Love this guy, stumbled at the channel because of the "How to solve a Sudoku with only 4 digits" video and now I'm addicted to Sudoku and the channel. Thanks for showing how to solve the puzzles and for the possibility of trying them in your app!
Very proud to say that after a couple of days of watching the channel and trying to solve the puzzles along with you (when there were numbers graciously included to start with!) but always inevitably hitting a wall that I couldn't find a way to get past I finally finished this one completely by myself. My brain is tingling from the rush I felt of finally seeing the next step after being stuck, and being able to fill the whole thing in! Thank you for this channel, it's been helping me so much with keeping my brain active in self isolation. My time was 47 minutes, so lots there to improve on for next time :)
I've been jumping around the older videos that have linked interactive linked puzzles. I managed to do this one on my own but I had a lot of difficulty with making absolutely accurate pencil marks and also unwinding without errors. It takes forever to find the block that breaks things open when the puzzle is half full and it looks like a confusion of pencil marked cells and finished digits. At that point, I'm usually just staring at it. Simon invariable finds what he needs quickly, while I'm down in the trenches marking all the things cells that what seemingly weak cells can be. He has a keen knack for finding that "weakest of all cells" and leveraging it to his immediate advantage such as the 3 at the bottom of Column 7 in the beginning and the 4 at the bottom of Column 8 near the end. That could have unstuck me if i'd noticed but i was mucking around with the empty cells in the bottom left block.
"I went deliberately slow today" - solved it in less than 15 minutes while talking the whole time. Meanwhile it took me 1 hour 15 minutes on my own. I'm glad I solved it, but damn, I still got much to learn
This was a nice puzzle for using a variety of basic techniques. I gotta say again, as I have before, I think a few months ago this puzzle would have stumped me but now it was quite easy. Good work Simon and Mark! Keep up the great videos.
Yowch. I used to think I was good at Sodukus, but this took me just shy of 45 minutes! That's some great work talking us through the solve, and explaining the power of the pencil marking.
Pencil marks are lemmas: simple deductions that facilitate later, more involved, deductions. I have never known of any mathematician or logician who considered the use of lemmas to be "cheating." In fact, lemmas serve to make proofs clearer and more efficient, just as pencil marks do.
Yeah, I think some people consider one of the rules of the puzzle to be not using annotations, but it isn't. I think these are the types that think they're somehow better because they don't use them.
@@espiritly That glorious moment of tackling a difficult sudoku without making any annotations! Perhaps many of us have been there, and even boasted about it. That is, until your very next sudoku has you staring at the grid for over ten minutes, hung up on a trivial point that would have been sussed out by pencil marks in a matter of seconds. Experience suggests that pencil marks are a VERY good idea. But the non-annotators have every right to believe otherwise, of course, provided they are content to spend accumulated years of utter immobility staring at sudoku grids.
Nicely done. I would like to comment on something you said early on. You said that filling in all the Candidates by hand is a tedious and time-consuming task. Couldn't agree with you more, there. But then you say that filling in all the possibilities causes one to miss all the beautiful logic that exists in the puzzles. Well, I would say there is another side to that coin. There is also a lot of beautiful logic that you will miss, by NOT being able to see all the Candidates. And I'm talking about all sorts of Chains & Loops, Sue-de-Coq, Swordfish, Jellyfish, various "Wings," Empty Rectangles, etc., etc. And of course, one can always use an App to automatically fill in all the Candidates, and it will update them for you, as you solve the puzzle, as well. There are all sorts of ways to solve the puzzles; each presenting its own set of challenges. I always tell people to solve puzzles the way that gives them the most satisfaction. As for myself, I like to switch back and forth between using automated Candidate Lists, and also doing them like you do, here on this Channel. Cheers! :-))
I usually prefer Snyder notation over the practice of pencil marking all the candidates... And, using Snyder notation makes identifying X-wings, Pairs, Triples (having only 2 candidates), Unique Rectangles super easy... But, I definitely agree that without knowing about all the candidates, you can't use techniques like XY-Wings, Swordfish/Jellyfish patterns or finding hidden triples/quads, etc extremely difficult since they rely on knowing about the every single possible candidate... I would advise people to start using Snyder first to get the obvious ones first and then, move on to pencil mark all the candidates to get more information and implement more advanced techniques...
Om new to soduko, i watched a few your videos, and this was my first ever solved soduko. The only hint i needed was the triple cells of 578 in colum 1 which removed a 7 just under the 9. I spent 2 hours when i resorted to the hint, and finished in 2.11 hours.
yay, I got around 16:40 (timer did not stop when checking the sudoku ) Thanks, man for letting us solve alongside you on the sudoku. This is the first one I got to complete before you. (I did peek at yours and copied one number over to help. I'll plead guilty to cheating a little bit. If I ever solve sudoku on my own, I'll happily admit to it) You taught me a few new tricks and helped improve my skills. I look forward to seeing more sudokus!
Yes, very cool Simon. I think I had to change to this notation about a couple months ago. (It's now quarantine time for a reference) You guys do good. I was notating it differently (having a single digit on a line between two cells signifying the column or row (so when I got a pair I could lightly circle it taking out those two squares for different reasons) but I it was cutting me short on the diabolical and such above puzzles. I sorta devised putting in the center with a comma showing between two boxes but that's difficult to do when 3 or more numbers come about in a Triple or quadruple between boxes. Ive come to really like it on the website (your website) so I can easily write in both the outer and inner part of a cell depending. Yes, you two got me to switch (I could easily do up to the hard ones in my paper notations but you got me to change lol) Thanks (and don't take away that website grid and nice buttons and colors if need be). Great job again lol Cheers 😅☕ PS: Oh, I couldn't notate the pairs between boxes in a given column/row. (And see the other ones). That's one of the ways I was cutting myself short.
I missed that hidden 3 in R9C7, so I got stuck. After I saw that in your video, the rest fell into place pretty easily (still took me over an hour though because I'm just learning to crack higher difficulty puzzles). I'll need to keep a better eye out for those hidden numbers!
The most important lesson I learned is - don't yield to your OCD for completing the columns, rows, and boxes, and make use of all the clues first. I used it in my very next game, and it helped me a lot! The difference I noticed, is that when I switch from tracing the clues to completing the columns, rows or boxes, I not only break the flow and lose track of all of my clues, I also am not able to complete the C, R, and B as efficiently as I would normally. It's almost as if I am jumping out of one flow and diving into another unprepared, which is damage x2.
That is a VERY good piece of advice. And easy to overlook. One of the biggest time wasters in solving sudokus is--just as you say--OCD: getting into obsessive habits and not being able to break them. One of the biggest lessons l learned was to make use of givens (clues) AND pencil marks as early as possible, rather than cluttering up the board by initially making the maximum number of pencil marks possible. Too many pencil marks makes it much harder to see patterns, and even runs the risk of missing simple eliminations. By doing as you recommend, the solver keeps a fluid engaged mind rather than lapsing into that kind of mindless state associated with OCD.
@@cesarsilva3536 OCD stands for 'Obsessive Compulsive Disorder'. It's a term that refers to any repetitive habit that gets in the way of doing something more helpful or productive. Check out the Wikipedia entry on it if you're curious.
on dailysudoku.com/sudoku/ you can clear the grid enter a puzzle/fix the cells and grade the puzzle...this one ranks as hard. very hard puzzles are def more fun.
@@slythawyrda they have a paid app. I suspect they don't allow you to have clear grid because that means you could play any sudoku, making their app worthless
@@robertr7923 quite the opposite. I'm not the original commenter, but that's a reasonable request from slythawyrda. if I were allowed to fill the app with more than only their own puzzles. I would use the app even after I solved all of the given puzzles. no?
At 11;13 when you began looking for triples you missed the easier way....the Center 9 grid gave you a 4-5 pair in the middle giving you the 9 immediately and unravels the entire puzzle in a much better flow....
Took 18:24, no special tricks just sneiderman notation that gave some pointing pairs eliminating possibilities and solving the puzzle. When I see a puzzle with a digit only in 1 square I look to see if there is a naked single in that 3x3, not always there but like in this puzzle it was.
Amazing video, thank you so much. I followed along until 12:08 when you worked the bottom left 3x3. If you (or someone else) can explain how your limited R7C1 to 7 or 8, and R9C1 to 5 or 7, that would be greatly appreciated. Thanks in advance.
Thanks for this Simon. I'm so glad to have found your channel. I struggle with the diabolicals, and i lack the tequniques. I have always written every single option! then I cant see wood for trees. Now ive got to lose that habit!!!
I followed along trying to do one step, check it with you, and then try to do the very next step. In spite of that, I managed to screw things up. The moment I think I'm getting it....I'm completely humbled. BLAST! Ok. I'll keep working at it.
at time # 10:28, you deduce that a "1" can ONLY go in that position, but actually it COULD go into any other three positions along that row, depending on the final position position of the "1-9" pairs above
I've just subscribed. I managed to get this one out without notation, though typically I use Snyder and subsequently cell notation. I think the only sticking point was finding the hidden 3 at the very start.
I used a hidden rectangle (27) at some point. Some people don't like this technique but i think it is valid, a Sudoku should only have one solution. Now i am looking forward to how it is solved in the video.
1:06:43 for me. I missed some obvious stuff like the naked single 3 in Box Nine and the two candidates for 5 in Box Eight ruling out a 5 in Box Two. I must be really blind today.
I love your way of approaching those puzzles. There is one thing I don't get though: You seem to deliberately not look for the plain singles in favor of the pencil marks. (e.g. in the very end here, the 9 in row 9 was already clear because of the 9 in row 3... Still, you solved it up with the pencil mark in row 7. Feels like a detour to me... (Similar thing with the 7 in row 2... And the remaining 2 in the same row.) Is there a deeper reason for doing it that way?
I don't think it's intentional. The way he looks around the board seems kind of chaotic in that he just kinda jumps all over the place. So, I think this causes him to sometimes miss simple things.
Just came accross this and must say I struggled more with others. a bit more than 30 mins it took which I am proud of but I am not really in a rush solving sudokus anyway..
I know Simon doesn't tend to use uniqueness, but at the 16 minute mark, I would probably do that to say that the 4 and 5 in Block 4 have to be on the diagonal of R4C3 and R6C2 and will resolve, therefore R4C2 is 2. That places 2 in R6C8, R6C1 is 3 and so forth. There you go, Simon, puzzle sorted. Ah, and I've just seen my comment from 9 months ago!
Is standard and Snyder notation the same? Why is it so much easier to solve the puzzles using an app or program compare to to pencil and paper??? I have a lot of trouble using pencil and paper but the difficulty using an app seems to be less than half of the trouble??? Great videos. Thanks
HowardC- Sorry, I can't help with Snyder notations. BTW I find the opposite to be true. I started using pencil and paper and find the app or program cumbersome. This puzzle wasn't particularly difficult but took me about 25 minutes. Found two unique rectangles that made finishing up pretty easy.
I'd love to submit a puzzle that took me over three hours across four days. I had erased and restarted my notes multiple times. Would love to see him make quick work of it.
2:44 how does he know the bottom left cell is definitely a 3? I get that a 4, 7 and 8 have to go somewhere in the 4 cells he has marked, but that's 3 candidates across 4 empty cells - couldn't a 3 potentially go into one of them?
Not counting the cell that ends up taking the 3, there are 4 other empty cells in that 3x3 block. Simon's logic was that since a 1 can't go into the bottom left cell, those 4 other cells need to take some combination of a 1, 4, 7, and 8. That's 4 digits for 4 cells, and is therefore a hidden quadruple. That forces a 3 into the bottom left cell. However, in this instance, that is quite needlessly over complicated logic because if you just look at the possible digits for that cell, you'll see it is in fact already a naked single. No advanced logic needed at all. 1-2-8 are in the row, 4-5-7-9 are in the column, and 6 is in the box. The only possibility left for that cell is a 3.
Frustrating when he said „have done it deliberately slowly to explain how I solve it“ after just over 18 mins, it took me 66 minutes😅 I’ll do it again later
I was re-watching some of Simon's classic solves, and I saw your comment. If you look at 8:08, the 6 in r7c8 removes row 7, and the 6 in r2c4 removes col 4, so the only remaining cell for the 6 in box 8 is r8c5.
At 11:00, after determining 5,5 is a 7, then 2,6 is a 7 and 2,5 is a 2. That means 7,6 is a 2 and either 8,4 or 9,4 is a 7. Also 7,5 has to be a 9 and either 8,4 or 9,4 is a 7. 4,5 and 6,5 both must be either 4 or 5 so 6,4 is a 9. That is far as I took it, but there are a lot of ways to progress from there.
i went to the link and did this puzzle, but how do i try more sudokus from your site? i couldn't find a way to play other sudokus there. nice app, works well, but no puzzles!
How does he get a 4 at 9:15? He says there is already a 2,6 so must be a 4. That makes no since to me. Why couldn’t the 4 have gone in either of those 2 center boxes?
Look at the vertical column and horizontal row. in the horizontal row the only digits missing are 2, 4 and 6. in the vertical colunm 2 and 6 already exist so those cant be there. (i hope you understand, my english isn't the best.)
Look at the row he is working on, row 5. The row already contains 9, 2, 7, 3, and 1, plus the 6/8 pair in the left box. That means the only two numbers missing on the row are 4 and 5, so he knows that they must go in those two spaces of the box in some order.
1h, but the video help me two times (first with the three in r9c7, and then with the 4 in r3c4, I could have find this one if I had pay more attention but that's okay)
When I look for only two places in a box that has a number I do so in an orderly manner, not haphazardly. Sometimes I see it before you and sometimes you see it first. I look for all the ones in each box and if there are only two then i mark them and go on to the next box.
Whenever i'm solving any more difficult puzzle, after long time when i'm almost at finish i realize i have doubled same number in column/row and i'm like "Omg not again!" *rage quit* xD
@@DogSuru I started to check final answer on videos and if i didnt do many errors i just either do few steps back or replace wrong numbers and continue xD
When you realize, that quarantine opened you something really cool, love this channel
i have been doing a lot of sudoku's the past week. Only because it just popped up by my recommended :)
The first digit I discovered in the sudoku was the 6 at the bottom middle. It's crazy how emotional I got waiting until 8:00 for Simon to see it.
Yeah, also the first thing i saw. Weird how it took so long for him
It's nice going back to these older ones and seeing how far you've progressed in your puzzle solving. So much fun!
Love this guy, stumbled at the channel because of the "How to solve a Sudoku with only 4 digits" video and now I'm addicted to Sudoku and the channel. Thanks for showing how to solve the puzzles and for the possibility of trying them in your app!
Very proud to say that after a couple of days of watching the channel and trying to solve the puzzles along with you (when there were numbers graciously included to start with!) but always inevitably hitting a wall that I couldn't find a way to get past I finally finished this one completely by myself. My brain is tingling from the rush I felt of finally seeing the next step after being stuck, and being able to fill the whole thing in! Thank you for this channel, it's been helping me so much with keeping my brain active in self isolation. My time was 47 minutes, so lots there to improve on for next time :)
I've been jumping around the older videos that have linked interactive linked puzzles. I managed to do this one on my own but I had a lot of difficulty with making absolutely accurate pencil marks and also unwinding without errors. It takes forever to find the block that breaks things open when the puzzle is half full and it looks like a confusion of pencil marked cells and finished digits. At that point, I'm usually just staring at it. Simon invariable finds what he needs quickly, while I'm down in the trenches marking all the things cells that what seemingly weak cells can be. He has a keen knack for finding that "weakest of all cells" and leveraging it to his immediate advantage such as the 3 at the bottom of Column 7 in the beginning and the 4 at the bottom of Column 8 near the end. That could have unstuck me if i'd noticed but i was mucking around with the empty cells in the bottom left block.
"I went deliberately slow today" - solved it in less than 15 minutes while talking the whole time. Meanwhile it took me 1 hour 15 minutes on my own. I'm glad I solved it, but damn, I still got much to learn
This was a nice puzzle for using a variety of basic techniques. I gotta say again, as I have before, I think a few months ago this puzzle would have stumped me but now it was quite easy. Good work Simon and Mark! Keep up the great videos.
"Master the Basics of Advanced Solving - Experienced Beginners Only!"
If you're a professional amateur interested in simple advanced methods to solving basic diabolical sudokus, then this is the video for you.
This is like the job ads looking for a Jr Dev with 2+ years of experience
Expert beginners only. Ha ha.
neat logic at 12:00! as a beiginner, it made me think about the importance of doubles again
Yowch. I used to think I was good at Sodukus, but this took me just shy of 45 minutes!
That's some great work talking us through the solve, and explaining the power of the pencil marking.
Simon's shirt in this video be like "when you gotta solve a Sudoku puzzle at 5 and look for Blue's Clues at 6".
“Deliberately slowly” lol
Thx! Also for doing this slowly... and making the thoughtprocess clear!
Thank you, was my 3rd puzzle, about 2 hours, so pretty happy with that
Pencil marks are lemmas: simple deductions that facilitate later, more involved, deductions.
I have never known of any mathematician or logician who considered the use of lemmas to be "cheating." In fact, lemmas serve to make proofs clearer and more efficient, just as pencil marks do.
Yeah, I think some people consider one of the rules of the puzzle to be not using annotations, but it isn't. I think these are the types that think they're somehow better because they don't use them.
@@espiritly That glorious moment of tackling a difficult sudoku without making any annotations! Perhaps many of us have been there, and even boasted about it.
That is, until your very next sudoku has you staring at the grid for over ten minutes, hung up on a trivial point that would have been sussed out by pencil marks in a matter of seconds.
Experience suggests that pencil marks are a VERY good idea. But the non-annotators have every right to believe otherwise, of course, provided they are content to spend accumulated years of utter immobility staring at sudoku grids.
You are a good teacher. Thank you!
Nicely done. I would like to comment on something you said early on. You said that filling in all the Candidates by hand is a tedious and time-consuming task. Couldn't agree with you more, there. But then you say that filling in all the possibilities causes one to miss all the beautiful logic that exists in the puzzles. Well, I would say there is another side to that coin. There is also a lot of beautiful logic that you will miss, by NOT being able to see all the Candidates. And I'm talking about all sorts of Chains & Loops, Sue-de-Coq, Swordfish, Jellyfish, various "Wings," Empty Rectangles, etc., etc. And of course, one can always use an App to automatically fill in all the Candidates, and it will update them for you, as you solve the puzzle, as well. There are all sorts of ways to solve the puzzles; each presenting its own set of challenges. I always tell people to solve puzzles the way that gives them the most satisfaction. As for myself, I like to switch back and forth between using automated Candidate Lists, and also doing them like you do, here on this Channel. Cheers! :-))
Sudoku Swami Yeah, if you have the Branium app you just about need the all notes setting for the Expert puzzles
I usually prefer Snyder notation over the practice of pencil marking all the candidates...
And, using Snyder notation makes identifying X-wings, Pairs, Triples (having only 2 candidates), Unique Rectangles super easy...
But, I definitely agree that without knowing about all the candidates, you can't use techniques like XY-Wings, Swordfish/Jellyfish patterns or finding hidden triples/quads, etc extremely difficult since they rely on knowing about the every single possible candidate...
I would advise people to start using Snyder first to get the obvious ones first and then, move on to pencil mark all the candidates to get more information and implement more advanced techniques...
Om new to soduko, i watched a few your videos, and this was my first ever solved soduko. The only hint i needed was the triple cells of 578 in colum 1 which removed a 7 just under the 9. I spent 2 hours when i resorted to the hint, and finished in 2.11 hours.
yay, I got around 16:40 (timer did not stop when checking the sudoku )
Thanks, man for letting us solve alongside you on the sudoku.
This is the first one I got to complete before you. (I did peek at yours and copied one number over to help. I'll plead guilty to cheating a little bit. If I ever solve sudoku on my own, I'll happily admit to it)
You taught me a few new tricks and helped improve my skills.
I look forward to seeing more sudokus!
I'm in shock - I just finished my first extreme Sudoku with no hints and no mistakes using this method! Thanks for the tutorial!
I'm getting so much faster thanks to this channel. I did this one in about 22 minutes myself.
Yes, very cool Simon.
I think I had to change to this notation about a couple months ago.
(It's now quarantine time for a reference)
You guys do good.
I was notating it differently (having a single digit on a line between two cells signifying the column or row (so when I got a pair I could lightly circle it taking out those two squares for different reasons) but I it was cutting me short on the diabolical and such above puzzles.
I sorta devised putting in the center with a comma showing between two boxes but that's difficult to do when 3 or more numbers come about in a Triple or quadruple between boxes.
Ive come to really like it on the website (your website) so I can easily write in both the outer and inner part of a cell depending.
Yes, you two got me to switch
(I could easily do up to the hard ones in my paper notations but you got me to change lol)
Thanks (and don't take away that website grid and nice buttons and colors if need be).
Great job again lol
Cheers 😅☕
PS:
Oh, I couldn't notate the pairs between boxes in a given column/row.
(And see the other ones).
That's one of the ways I was cutting myself short.
I missed that hidden 3 in R9C7, so I got stuck. After I saw that in your video, the rest fell into place pretty easily (still took me over an hour though because I'm just learning to crack higher difficulty puzzles). I'll need to keep a better eye out for those hidden numbers!
relatively new in this channel I love the possibility to solve the same problem before or in between your development. Yhanks for your nice work!
The most important lesson I learned is - don't yield to your OCD for completing the columns, rows, and boxes, and make use of all the clues first. I used it in my very next game, and it helped me a lot! The difference I noticed, is that when I switch from tracing the clues to completing the columns, rows or boxes, I not only break the flow and lose track of all of my clues, I also am not able to complete the C, R, and B as efficiently as I would normally. It's almost as if I am jumping out of one flow and diving into another unprepared, which is damage x2.
That is a VERY good piece of advice. And easy to overlook. One of the biggest time wasters in solving sudokus is--just as you say--OCD: getting into obsessive habits and not being able to break them. One of the biggest lessons l learned was to make use of givens (clues) AND pencil marks as early as possible, rather than cluttering up the board by initially making the maximum number of pencil marks possible. Too many pencil marks makes it much harder to see patterns, and even runs the risk of missing simple eliminations. By doing as you recommend, the solver keeps a fluid engaged mind rather than lapsing into that kind of mindless state associated with OCD.
@@blandingswest6560 what's ocd? I'm new to sudoku terms, sorry :(
@@cesarsilva3536 OCD stands for 'Obsessive Compulsive Disorder'. It's a term that refers to any repetitive habit that gets in the way of doing something more helpful or productive. Check out the Wikipedia entry on it if you're curious.
would it be possible to access the sudoku-app with just an empty grid so we could use it to solve puzzles that we find elsewhere?
on dailysudoku.com/sudoku/ you can clear the grid enter a puzzle/fix the cells and grade the puzzle...this one ranks as hard. very hard puzzles are def more fun.
@@letsplaysudoku4920 thanks, though it doesn't seem like i can use the cracking the cryptic app to solve it
You can get free blank sudoku grids that you can print on the sudoku primer website.
@@slythawyrda they have a paid app. I suspect they don't allow you to have clear grid because that means you could play any sudoku, making their app worthless
@@robertr7923 quite the opposite. I'm not the original commenter, but that's a reasonable request from slythawyrda. if I were allowed to fill the app with more than only their own puzzles. I would use the app even after I solved all of the given puzzles. no?
i got stuck on the 6-tuple in box 7. Never saw it. Good job!
At 11;13 when you began looking for triples you missed the easier way....the Center 9 grid gave you a 4-5 pair in the middle giving you the 9 immediately and unravels the entire puzzle in a much better flow....
36:30 And it's all thanks to this channel.
Took 18:24, no special tricks just sneiderman notation that gave some pointing pairs eliminating possibilities and solving the puzzle. When I see a puzzle with a digit only in 1 square I look to see if there is a naked single in that 3x3, not always there but like in this puzzle it was.
Damn you spot things a bloody sight faster than i can. Thanks.
29:18 that was nice and basic. Off to see what I may have missed in the video
Whoohooo 15 minutes I've finally learned to spot enough opportunities to cut the time.
Amazing video, thank you so much. I followed along until 12:08 when you worked the bottom left 3x3. If you (or someone else) can explain how your limited R7C1 to 7 or 8, and R9C1 to 5 or 7, that would be greatly appreciated. Thanks in advance.
Thanks for this Simon. I'm so glad to have found your channel. I struggle with the diabolicals, and i lack the tequniques. I have always written every single option! then I cant see wood for trees. Now ive got to lose that habit!!!
18:36 solve time for me. That's the closest I've done to the video solve time ever.
27:44! I feel like my times are getting much better, as long as there are not Y-wings or strange chains involved.
very nice video,very mutch clean
I got it done in 27:37. Once I narrowed the 23 pair in C1 and found the 78, I actually guessed the 7 and it ended up solving the entire puzzle.
35:19. I’m pretty happy with that!
17:38 thank you crpytic for improving my skill no end
Thank you for the X wings, love your work brother, so very articulate, and intelegent, and lovely voice too. Most satisfying to observe.
im the biggest fan ever!! you guys are amazing
It tookme 3 attempts, the final attempt taking 90 minutes. That was a nice hard one. Thank you for the puzzle and the thought process.
I followed along trying to do one step, check it with you, and then try to do the very next step. In spite of that, I managed to screw things up. The moment I think I'm getting it....I'm completely humbled. BLAST! Ok. I'll keep working at it.
Solved it. Basics box ticked! :-)
Thank you 🤗
I'm proud I've utilized uniqueness in my solve
at time # 10:28, you deduce that a "1" can ONLY go in that position, but actually it COULD go into any other three positions along that row, depending on the final position position of the "1-9" pairs above
Look at column 7, only 8 and 1 were left to fill it up.
I've just subscribed. I managed to get this one out without notation, though typically I use Snyder and subsequently cell notation. I think the only sticking point was finding the hidden 3 at the very start.
OK, took me a long 41:54 to do it. Now let's see what clever paths I missed.
Decent puzzle, pretty enjoyable..
First time doing a sudoku puzzle in like 5+ years. Took me 1hr 9min, not too shabby and had fun doing it (:
I don't know what it was about that 6 in the bottom-middle 3x3, but it took me waaay too long to notice it, too.
Excellent, thank you.
@8:06: That was one of the FIRST things I spotted. It could be deduced from just the original grid.
Very nice.
fantastic tips
13:58, love watching old videos of Simon before he became a global superstar
I used a hidden rectangle (27) at some point. Some people don't like this technique but i think it is valid, a Sudoku should only have one solution.
Now i am looking forward to how it is solved in the video.
Well done sir.
there could be a 7 in the 3rd block of the 5th grid, how did you assume that the 7 would be in the 5th block? (10:56)
the 6/8 pair had already tied up the third block!
Keep up the nice work
1:06:43 for me. I missed some obvious stuff like the naked single 3 in Box Nine and the two candidates for 5 in Box Eight ruling out a 5 in Box Two. I must be really blind today.
24:04
Expert 😎
Nice! Somewhere between twelve and fifteen minutes, with interruptions.
Finally a score that's close to the video duration haha
At about the 11:00 mark he says the 7 has to go in the middle square but the 7 still could go in the bottom 2 and a 4 could still go in the center.
I love your way of approaching those puzzles. There is one thing I don't get though: You seem to deliberately not look for the plain singles in favor of the pencil marks. (e.g. in the very end here, the 9 in row 9 was already clear because of the 9 in row 3... Still, you solved it up with the pencil mark in row 7. Feels like a detour to me... (Similar thing with the 7 in row 2... And the remaining 2 in the same row.) Is there a deeper reason for doing it that way?
I don't think it's intentional. The way he looks around the board seems kind of chaotic in that he just kinda jumps all over the place. So, I think this causes him to sometimes miss simple things.
Just came accross this and must say I struggled more with others. a bit more than 30 mins it took which I am proud of but I am not really in a rush solving sudokus anyway..
Hi Mark, thanks for your time to share your knowledge, can you please tell me what software you are using and how can I get it. Thanks.
I know Simon doesn't tend to use uniqueness, but at the 16 minute mark, I would probably do that to say that the 4 and 5 in Block 4 have to be on the diagonal of R4C3 and R6C2 and will resolve, therefore R4C2 is 2. That places 2 in R6C8, R6C1 is 3 and so forth. There you go, Simon, puzzle sorted. Ah, and I've just seen my comment from 9 months ago!
At about 0:45 you say there is a link to try the puzzle. I don't find it in this video but do in others. Do you remove this after some period of time?
Is standard and Snyder notation the same?
Why is it so much easier to solve the puzzles using an app or program compare to to pencil and paper??? I have a lot of trouble using pencil and paper but the difficulty using an app seems to be less than half of the trouble???
Great videos. Thanks
HowardC- Sorry, I can't help with Snyder notations. BTW I find the opposite to be true. I started using pencil and paper and find the app or program cumbersome. This puzzle wasn't particularly difficult but took me about 25 minutes. Found two unique rectangles that made finishing up pretty easy.
@15:53 why the square can only be a 4?
@ronnyay 4, 6 and 9 are the only numbers left on row nine. Since 6 and 9 are already used in the bottom right block, 4 is the only remaining option.
@@aspin4644 ooo i see! Thanks! :D
Very nice! Thanks so much! :-)
I'd love to submit a puzzle that took me over three hours across four days. I had erased and restarted my notes multiple times. Would love to see him make quick work of it.
2:44 how does he know the bottom left cell is definitely a 3? I get that a 4, 7 and 8 have to go somewhere in the 4 cells he has marked, but that's 3 candidates across 4 empty cells - couldn't a 3 potentially go into one of them?
in that lower right block, the only option for that square can be deduced as only 3.
Not counting the cell that ends up taking the 3, there are 4 other empty cells in that 3x3 block. Simon's logic was that since a 1 can't go into the bottom left cell, those 4 other cells need to take some combination of a 1, 4, 7, and 8. That's 4 digits for 4 cells, and is therefore a hidden quadruple. That forces a 3 into the bottom left cell. However, in this instance, that is quite needlessly over complicated logic because if you just look at the possible digits for that cell, you'll see it is in fact already a naked single. No advanced logic needed at all. 1-2-8 are in the row, 4-5-7-9 are in the column, and 6 is in the box. The only possibility left for that cell is a 3.
Frustrating when he said „have done it deliberately slowly to explain how I solve it“ after just over 18 mins, it took me 66 minutes😅 I’ll do it again later
8:08 minutes in you placed a 6 in the middle of the bottom middle box and I do not understand why. Please explain.
I was re-watching some of Simon's classic solves, and I saw your comment. If you look at 8:08, the 6 in r7c8 removes row 7, and the 6 in r2c4 removes col 4, so the only remaining cell for the 6 in box 8 is r8c5.
I didn't find this too hard to be honest. It only required the basic strategies I know so it took me 13:38.
At 11:00, after determining 5,5 is a 7, then 2,6 is a 7 and 2,5 is a 2. That means 7,6 is a 2 and either 8,4 or 9,4 is a 7. Also 7,5 has to be a 9 and either 8,4 or 9,4 is a 7. 4,5 and 6,5 both must be either 4 or 5 so 6,4 is a 9.
That is far as I took it, but there are a lot of ways to progress from there.
What about the "Shifter Shaft" and that part of the shifting process?Isn't this part of the Clutch adjustment?
Initially a hard puzzle to get started, but finished it in 23:05.
Still don't see how you placed the "4" at 16:05.
i went to the link and did this puzzle, but how do i try more sudokus from your site? i couldn't find a way to play other sudokus there. nice app, works well, but no puzzles!
13:35, quicker puzzle for me, nice
How does he get a 4 at 9:15? He says there is already a 2,6 so must be a 4. That makes no since to me. Why couldn’t the 4 have gone in either of those 2 center boxes?
Look at the vertical column and horizontal row. in the horizontal row the only digits missing are 2, 4 and 6. in the vertical colunm 2 and 6 already exist so those cant be there. (i hope you understand, my english isn't the best.)
At 11:06
How does he know they must be 4 and 5?
Look at the row he is working on, row 5. The row already contains 9, 2, 7, 3, and 1, plus the 6/8 pair in the left box. That means the only two numbers missing on the row are 4 and 5, so he knows that they must go in those two spaces of the box in some order.
what software do you use for putting the numbers in the sudoku boxes?
24:19
Was so glad when he realised the six
21:02 for me best one yet
My but the software has come a long way!
Finished in 9 min. quite an easy sudoku. no x wings, xy wings, or xyz wings.
9 min? Holy hell that’s quick
1h, but the video help me two times (first with the three in r9c7, and then with the 4 in r3c4, I could have find this one if I had pay more attention but that's okay)
When I look for only two places in a box that has a number I do so in an orderly manner, not haphazardly. Sometimes I see it before you and sometimes you see it first. I look for all the ones in each box and if there are only two then i mark them and go on to the next box.
Nice one, took me 30m 05s :)
Whenever i'm solving any more difficult puzzle, after long time when i'm almost at finish i realize i have doubled same number in column/row and i'm like "Omg not again!" *rage quit* xD
Glad it's not just me that does that. God, it makes you feel stupid. :)
@@DogSuru I started to check final answer on videos and if i didnt do many errors i just either do few steps back or replace wrong numbers and continue xD