Today's six medium Sudokus to print, with the answer key on a separate page. Singles take you most of the way, but each grid has a moment where you have to rule a digit out before the next number appears. That's the skill this sheet practises.
Grid #1 is today's medium grid. Play it here with the coach for step-by-step hints (unranked; the ranked Daily Sudoku is expert today).
Medium grids are where pencil marks start to pay off. You don't need to note every candidate: when a digit can only go in two or three cells of a box, write it small in the corner of those cells. If those cells all sit in one row or column, that's a pointing pair, and the digit can be crossed off the rest of that row or column outside the box.
Print one or four grids to a page if you like to write corner notes: the bigger cells leave room. Six to a page works once you can spot pointing pairs without writing them down.
A wrong digit on paper usually shows up several moves later, when a row ends up needing two of the same number. If that happens, compare your grid with the answer key: the bold digits are the givens, so you can see at a glance which of your own entries went wrong.
Pointing pairs, on top of singles. If a digit's only cells in a box line up in one row or column, it can't go anywhere else in that row or column.
Around 30 to 32 of the 81 cells. The grade comes from the techniques the grid needs, not the count, which is why two grids with the same number of givens can feel different.
Yes, for corner notes. A pencil with an eraser, or a pen for digits and a pencil for notes, works well.
The first grid on the sheet is today's medium grid, the one you can also play online on this page. The other five are printable only.