After noticing these crazy-looking puzzles in the paper, I decided to try to work some. I even bought a book full of puzzles, from "very easy" to "very hard". I can do the "very easy" ones, but I seem to have reached my limit with the "easy" ones, having been unsuccessful at solving one so far. Needless to say, this has been a blow to my ego, since I hold a B.S. degree and scored a 750 on the math portion of the SAT. I'm very good at crossword puzzles, but these things kick my ass.
Anybody else out there indulge in this sort of masochism?
I enjoy them from time to time. If I see one in the paper I'll do it, but that's about it.
mtn
SuperDork
1/18/11 11:56 a.m.
I do them during boring classes and while eating breakfast if they are available.
My GF has moved beyond the extreme ones. The ones she does now has random groups of cells that must total to a certain number!
I don't really do them, but one big rule that I missed that helped me a lot was the realization that each quadrant can only have 1-10 (in addition to the rows and columns). This can help you find some of the numbers.
The other big trick (once you get to the harder ones) is that you need to note possible numbers in cells that are unclear. That can result in multiple numbers in a cell until you solve further.
Good grief! I wonder at the ratings on the puzzles in this book. I've begun investigating so-called advanced techniques like "naked subsets", "hidden subsets", "X-wing", and "swordfish". I still can't solve this so-called "easy" puzzle.
Ohhhhhh yeaaaaaah. Sudoku is the end of free time as I know it.
I've wasted many hours doing sudoku.
RossD
Dork
1/18/11 3:01 p.m.
I was at the same point as the OP, then one day I had a "Ohhh..." moment. Now I can do most of them up until you have to start the those crazy subsets techniques.
After lots of the usual 9x9 sudoku, I've even tried a few hexadecimal sudoku puzzles (16 blocks of 16 characters), a time waster that I can justify as great mental exercise.
