Malgré tout ce que donnait M. Kumar au départ, notamment la colonne 7 au complet ainsi que la colonne 3, sauf à résoudre la paire 57 dans le bloc 4, j'ai dû capituler et utiliser des notations pour aboutir. Avec le temps que j'y ai mis avant de capituler, J'aurais fait figure de cancre dans un championnat ! Merci, je me suis quand même bien amusé. Et, comme la vengeance est douce au coeur de l'homme, sachez que vous m'avez aussi un peu amusé avec votre paire de 16 aux extrémités supérieures et inférieurs de la colonne 3. À mon premier coup d'oeil, j'avais en effet entamé le jeu en plaçant le 6 dans la case r8c1 puis dans r1c3. Il y avait en effet un 6 fantôme emprisonné dans la rangée 9 sous les 89 dans le bloc 8.
Bien fait. Un jeu que j'ai pris à rythme plutôt modéré, avec quelques lenteurs à certaines étapes à trouver les restrictions disponibles, terminé sans notations en 14m29s.
Normally, I would say what an incredible puzzle this is - and it is; in this case, it is better to mention 2 time stamps where you use the same word which I think sums up this puzzle in 1 word: @7:30, @ 16:38
I wholeheartedly agree with you here; this puzzle is worth at least 60 points in my opinion because of all the geometry needed to resolve the puzzle. A great set-up, but severely undervalued. I regret trying it during the contest because it meant I didn't attempt the quad sums puzzle which was a much easier 70-odd points to get than this "only" 30 points (again, I agree with you here 100% too). I've learnt my lesson: never do irregular puzzles during the contest because you WILL run into trouble!
Another beautfy from Akash. I remember when I solved this puzzle after thr contest that I did find the 9 in b1 a bit quicker than you but then got a bit stuck on the b5 sums for some reason. I also know I never even think about uniqueness in Akash's puzzles; why would you when they are so well designed? :)
A wonderful puzzle! Great set-up and each of the key deductions are amazing. I, like Akash, didn't see the parity argument at all and I must say I struggled with that part of the solve until I watched Akash solve it a few days ago and the way he explained it is very nice and totally makes sense in my head. I have to say the inclusion sudoku was the best puzzle of the round for me, but both this puzzle and the XV (-) were right up there too.
What a stunning set-up by Ashish; a superb construction and very well solved here. The best inclusion sudoku I've ever seen and solved for sure. I agree the 74 points were unders - perhaps the outside 234 could've dropped a few points and tacked onto this puzzle to make it worth around 80 points. I remember it took me around 20-25 minutes to solve it during the contest and I thought "how can a quad/inclusion puzzle be valued so highly?" and then seeing the puzzle while the timer was counting down is a wow moment I'll never forget. I definitely started with 4s and 8s, noticing that they were restricted to r123c9, with 6s soon to follow. This puzzle is a brilliant way to hone one's skills on pointing pencil marks and I can safely say I'll be recommending this puzzle to anyone who likes inclusion sudoku and wants a stiff challenge.
Lovely puzzle and solve. I think 56 points is maybe a little overvalued but there are some very hard puzzles in the round as we know. I do love outside sudokus and really should try setting a few more as it's been a while since I set such a puzzle; perhaps I should try a 234 variant or maybe a Serbian frame sudoku though they both seem to be less common than the usual 123 puzzles I've seen.
There are a couple of such eliminations that could be spotted indeed and they are sometimes just extra information that distract us from the real breakthroughs.
A very nice video. I did not realise the parity part of the arrow sums in boxes 4 and 8. It was a clever find. I learned a lot of things watching you and Ashish solve this puzzle.
Yet another great puzzle from a setter who is arguably a favourite of many solvers, myself included, and a very smooth solve. I do like using 0-8 from time to time - I have a killer renban puzzle with a special sandwich rule that I'm saying I've invented that I published on my blog a little while ago where I use 0-8; the 0-8 range leads to some different and interesting thinking and is a nice way to break-up the usual 1-9 that we are all so accustomed to. There might be something in your thoughts at the end of the video, and I wonder how much propulsion you could get with 0 clues and especially the interactions with other clues arising from them.
A really beautiful set-up with a very clear starting point as you can fill in all 4s from the get-go, then all the 2s, the 7/9 of the 9s. I really love deductions like the one you noted around the 20-minute mark in the video as they blow the puzzle wide open and from there, the puzzle solves trivially. @4:07, you can eliminate 1 from r4c1 as it breaks digit 1 in the region above.
A very nice puzzle and I like the flow a lot. Much quicker resolution can be achieved by noting where purple goes in b6 by virtue of the interaction of r6c4 & r3c7 with b6 --> 13 pair in c9, placing both 5 & 8 in c9; from there, the puzzle quickly solves by completing b3 which also quickly finishes the positive diagonal.
I solved this puzzle last night and when I had finished, I said "What a ripper! An absolute beauty!" It really is a remarkable construction, and I was stuck for the longest time during the mid-solve until I saw the magnificent deduction you spotted around the 14-minute mark here - that really broke the puzzle wide open; to get to that part, though, required a lot of careful deduction.
Another nice puzzle with a nice start in c6. I agree totally with your remarks at the end of the puzzle. It's good to see that constraints that sometimes are constructed with a negative rule don't necessarily need the negative rule to be enjoyable puzzles.
At 3:05, you wrote in 68 as the only candidates, but couldn't 3 still go there too? In the end it can't be 3, of course (otherwise you would have broken the puzzle), and it's also easy to eliminate 3 there because of the middle boxes, but you hadn't done that.
I thought 65 points was quite generous for this thermo sudoku at the time I solved it; that said, I still haven't had a chance to solve a few of the variant puzzles, so perhaps I should reserve last judgement until I try those puzzles (probably later this week) and then watch your videos.
I, too, thought the logic needed to crack open this puzzle was fantastic and it was great how seemingly so little information once that logic was appreciated is all that was needed to start unravelling the puzzle; truly a great sudoku to solve! I must set more X-sums sudoku as it's really satisfying once you get the given clues right to give you a nice smooth solve path like this puzzle.
Un jeu dont la construction est franchement amusante, autour des paires de 12 dont l'une est oblique dans le bloc 3, et enfin les 3 et 4 stratégiquement placés popur produire deux paires critiques dans les blocs 6 et 8. Avec ces restrictions, on trouve toutes les restrictions clés pour finir sans notation dans un temps raisonnable. Je suis un joueur plutôt lent, et donc j'y ai mis une quinzaine de minutes.
J'ai persisté et évité les notations, mais ce n'étais pas facile. Dans votre cas comme le mine, c'était le 6 dans le coin inférieur droit de la grille qu'il fallait trouver pour tout dénouer.
Great video. This was my favourite puzzle from this round, and it was the last of them that I figured out. It's so satisfying to pick out each piece of logic, especially the early one.
