Hardest Sudoku I\'ve ever seen
 

Plz wait a few days until posting the solution in this thread kthx. Took me a long time.

Feel free to PM me solutions but dont post them here.

http://img227.imageshack.us/img227/4...tsudokufv3.png

Re: Hardest Sudoku I\'ve ever seen
 

Oh noes it's probably a "devil sodoku" I only remember that they have some ugly propertys for writing a solver for them.

Re: Hardest Sudoku I\'ve ever seen
 

half done after a few minutes, did not find this hard at all, all the answers i have written in so far were forced and did not require crazy [censored] such as guessing

Re: Hardest Sudoku I\'ve ever seen
 

http://i64.photobucket.com/albums/h1...92/sudoku9.gif

Re: Hardest Sudoku I\'ve ever seen
 

I'm not very good at these - I always try them on a computer, without writing down dual/triple possibilities (which is probably why I'm not good at these) - but I actually did it on paper ... answer sent.

Got stuck in one spot for a few minutes.

Re: Hardest Sudoku I\'ve ever seen
 

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half done after a few minutes, did not find this hard at all, all the answers i have written in so far were forced and did not require crazy [censored] such as guessing

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did you solve it yet?

Re: Hardest Sudoku I\'ve ever seen
 

[ QUOTE ]
I'm not very good at these - I always try them on a computer, without writing down dual/triple possibilities (which is probably why I'm not good at these) - but I actually did it on paper ... answer sent.

Got stuck in one spot for a few minutes.

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your answer is correct

it definitely does require guessing, you said so yourself... this is probably the puzzle that requires guessing the earliest i've ever seen

Re: Hardest Sudoku I\'ve ever seen
 

This puzzle does not require guessing. A few applications of X-wing, Y-wing, and simple coloring can resolve this - I tossed it into a Sudoku Solver and it didn't even get to the uglier solving methods like Finned X-wing and MultiColoring etc, and it certainly didn't get into the "Trial and Error" (or guessing) methods.

Re: Hardest Sudoku I\'ve ever seen
 

[ QUOTE ]
This puzzle does not require guessing. A few applications of X-wing, Y-wing, and simple coloring can resolve this - I tossed it into a Sudoku Solver and it didn't even get to the uglier solving methods like Finned X-wing and MultiColoring etc, and it certainly didn't get into the "Trial and Error" (or guessing) methods.

[/ QUOTE ]

sudokusolver.co.uk definitely got into guessing

Re: Hardest Sudoku I\'ve ever seen
 

www.scanraid.com/sudoku.htm did not - that's my solver of choice when playing with soduku solvers.

Re: Hardest Sudoku I\'ve ever seen
 

so far i haven't done any guessing; i'll let u know if i had to when finished

Re: Hardest Sudoku I\'ve ever seen
 

doesn't colouring imply guessing?

i mean that i would only use a colour change if i'm stuck, but have a cell that is either 5 or 9. Then i try 5 in another colour until i hit a contradiction and, if so, switch back to 9. I view that as guessing.

Playing around with this one, it occurred to me that this sort of guessing/scenario testing, is probably much quicker than my usual technique. Usually I go in a cycle that runs:

1) do all the obvious deductions
2) do some less obvious ones
3) get stuck and hunt around for a new complicated deduction.

Where step 3) is way the slowest. By replacing 3) with 'choose a 50% shot and see if it leads to a contradiction', as long as you have an audit trail, the slowest part of the techniques is removed, at the expense of potentially being wrong.

i hate these things with a passion.

Re: Hardest Sudoku I\'ve ever seen
 

Yep, I got in a spot fairly early where column 5 was down to two spots and I felt like I was kind of stuck everywhere else with 2/3/4 possibilities in lots of places ... tried one of the numbers in column 5, ran into a road block ... then plugged in the other one and cruised along at a decent pace.

I prefer "trial and error" over "guessing" ... [img]/images/graemlins/tongue.gif[/img]

Re: Hardest Sudoku I\'ve ever seen
 

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doesn't colouring imply guessing?

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That's a long discussion but I can see the complaint. I turned off coloring as an option and it solved it just using Xwing and Ywing deductions on top of the basic stuff.

Having to do multiple Xwings to solve a Sudoku is pretty obnoxious and easy to miss so I would definately classify this as a darn hard Sudoku.

Re: Hardest Sudoku I\'ve ever seen
 

i've been going to guessing before y wing... mostly because i didn't know y-wing prior to this thread

thats probably why i thought this one was so hard

Re: Hardest Sudoku I\'ve ever seen
 

I had to guess at one spot, after I was only sure of 14 more numbers. But the guess disproved itself fairly quickly. It took me a bit more than half an hour, but I haven't done very much sudoku and I have no clue what all these techniques you mention are.

Re: Hardest Sudoku I\'ve ever seen
 

also, I solved mine in MSPaint. Standard, or is there a tool to use that isn't cheating?

Re: Hardest Sudoku I\'ve ever seen
 

Finally got this done. No guessing, but took me a couple of hours. I'm really out of practice with these.

Used a bunch of x-wings and one forced chain.

I hadn't heard of y-wings either. Gonna be looking for those in the future.

Re: Hardest Sudoku I\'ve ever seen
 

I'd never heard of any of this stuff. No wonder I was toast in gamesapalooza, heh.

Re: Hardest Sudoku I\'ve ever seen
 

Ah, Sudoku... it doesn't look too bad, I'll take a crack at it.

[img]/images/graemlins/heart.gif[/img]

Re: Hardest Sudoku I\'ve ever seen
 

pretty solid but got there in the end.

Re: Hardest Sudoku I\'ve ever seen
 

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also, I solved mine in MSPaint. Standard, or is there a tool to use that isn't cheating?

[/ QUOTE ]

excel?

Re: Hardest Sudoku I\'ve ever seen
 

I've never done one of these before, but I'm gonna try to solve it in my head




I'll let you know if that leads to anything.

Re: Hardest Sudoku I\'ve ever seen
 

[ QUOTE ]
I've never done one of these before, but I'm gonna try to solve it in my head




I'll let you know if that leads to anything.

[/ QUOTE ]

I really wish I could find the asploding head pic!

Re: Hardest Sudoku I\'ve ever seen
 

I couldn't get anything. I think it's impossible.

Re: Hardest Sudoku I\'ve ever seen
 

wtf is x wing y wing.

All I do is look for numbers that don't match up anywhere else.

Re: Hardest Sudoku I\'ve ever seen
 

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wtf is x wing

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LDO!!!

http://www.wireless-earth.de/private...ter_Flying.jpg

Re: Hardest Sudoku I\'ve ever seen
 

[ QUOTE ]
wtf is x wing y wing.


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Pretty standard strategy once you find yourself in knip. Once you use the X-wing (Y-wing is a little more advanced/abstract), you can start a Pullman's gambit, hopefully resulting in a Clough-Mercer row. Otherwise you've got to double back to the X again and fill them all out with Benzoic sequencing.

Re: Hardest Sudoku I\'ve ever seen
 

[ QUOTE ]
wtf is x wing y wing.

All I do is look for numbers that don't match up anywhere else.

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sudoku

Found this when I was googling for y wing. There's a lot of stuff, that I'd never heard of before.

Re: Hardest Sudoku I\'ve ever seen
 

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
wtf is x wing y wing.


[/ QUOTE ]

Pretty standard strategy once you find yourself in knip. Once you use the X-wing (Y-wing is a little more advanced/abstract), you can start a Pullman's gambit, hopefully resulting in a Clough-Mercer row. Otherwise you've got to double back to the X again and fill them all out with Benzoic sequencing.

[/ QUOTE ]

This is Sudoku, not Mornington Crescent. X-wing is a totally different strategy in that game (and isn't even legal unless you're using the Jacobson Amendment of 1982, which is pretty non-standard; typically we disallow it in our home game)

Re: Hardest Sudoku I\'ve ever seen
 

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...the Jacobson Amendment of 1982...

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fricking non-londoners.

since they reopened the tube station, this has been rendered moot.