I've been hooked on the Sunday NY Times KenKen puzzles for years, so I thought, "what's the nerdiest thing I could do?"
For a while now, I've been considering a RU-vid series to show how I solve the puzzles each week. I won't do them ahead of time, so you can watch as I figure them out, and explain my thinking as I approach each puzzle.
Hopefully, seeing how I get through each KenKen puzzle (especially the hard 7x7 one) will give you some tips and tricks for solving them on your own! Hope you like these - have fun!
You seem upset. Might I suggest turning up your volume, as my voice in the recording is quite clear. Also, RU-vid automatically provides a transcript for you for free if you still can't hear the narration. I'm also relatively sure that I'm writing the numbers correctly, but feel free to call out any errors I might have made. Best of luck to you...
Yeah, that 14 was scary at first, and I didn't want to deal with it. But when I finally started going through the options one by one, and eventually saw that the 2 couldn't be in that leftmost square, we were off to the races!
There's no need to be rude about it. Also, I literally explain exactly what I'm doing while pointing at the squares for the 24x. "This can only be 6 and 4, while this can only be 7 and 4. That means the 4 can't go here (and I place the 6 and 4 in the 24)." If there's something that's confusing to you, I'm happy to help, but I think I explained that one pretty clearly.
I thought the explanation was clear enough. He had just put "47" in the two blocks for 28x, then said out loud "and then the 4 can't go here," pointing to the square from 24x that is in the same row with the 4&7 in 28x.
That's literally the point of these videos. I explain what I'm doing and what I'm thinking the entire time. If there's a portion of the puzzle where I'm being too vague or ambiguous, I'm happy to explain something further.
Hi, I'm the viewer mentioned @11:15 About getting the puzzles early: The Times prepares some of the Sunday paper in advance, like the Magazine section that has Kenken and other puzzles. If you get home delivery of the paper -- and maybe also live fairly close to NYC (I am in NJ) -- they will deliver those parts of the Sunday paper on Saturday.
Ah, yes. The early edition. Very cool. I’m gonna go ahead and assume that I’m not going to be able to get that in Seattle! 😂 Thanks for the info though! And I hope you saw how I placed those 5s in the last two columns 😉
@@CraigBeilinson Yup, saw it, and thanks. My problem was my brain was "seeing" the 150-times block farther left than it was, so blocking (rather than contributing) a 5 from being in the bottom two rows of columns 6&7. -- Mark
Looking forward to the video for the 7x7 on 4/28 (which I receive a day early, on Saturdays.) I have about convinced myself it is not solvable, but I must be missing something. Can't seem to place 5s in both of the two right-most columns. Edit to add: Never mind, false alarm. I have discovered my error.
Thank you! I was stuck. When you pointed out the 2's in the 3rd and 4th columns, i eliminated the 2's in rows 3, 4, 5, and 6 in those columns, and i was rolling again. Soon, the domino effect took over. Thanks again. I would never have seen it.
Glad it was helpful! I think I use that strategy more than almost any other tactic. In this instance, in the top row, the 2 can only go in the 3rd or 4th column. AND in the bottom row, the 2 can only go in the 3rd or 4th column. That means that the 2 is eliminated from every other square in those 3rd and 4th columns. Nice work!
It was the totaling to 12 at 8:00 that did it for me. I was pretty stuck but when I saw you going through those iterations, realized I had a couple numbers that couldn’t possibly work. Eliminating those let me move on to solving the rest of the puzzle. Thanks, as always!
It was the totaling to 12 at 8:00 that did it for me. I was pretty stuck but when I saw you going through those iterations, realized I had a couple numbers that couldn’t possibly work. Eliminating those let me move on to solving the rest of the puzzle. Thanks, as always!
Had about 80% of the 7 x 7 - then ran into an error. Very frustrating. Fortunately, thanks to your solve, I was able to identify the mistake, correct it,and go onto to solve the puzzle. Thanks!
Happy to help! Glad you were able to find the mistake. When I run into a conflict in the puzzle, I get terrified that I’m not going to be able to figure out why or where I messed up…
Nice work, as always. I noticed there was a chance to use a tactic that rarely comes up, but is quite helpful when it does. At 10:35, you had all the information you needed to fill in the 7 in the third row. That is, you had a 1 in the far right cell of the row, and knew you needed some combination totaling 8 in the two cells of the 15+ segment in row 3. The trick is that every row and column will always add up to 28 (7+6+5 …). So in row 3, you had a known total of 21 in the 7 cells, starting from the right side. So the cell at the far left had to be a 7. I find this trick is rarely useful, but when it is, it’s quite nifty.
Wow!!! That is genuinely very very cool! I’ve never used that trick before, but I totally get what you’re saying. I’m sort of surprised it doesn’t come up more often though. Thanks for the great tip. Can’t wait to find a time when I can use it!!!
I actually use this more often for two or three rows together. For example, in the third and fourth rows there are a lot of “knowns”. 12, 15, 5, the 1 & 3 in the 21x, etc. The total of those two rows needs to be 56. Add up the knowns and the rest have to total the remainder. I’ll often be able to eliminate a few numbers based on the available combinations. Fun stuff!
Similar path; same result. Sad to say, I don’t have the wit to do this puzzle in its tiny native format. I have to re-plot the grid on an 8 1/2 x 11 piece of paper. It sure didn’t help matters that I made a boneheaded mistake and put a 2 (divided) in what should have been a 3 (divided) cell. Once I fix that, it went relatively smoothly.
Wow. I have been there... on both fronts! I can't do the 7x7 anymore without my readers on (ugh), and I have absolutely also gotten stuck on a puzzle, tried to re-plot it in Excel, but then typed a number wrong... disaster! Glad you ended up in a good spot though, and my magnifying readers really do help! (How did I get this old?!?) 😂
Absolutely. Usually I can generally gauge (afterwards) how easy the puzzle is by the runtime of the videos, and anything under 15 minutes is pretty good for me on a 7x7. What path did you go down to solve this one?
Nice solve. I went a slightly different path, but also got there. (Even when I conquer it on my own, I like to check with your final answer as I go along, so I can check myself before I wander further into the wilderness. I don’t consider that “cheating” because, unlike (arguably) a crossword puzzle, the solution is meaningless unless you’ve managed to solve all the logical steps that get you there. But it’s so easy to make a boneheaded error in KenKen that it saves a lot of time if you can see where you’ve stumbled early on, and try to figure out the right path.)
Love that perspective. And I totally agree! To me, the actual solution doesn’t *really* matter. Instead, it’s the quest along the way of finding all the logical steps (and solving them) that make these puzzles fun!
This puzzle lent itself to a technique I often try and that sometimes is very helpful: the numbers in the rows and in the columns add up to 28 in 7x7 KenKen. In the 3rd row from the top, one set of numbers adds up to 13. After you place the 2 and the 7, the missing numbers will add up to 6. You already had 1/5 in the first square on the left, so the square in the 4th square (under 14+) had to be 1/5 as well. The same technique could be useful in the final row. One set of numbers adds up to 8, another set adds up to 10. That gives you 18. The missing numbers add up to 10, so the first two squares are 4/6 or 3/7. Another way to use this is the 3rd row down. In 140+, the 4,5,7 add up to 16. The given 3 makes 19. The remaining numbers add up to 9. This becomes more helpful the more squares are filled. Thank you, thank you for doing these RU-vids. I can only aspire to do 7x7 in ink and never before a camera. Certainly not with a mike. #$%!
Oh wow…. That’s very cool! I think I get what you’re saying, but I need to look at this puzzle again with fresh eyes and go through your feedback step by step. Thanks for the comment and the kind words, as always!
Ha! They’re not quibblers to me. I genuinely made a mistake, and I honestly was 1) grateful that it was pointed out, 2) stunned at how many people were paying attention to these videos, and 3) even more surprised that I ended up with the right solution anyway! 😂🤷🏻♂️ Thanks again and Happy New Year!
Yeah, the logic on the bottom row 12+ seems off. I had to work off of the top row, trying either the 5 or the 7 in the 4- spot. Only one of those works and that was the key to this difficult puzzle. I had to get several steps into it before I had to back out. It was a fun and frustrating.
Yep - 100% I re-did the puzzle late last night by hand and will post a new video today. Much harder when you actually have to follow the correct logic!!! 😂
Great solve! I had all of your steps, up until your brilliant insight about "locking out" the twos in the sixth row (at about 23:46). That really made all the difference. It's enjoyable to follow your steps and thought processes. I pretty much know you're going to end up solving it. So it's like reading a mystery novel and knowing that the novelist will wrap up the plot in the remaining pages. So if I see, say, eight minutes left in your video, I know you're going to hit the jackpot soon. Thanks for posting!
Well this was definitely a struggle! And you’re right… blocking out those 2s in the sixth row ended up opening up the rest of the puzzle, but it felt like it took me FOREVER to get there! 😅 Love the comments and the feedback… see you next week!
This one struck me as so easy that I didn't even need to consult your expertise. But this week (December 10) -- much tougher. Looking forward to your solve!
The delivery protocol in New York City is to deliver the Sunday paper in two pieces. The "hard news" piece is delivered on Sunday; the stuff that isn't so deadline-dependent (magazine, book review) gets delivered on Saturday. I think it's just to even out the load of the delivery people, since they have a lot of apartment buildings to hit.
This was a tough one. When I hit an impasse, I often do what you did here: pick one of two likely options, and follow it through until it either works or fails. (I also share your dread that when it fails, I somehow messed it up.) But I always wonder if, when I do that, there really was some logical step that I missed, which would have enabled me to do it more efficiently, without that trial-and-error approach. I must say, it was comforting to see someone of your expertise level using this approach. 😉
Oh, I am ABSOLUTELY CONVINCED that when I make an educated "guess" to see if it breaks... that there was some simple logical step that I just missed. 100%! 😂
Bravo! I tried to solve this several times and failed. I admire your courage and confidence to solve it publicly in pen...for the most part. Thank you!
I did manage to do this one without assistance. But I went to your site, to see how a real pro would do it. (I copy it on to a larger piece of paper, and try to fill in (in pencil) pretty much all of the "available" options. I then erase numbers, as it becomes logically clear they are no longer options. Doing it in pen, and the original tiny print format is way beyond my capabilities! Bravo!
Ha! A lot to unpack here... 😀 I will admit I have definitely reached the age where I need to put my readers on to do the KenKen puzzles in the paper. I really wish the NYT would make them bigger for all of us 🤓 As for being a "pro," I can't make that claim. I have no idea if the way I'm solving those is even the best, fastest, or easiest way... but I did think that at least showing how I was solving them might help people. Finally, as for working in pen, I think I get that from my dad, who always (and still) insists on doing the Sunday NYT Crossword in pen. I only break out a pencil when I can't logically figure something out unless I write in 1 of 2 paths, and then play that out until either the puzzle is solved or it breaks, which is when I go back and erase everything, knowing now that I should have taken the other path. Anyway, I'm not sure you even asked for all of this context, but these videos have been fun to make, I'd be doing the puzzles anyway, and I'm glad they're helpful!
From one solving nerd to another (the rest of you should excuse yourselves. You will find this so boring, you might black out andbreak your nose on your desk.) Until I switched over to exclusively online solving, I used to do the crossword puzzle in ink. When I was uncertain as to an entry, I would just ink it in lightly. (That works with a ballpoint pen. The really gonzo types, I assume, do it with a felt-tip pen.) Inexplicably (and I do mean inexplicably, because I tried in vain to find out from The Times), the biweekly acrostic now appears only in the print edition. I feel it a point of honor to do that one also in ink (but again, using the light touch of the ballpoint pen when I'm not really clear on the answer).
Just discovered your channel. I enjoy the 7x7 NYT KenKen, but find that maybe 30% of the time, I just can't find the missing logical piece to make it all cascade into place. Just seeing the solution in the next Sunday Times isn't all that helpful, because it gives no clue as to the logical steps. You do -- and I thank you for it!
That's awesome! So glad to hear it... especially because that was exactly the idea I had when thinking about these videos. The answer is isn't enough... it's HOW you get to the answers. Anyway, I really appreciate the feedback - thanks!
OMG - it is! That is bizarre... They must have reprinted an old puzzle by mistake... and I had no idea ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-dNl3xE1Cx_A.htmlsi=HiZ7VwhM75xRJTvr
Again I thank you. I finally had to give up -- somehow I kept believing that bottom 14 was 1-6-7. I can now face a new week with a clear but humbled head. Feel better.
Ha! Not all heroes wear capes... 😂 Thank you so much! Sorry the answers for this week aren't up yet... was traveling for the weekend. You'll get them today!
I had chronic problems with NYT delivery until I started complaining to the chairman of the NYT board. He never saw my letters, I am sure, but one of his assistants straightened things out...several times...until the delivery service figured out its had to do its job. Thank you for great videos.
Found your video after I solved it myself, thinking this was the hardest one yet! I had the same thought that I must have missed something, but it really, truly required playing out all the variables until you knocked them each out. Brutal is accurate!
Absolutely. I just couldn’t find a way through this one without making some educated guesses, and then following them through until something broke. This was extraordinarily challenging!
