[kokiri]

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.