How to Eliminate Candidates in Profile Perfect
Elimination is the quiet engine behind every solved grid. Learn when a candidate is truly dead, how to mark the board so dead stays dead, and how the last empty cells solve themselves.
Only kill a candidate with a reason
A candidate is dead only when a clue or an already-placed value forbids it — not when it feels unlikely. Every crossed-out cell should be traceable to a line in the clue list. If you cannot say which clue killed it, the mark is a guess wearing a costume, and it will mislead you three steps later. Discipline here is what separates a clean solve from a board you quietly sabotage.
Mark so that dead stays dead
Use one consistent symbol for elimination and never overwrite it. When a value is placed, cross out that value everywhere else in its column and every other value in its cell — both directions. This double sweep is where most players lose time: they place a value but only clear one direction, then waste a minute re-deriving something the board already knew.
Exploit uniqueness, not just elimination
Elimination has a mirror image: if a value can only live in one cell, it belongs there — even if you never touched that cell before. After each placement sweep, scan each value's column for a single surviving candidate. These uniqueness placements are free cells, and they cascade: each one triggers a new sweep, and boards collapse faster than clue-by-clue solving ever manages.
The endgame solves itself
If your elimination discipline held, the final third of the board needs no clues at all — every remaining cell is a forced candidate. Do not submit before this point unless a clue outright confirms the grid; the two-attempt loop punishes impatience. When only two or three cells remain, re-read the trickiest clue once: it almost always confirms your endgame and catches the one swap your sweep missed.