@@jackeyniraula You'll get a hang of it. It's mostly logic and finding patterns. Practice on a lot of easy Sudokus at first. This will train your brain to find the missing numbers in a row, column and block without counting. Then go slowly to the harder ones. Watch Simon's tutorials. He explains the logic behind every technique in an easy to understand way.
When Mark said pause, I spotted a naked 5 without even having to pencil anything in. Similar strategy to Mark's - I looked at cells with longest lines of intersecting digits and found that in box 9 the cell to the left of the 9 can only be a 5. Admittedly, that 5 placement doesn't seem to open up the puzzle much so eventually, the 2 on the third box would have been required.
One tip that I've picked up from watching these is to train yourself to occasionally scan the numbers in the rows and columns, looking for places where lots of different numbers overlap. Those are often places worth looking at more carefully. R8C7 is a perfect example. If you scan the board you can see quickly that C7 has 2347, R8 has 3689, and 1 is in the box. So bam, you've just found a naked single 5. Also look carefully at houses that have only a few empty cells, and make a note of what's missing from them. e.g. C5, which starts out with 5 digits given, leaving just 1238 to go. After checking the overlapping houses, while there are no singles out of the gate, you have already found two bi-value cells.
Great tip - “sometimes you have to switch to cell thinking”. I often find these videos hard to follow because he goes so fast, but THIS was a truly brilliant tip. Thank you!!
OHHH I CAN SEE NOW WHY 2 WAS THERE Look at the row and column where 2 was 5, 7, 3 was at the left so you cant place em anymore 6, 9 was at the bottom of it so you cant place these numbers too 4, 8 was at the box so you cant place em anymore 1 and 2 are the only choice left 1 is about to be placed there! Making 2 the only number left! Thx Cryptic
nichol dsouza I also didn’t ask for ur opinion again... see where this is going? This is what happens when you say you didn’t ask for someone’s opinion when they never asked for urs
Just started sudoku 3 days ago with an app from boredom (and cause of memory issues), but the fastest I managed to solve an Expert puzzle (1 block with 6 empty cells and only around 1-3 numbers in blocks max) was 14 minutes, and ever since that 1 lucky time it takes minimum 22 minutes! my strategy of writing down every single possible number is definitely not working lmao. Definitely gonna check more of your videos out as I never thought of keeping it this plain, page wise!
Very helpful method. IF you couple your method , while at the same time keeping an eye out for hidden pairs, it REALLY speeds up the process. I found several hidden pairs right away
how exacly did he decide there can only be 2 in that place? cuz from what i can see in that line there are 3 more posibbilities of 2 being somewhere else
@@allmightsmaaash1082 It's not a case of "The 2 in the box can only go in this cell". It's the other way around - "I can't put 1, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8 or 9 in this cell, so the only thing left for it to be is a 2".
ummm, not always. I love to time myself. it adds a bit of a challenge and keeps me on track. I get distracted easily so timing makes it extra fun. But yeah, finishing is important but not the only importance to sum (pun... lol)
Without the need for the ones in the top right box, bottom right box also has a naked single below the 7 in column 7, row 8. It's a 5. It sees 1, 7 and 9 in it's box, 2, 3 and 4 in the column and (3), 6 and 8 in the row so the only possibility is 5. I didn't spot the one Mark did in the top box, though.
This has been one of the most helpful sudoku videos I have ever seen. Many thanks for your help! I don't understand why your ideas are not taught more generally. Hope you make many more videos.
I will say this one is a very nice example of the power of that 2 cells notation. Together with the scanning for cells that can only hold a single digit you have a real good puzzle for people just getting into sudokus and these two techniques.
In my month or so of following this channel and playing some of the games, I've realized that Snyder notation is very good for most traditional sudoku games, but it also tends to make some of the more complex puzzles and techniques harder. The main problem with it is that logic techniques that rely on elimination and spotting broader patterns don't stand out as much. In particular, patterns like x-wings/fish are hard to locate, as they rely on noticing exactly which, where, and how many candidates exist in certain columns and rows. I guess in the end you need to learn how to balance the use of Snyder and traditional cell-based notation, and when to switch between them.
At 2:46 we can straight away fill in 8 in 2nd row and 3rd column as in the first block there are 6 nos missing, all the other numbers are either present in the column we put 8 or in the row, so we had 2 possible values that is 2 or 8 but 8 cant be in 1st row 3rd column therefore 8 is in 2nd row 3rd column, now you can solve it under 7 or 6 mins!
I did this without notations. It took me a very long time: 38 minutes ! I found a naked 5 in box 9, at r8c7 and thopught there was some light at the end of the tunnel, but no such luck. Then I finally took a look at row 2 and found the naked 2. This was what was needed. Fun puzzle.
Been playing Sudoku for some time now and yes the hard puzzles took me time to figure out also but this technique has opened up my eyes more 😎. Thanks mate.
I found several “naked singles”, some needed the highlighted technique. A video on spotting chaining would be most welcome. Your ability to spot them is uncanny.
I saw a naked single number 5 on the 2nd row from the bottom (unless I got it wrong), nearly immediately from a trick Simon explained once but then I still don't easily know where to go from there. I really have to get more practice I guess.
Very excellent method that I haven't seen before. It is a very logical approach !! Like it very much> Which fill in program do you use for filling in the values into the grids?
It took me twelve minutes to solve the entire puzzle, which for me is fairly quick. But I never stalled out. Then again I was working on paper, which means I annotated a lot.
On paper, after I've found the pairs in squares (snyder notation marks) I "think outside the box", i.e., I make a note of which digits are left to go into the most crowded sets. So on row 2 my note was "12689" for example. Then it's fairly quick to check each of the cells in that row. (I also note cells which only can have two digits, so r2c3 got a "2/8" note which was very quickly resolved when I found the 2 farther over.) I'm not super fast, but I get there.
I also have trouble seeing them, but, for now, the best I can come up with is to scan for the most restricted rows or columns, then see if they intersect in a 3x3 box. Or, find the most restricted 3x3 box, then look for the most restricted rows or columns feeding into that box, scanning to find the rows/columns/3x3 boxes with the least numerical overlap. Or, if I have thoroughly notated using Snyder notation, I look for cells with either no or a single Snyder little number, and test them for naked singles. If using a pencil, I mark unused numbers "outside the puzzle" adjacent to the candidate rows / columns / 3x3 boxes (demarking the 3x3 candidates with a squiggle line next to it, using a double squiggle to demark the numbers for the central 3x3 box (Box 5). Hope this wasn't too simple minded an answer.
how exacly did he decide there can only be 2 in that place? cuz from what i can see in that line there are 3 more posibbilities of 2 being somewhere else
The first number i found was a 5 in row 8 column 7. If I identify a cell where a number cannot be I mark it with a dot in the appropriate spot, eg top left for a 1.
Now that you've seen it maybe you can spot them in the future. I didn't get the naked single on my own. It definitely helped. It at least reminds us to be aware of this and keep an eye out.
Column 7, numbers 1,5, 6, 8, 9 missing. Position 8 in this column has to be a 5 since 1,9, 8, 6 are ruled out. This is the naked single. I think the 2 that Mark had found in column 8 is called a hidden single.
It's worth noting that once the 1's are pencil marked in box 6, column 8, the naked 2 becomes visible. You don't even need to pencil mark the 1's in box 3 first, though I do think it's more realistic and more in tune with how you should be going about solving a sudoku to simply finish off any relevant pencil marks first before looking for naked singles.
I don't have link to play it, so would have to use a hand drawn grid. My start point would be a single 5 in C7 - that with3 & 7 as well as the 3, 5 & 7 in R2 gives those numbers as a triple in block 3. That means that 2 has be be in R2 of block 3, and places itself in R1C3. R2 becomes a single 8, the 7 goes in R3C1, and that gives 2 more 7s around the grid, and at least one 2 follows also. Now I'll watch, and my next number when the question came u is R8C7 = 5, and that wasn't the answer which was 2, a number I would have found a couple of moves later.
@@shubhamdalal5960 I think like how you know that a particular row or column won’t have a certain number because of the pencil marks even if you have not marked that number specifically yet.
Just for fun I filled in all of the potential candidates (not just 2 or 3 per box) and it because super obvious how many naked singles there were and it was done.
At 3:35 I still don't why the middle box in the upper right can only be a 2. Couldn't it also go in the middle right box? Couldn't the 2 also go into the middle right box in the upper left 9 boxes?
I guess in these earlier videos, they didn't use that software. I wish they'd go back and re-create the link like they have now. I had to resort to using Snip-It to get a screen capture, and printed it out, to complete by pen/pencil. Old-school, lol
Whilst I agree that's probably hard to see if you are overly invested in Snyder notation, I don't think it's something that's particularly difficult. Every now and again we all miss something that we wouldn't have done on another day...
Ugh, there wasn't really a real tip here besides the basics... Naked singles basically mean you have to hit do every possible elimination before you find it... The only thing worse is when it's one of those "substitute in a number and see if it breaks something". I would love a solid method to actually spot those rather than just "guess and check randomly".
I still don’t understand how you assumed 2 is the in the 3rd box, 8th column. I would’ve spent a long time finding other options for 2. Can you share how you made that correct assumption? I’m missing something.
There is no other digit that cell can be. [4 and 8] are in the same box, [3, 5 and 7] are in the same row, [6 and 9] are in the same column. That cell can only be a [1 or 2]. And as he determined the [1] in that box will be in column 7, that cell can only be a [2].
The hell of a long time? Eight minutes?? Man, you've no idea what a long time is! I normally solve difficult puzzles in - oh I don't know - five to ten minutes, maybe - occasionally much faster, though. But I have one that I've spent years on NOT solving! I had a Nokia telephone once (who didn't?) with 100 puzzles on it. The first 90 were ridiculously easy, but the last 10 were hard, and one of them is just about impossible. On the phone you can cheat, and I did that once very quickly just to check that there was a solution, and there was. I often keep a print of this puzzle in my bag to show to people who think they're good at solving sudokus. You can very quickly write the first number, a 5. But I've never met anyone, myself included, who could get any further.
The traditional full notation system is inefficient for speed solvers. The numbers clutter up the board, often hiding as much as they reveal, and valuable time is wasted unnecessarily filling in and removing marks. They prefer to use a more streamlined method called Snyder notation, that (for the most part) only adds candidates when there are exactly two possibilities left in a box. They have designed their platform to work the way they do. There are plenty of other programs out there that will automate that kind of thing if you want to go the regular route.
@@Sefasym It's pretty simple. Just count all the other #'s in that row, column & Box...13456789....the only other one left is the 2 for that square...go back and listen again to his explanation
They choose # 2 in that box becoz ,that middle box is influenced by 8 numbers if u choose any other box in that square it will definetly influenced by less number ..
It could go in those places, but as he mentions when looking at the middle square then: 1. from the row 5, 7, 3, and 4 are present and ruled out, leaving 1, 2, 6, 8, and 9; 2. from the column, 6 and 9 are present and ruled out, leaving 1, 2, and 8; 3. from the 3x3, 8 is present and ruled out, leaving 1 and 2; 4. from placing the 1 in the only places it can go rule that out, leaving just the 2. Therefore, as there is only a 2 possible that can go in that square, it is what's called a "Naked Single" and so that square must be the 2. If the 2 was placed above the 8, it could not go in the middle square, but neither could any other number.
@@msclrhd Okay I see it now. I started to do that in my sudoku games. Eliminating possibilities from a certain square because of the row columns and the box.
how exacly did he decide there can only be 2 in that place? cuz from what i can see in that line there are 3 more posibbilities of 2 being somewhere else
@@allmightsmaaash1082 The cell where he puts the 2 - he deduced that no other number can go there, instead of a 2 not being able to go anywhere else. Basically, every other number is already existing in either the same row, column, or block, but the 2.
3457 are already given in row 2. 48 are already given in the box. 69 are already given in column 8. That leaves the R2C8 cell with just two possible candidates: 1 and 2. He then narrowed down the 1s in the right chute to two pairs of candidate cells. They _must_ go in C7R1/R3, and C8R5/R6 (plus the 1 already given in C9R9). No matter which combination is correct, they all eliminate the possibility of a 1 in R2C8. Thus, the only choice left is 2.
how exacly did he decide there can only be 2 in that place? cuz from what i can see in that line there are 3 more posibbilities of 2 being somewhere else
