Always makes me smile when Simon frets about corner-marking across boxes. Don't worry about it! We all know you're never going to look at those corner marks again 😁
Just a comment, before watching your solve, on your commentary on the previous puzzle by Icy Fruit. One of the wonderful things about this channel is the recognition of the brilliance of the constructors, but also of the solvers, including you and Mark. There is, very often, more than one way to find the solution, and I suspect that in many cases even the constructors, with a very few exceptions, often discover that their intended path has an alternate that they had not envisioned. This isn't a criticism or a flaw, it merely serves to highlight the incredible complexity of how the human mind works. CTC is a celebration of intellect and logic, but it also makes clear the absolute value that can accrue from diversity - we benefit from the fact that we don't all think the same way, if we are open to acknowledging that there is no single right way to think. I for one am very appreciative of your emphasis on acknowledging both your mistakes, which because we are human are inevitable, and the triumphs of others in seeing things in a different way - also inevitable - but especially, simply the value of recognizing that there can be more than one right path to the correct solution. In a global community such as this, that is a remarkable opportunity, and one that ought to be applied to far more than our simple problems portrayed on a nine by nine grid. Not only on the puzzles, but on the problems we share as members of a global community - let's get cracking.
Dont like this comment. There seems to be equal probability for any way to solve and most you will ever see is like 5 different methods even on this channel. Its like celebrating 1 person forgetting completely they ever did a puzzle and solving it again, and repeating it 5 times. The diversity is minimal.
that's because it's only two guys from relatively similar backgrounds on the channel,@@iarmycombo5659 . they have a preferred way to solve the sudokus, but what is important is that they celebrate - simon in this video literally pointed out how amazing it was that there were other solutions that commenters pointed out that he didn't see or utilise at the time. that's a celebration of the diversity in puzzle solving. you can watch other people solve puzzles if you want to have a diverse input of puzzle solving media and techniques in your life, but if you keep coming back to the same channel with the same two guys and expecting them to solve all the different puzzles with a new technique every time, your expectations are unrealistic. I appreciate what you're saying and think more diversity in everything , especially how we think and problem solve, is a good thing, but that is literally what simon and mark promote.
I’m thinking about something really beautiful about this channel. A lot of these puzzles are so devilishly hard that very few people complete them. Creating a piece of art that only a few dozen people enjoy might be satisfying, and no doubt there’s a special pleasure in setting one of these. But through the channel, it isn’t just handfuls but thousands who can appreciate the skill in crafting these, and the hard work of the setters.
I used the secret to solve this one.... I was stucked in the very started and I thought "what Simon would do to solve this?"... and I remember about the secret, and how you count the min values of the cells and the max values of the arrows!! I was happy for that! Thanks Simon! 😀
I want to genuinely thank you for these videos. I found your channel about a year and a half ago when I was in a very tough spot in my life but somehow you always managed to put a smile on my face and bring me comfort when I needed it most. I had no interest in puzzles before finding your content but now they're one of my favorite past time and it's all thanks to you and your positivity so thank you :)
Simon! A word about your soporific effects... it's because the puzzles are challenging for minds already tired by the day, and your deep voice and calm and regulated nervous system helps us all regulate, feel soothed, and calm us down enough to relax and fall asleep, while enjoying the solve until we can't keep our eyes or ears open any longer. I personally used to watch your videos at night but have recently come back to the channel to watch them first thing in the morning as I start my day, as I struggle with CPTSD and will wake up already stressed and struggling to start my day, but your videos chill me right out and I can get on with my work. It's a wonderful compliment, testament to your good vibes, not a bad thing!
The thing that makes me laugh the most is when Simon absolutely neglects sudoku for some massively complicated way of determining a digit like he did with the 1 and 4 in box one. Regardless, I learn some new way of solving every time but I’m screaming at my screen that the 1 could have been placed 10 minutes ago!!! Loved this ❤
In particular, Simon could have used the same argument giving him the 12 pair in box 3 to give him a 13 pair in box 1 (once the circle was filled at least). He even wondered why this didn't quite work in box 6, but never cared to try it on box 1. Well, one can't think of everything, not even Simon.
I know Simon already felt like he was Goodliffing but I think center marking options in the green cells based on the options in their respective purple cells minus the knowns in their orange cells would have made some deductions much easier to see...
Spent an hour trying stuff and failing… gave up and watched Simon who apologized after a few minutes for not seeing “the obvious maths” DOH - still really enjoyed the challenge - thanks Simon!
So many of the puzzles featured of late have such complex rules with long videos. Aad's puzzles always have a beautiful geometry, a few digits thrown in, a super break in and overall a joyous experience solving it.
Perhaps Sven could build in an option to turn the given digits blue? (Maybe with some kind of indication that they're given e.g. an underline, if it's preferable for them to be distinctive from digits written in later...)
I like how you can spot an Aad puzzle just by the thumbnail, because he's the only creator to give more than one digit nowadays. Probably wouldn't even be on the channel if he started up today...
I wonder if there is a statistically significant increase in 3s being in the corners in sudoku because of this channel. My thought goes like this: seeing as so many people watch this channel, and I would assume a good amount of us are sudoku enthusiasts, and some of those enthusiasts are setters, and we all get a kick out of Simon singing about 3s, it would make sense that setters, when setting a sudoku and when there's a choice to be made about where to place a 3, decide that the corner is better because of Simon.
33:39 - r2c1 is a naked single already, meaning the 4 is also resolved. Always a good chuckle to see the simple misses even experts make. Anyways, great solve as always! Cheers!
I spent some good 30 minutes trying by myself (restarted and wiped the timer), had to comeback to Simon and check what I was missing. After him explaining the secret across the boxes, still needed almost an hour to solve the rest. If Simon takes less than 40min to solve, I know I'll need 1 hour or more lol Amazing.
Took a while to get round the start (and a peak at Simon giving a big hint for the middle box.) After that it just flowed with regular sudoku. Finished in 53:54 which is fine by me for an actual solve on an Aard puzzle. Thank you Aard for the fine puzzle and Simon for the video!
this is Harrison, i might very well be your biggest fan. and my message from my brother was the greatest thing ive ever recieved. you have my loyalty and trust. that message alone sealed you in the top 3 all time media celebrities!!! and thank you so much for a happy birthday
22:49 has some beatiful logic. All 3 options for 5 rule out the 6 in r4c4. How do you set something like this? Edit: Simon needs another 5min to notice what he already proved 😂
One way to make the solve easier is to think of the collection of digits you have available for the arrows: four 1s, three 2s&3s and only one 4568. Knowing the 3=1+2, 6=2+4 and 9=8+1 means you can figure out the exact make-up of the arrows, then its just a case of fitting them in using sudoku
This puzzle almost drove me crazy. R5 was quickly clear, but I still couldn't find space for the 3 in box 5 because it always collided with C8. Finally I had to check Simon's progress and suddenly the 3 in box 5 worked. Magically!
19:24 "That's gonna give me a digit - so this this is a 1!" "Huh? I get why the orange have to be minimum, but how do you know which goes where already???" Practically every video with Mark, I have a "It sounds extremely clever, but I understood absolutely nothing!"-moment. This one I still don't understand...
1+2+3 is minimum in each orange column with three oranges. There are two such columns, so if you are going for 13 as max, then wherever you put the last orange, it has to be 1.
Same, but I spotted it faster. I asked what would happen if it was 5. That would make 7 in that circle, but push 6 to a tip where you'd get another 7 in that circle. So the 5 would need to create an 8 circle now, and thus the 6 can no longer go with the 2.
What is the logic placing the 1 at r3c5 at 19:25? I'm missing something, but I don't know what. edit: Oh duh, the 1,2,3 lines with the minimum. Simon said it 3 times and it didn't click.
@@vikingslayer34That would sum to 2*(1+2+3)+3=15 in orange. By putting 1 in r3c5, he can get them to sum to just 2*(1+2+3)+1=13. He needs them to sum to the minimum (13) so that the arrows are minimised (29+13=42), since 42 is the maximum that he can put in the circles (9+8+7+6+5+4+3=42).
@@vikingslayer34 @RichSmith77 is correct, but I've been thinking about it over the day. A different way I'm thinking about it is that Simon needs 123, 123, and 1 for the lowest value as it only works that way. That's three 1's; because the left and right are in the same column the only place for a 3rd 1 is r3c5 (and means a 1 cannot be on c3 or c7 for r3).
As predicted, you missed the black digits sometimes. Like missing you couldn't put a 7 in R6C6 to make an 8 on that arrow. I caught myself doing the same thing with the 6 in R1C1. I've played too many of the puzzles you present, so I'm having the same issue -- I'm just not as good as you at making up for it with stunning logic. I loved this puzzle. It took a very different approach than I'm good at, which stretches me. Thanks for bringing it to us, and thanks to Aad van de Wetering for making this gem!
I know i was not required, but i found that after the arrows, it was helpful to use the phistemephel ring, because there was a lot known in the ring and the corners, with not a lot of overlapping digits.
I loved yesterday's video and this one too. Maybe putting a circle around given digits would help them stand out better, although I'm not sure how much it would help. As proven by Simon asking if a cell in box 7 could be a 4 when there is already a 4 in box 7.
I'd love the option to change the color of the digits we place (which would also solve the issue, since we could place black digits). I'd love to be able to do my "what ifs" without losing track of the digits I'm placing, or to be able to mark digits I want to exclude, when I'm looking at a specific subset of cells.
I managed to solve this in 35:14. I did need your help a little to make me realize that I calculated the minimum sum of the circles wrong. I got 41 instead of 42, which gave me a degree of freedom. From now on, I will not try to do math in my head.
At 36:06 he solves r2c1 as a "1" with a very complex way while it was already obvioes by simple sudoku rules due to 1s in r5c3 and r3c5 :) Respect to the ways he sees which I can't most of the time
I don't know why, but whenever Simon talks about the secret of Sudoku it always feels like the eureka moment you find in tv shows or mysteries (i.e. the detective solves the case and explains the murder, or Scobey doo and gang catch and reveal the bad guy, etc.) You know its coming and when it does you sort can't help but cheer that the puzzle is solved (usually).
What happens to Simon when he can't detect black (given) digits? Is it mostly mentally or physically? Can this be transferred or compared to other situations too?
A very nice puzzle indeed. I did not try it, but watching the video I was thinking about what would it be if the second number on all arrows was all 1's. 2's and 3's. Apparently my idea was right. Thank you Simon and Aad. Or thank you Aad and Simon, since Aad created the puzzle before Simon solved it.
Aad ... Phistomefel, Clover, someone I knew but forgot while typing the previous two (sorry, love your work) and two others I couldn't think of ((double appology, your work is also amazing)). That's my absolutely terrible list of "new puzzle, just make a video" setters from Cracking the Cryptic.
For a while, I was solving this puzzle under the assumption that the circles had to be each of the digits 2-9. It wasn't until I got stuck that I realized there were only 7 circles, so one of the digits was missing. Exasperated, I just restarted the puzzle. Once I had the right approach, my time was 14:03, and I was solver number 1589. But this time definitely deserves an asterisk, as I did a lot of thinking during my first solve, and just forgot to save the time to add to the second solve.
Always always a pleasure to have a video by you solving an Aad puzzle, Simon. This was a beauty, and probably within my capability. I will put it on my list! Thank you!! (And now, having skipped your comments on IcyFruit's puzzle from yesterday, I will have to wait until tomorrow to come back to this in order to return to that and finish watching it ... )
I think your _"convolute"_ SET trick for yesterday's sudoku from *IcyFruit* (The Zip That Zips The Zips) was *more powerful* than the intended one. You found it skillfully (👏👏👏) but you failed to unfold its magic❗ At playback time 44:58, you should have simply remembered something you had noticed earlier: *🔹r6c7* must be mirrored into either *r4c4* or *r5c4...* (the only non-orange cells in column 4). Then it becomes obvious that the *orange* set contains 8 different digits and the missing one must be *5* (since the *green* set is divisible by 5...)❗ This implies that: 🔹either *r4c4 = 5* or *r5c4 = 5* 🔹both the *orange* and *green* sets must add up to *40* 🔹the zipper center in *box 1* is *8* 🔹the zipper center in *box 5* is *10* 🔹the zipper center in *box 9* cannot be *10...*
This one was unexpectedly tough for me. I got the break-in but really struggled following through, and even some of the sudoku at the end was obtuse for me. Or rather, I was obtuse to it. Quite fun though!
I mentioned the other day that Aad's puzzles are all variations on a theme... this one is no different. The central box cells (on arrows) sum to 29. The circles come from a 7 cell set comprised of numbers from 2-9. So you minimise the remaining arrow cells (to 13) and remove the 2. It then becomes a matter of orientation. Completed in 14m31s.
"If that's 8, then... that's a 7. Which is totally okay." Simon says, while there is a 7 in the box already. I actually laughed out loud at that one, it was so absurdly hilarious. EDIT: And the he notices the 7 in the box just like five seconds later with another clue. :D
I think you could have found your cell of the day when considering 5s in box 5. If 5 was top left, then 6 would be bottom right and you would have two 7 arrows. So 5 goes NE or SW, so one is an 8 arrow - now 6 cannot go in the NW corner.
How doew Aad come up with such clever puzzles again and again. Simon berates himself for not seeing the break in quickly, but I am not sure I would ever have got it.
Sad I couldn't do this one. Was stuck breaking in, then went out for the evening and somehow thought about summing the digits on the arrows, but it was too late for me to attempt it when I got back home.
When I saw the thumbnail, I thought, is that a puzzle from Aad? It definitely is. I guess I recognized his style. Love the way you pronounce his name by the way. 😅 Greetings from the Netherlands 🇳🇱
You would think that after being literally handed a puzzle that screams " go back to LOGIC and stop thinking about fancy shit first ", some people still will never learn their lesson and keeps perpetuating the idea that you need to use every f*ing "fancy technique" instead of logic and sudoko. I weep for humanity.
It's funny, I saw the grid and said "Oh that's probably an Aad puzzle" and sure enough, it was. Also does he have a page on LMD? Sometimes I have trouble sourcing out the puzzles in the videos
when you were trying to figure out the green box digits you put in the 5 and six in both r4c4 and r6c6, and I figured out that 5 couldn't be in r4c4 becuse that fould force a 6 into r6c6 making both the circles be 7
I spend an hour proving that the missing digit is 2 and got stuck, checked the video: secret. At least I am proud of my hour long deduction using sequences with 1s and 2s, even if the same could be proven in few seconds using the secret.
At 27' Simon thinks something is so brilliant, but I don't think that's the way to solve it at all. I made possible combinatios of the 7 low numbers with the entire set of 3-9, and pretty soon came up with the silution of putting 6-1-7 in the lower right corner
to each their own and others clearly find this enjoyable, but this very puzzle had to many "what if this is a 5, let's try, okay let's try if it is a 4" and so on. a bit too much trial and error for my taste. happy for those that enjoyed it though!
I'm sure you won't read this, but just a friendly reminder that blue pencil marks are almost impossible to read when the cells are highlighted using the dark green that you used in box 5.
