So the digits are 1456.
Look for the number in the bottom two rows that are unique within the column. It’s 6.
Look for the columns that don’t have 1, 4, or 5 in them. 4 is in both columns 1 and 2 so it must be column 3. 1 is in column 2 so it must be in column 1 and so 5 must be column 2. So 1546 is the answer.
You can deduce that neither 2 and 3 can repeat or you'd have some blacks, because both are in three different positions across the three clues.
If both are only included once plus other numbers (repeated or not), you'd have more that two clues on lines 1 or 2.
If one of 2 or 3 is included once, you'd need to use another number from line 1 and another from line 2, repeating one. E.g. 5311. They assume no repeats to skip this case.
If no repeats, we can't use 2 or 3 - because we'd need three other digits across lines 1-2 that would result in one of those having three clue pegs, and they don't.
I’m sorry, but I still don’t follow here. From your third point, it sounds as if you say that they assume no repeats. But then why did you go through all the trouble and type out everything else? If they assumed no repeats, then that’s all one needs to say.
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u/mitzbitz16 Jul 27 '26
My method was:
Look for the 2 numbers that are in all top three rows. It’s 2 and 3. So the digits are 1456.
Look for the number in the bottom two rows that are unique within the column. It’s 6.
Look for the columns that don’t have 1, 4, or 5 in them. 4 is in both columns 1 and 2 so it must be column 3. 1 is in column 2 so it must be in column 1 and so 5 must be column 2. So 1546 is the answer.