This was not diabolical! I took a screen shot 8 seconds into it, and 6 minutes later I returned to this video, after solving it. Truly diabolical puzzles have dead ends that require a lot more thought than this one did. But I appreciate that you are trying to teach people how to play this game.
+christos2474 - "... he kept overlooking the 1&7 ..." He did put in the two "7's" on row 6 in columns 5 and 6 very early, right after he wrote in the "5" at 2:20. At that time, the "1" on row 6 would have to be in column 5 or 6, OR in the next group in column 7 or 8. It seems that he didn't necessarily "miss" the "1's" but rather that: 1) He was working on "7's" at the time, and 2) part of his technique is to only (generally ) write down "clues" if the clue is a "pair"... he just doesn't write down "things of 3", or "4", etc... He might make a mental note of it, but beyond that he wouldn't write it down. What's so special that he "missed" the "1's"? Right from the beginning, there are many, perhaps dozens of similar situations, a set of 4 squares that one of the 4 squares must be particular digit. It's just not that "uncommon" of a thing, and writing them all down makes it cluttered.
Pretty sure he means at 19:45 it bugged me too lol the box is touching it makes you think it is impossible to miss but his brain and eyes were just looking/thinking about something different at the same time that we noticed the correct answer to those 2 boxes.
I see what is making so many people desperate. He is going through ideas all the way through even though there are other factors that make going down that logical path unnecessary. He is not doing it because it is actually necessary, but because he is making examples of ideas that are necessary to solve puzzles of this nature. I picked up two that I was not using before and, if he had not explained the entire idea, I would not have been able to understand what he was talking about and therefore I would not have been able to pick up the technique in question. He is not solving the puzzle the fastest he could, he is showing all the techniques he uses to solve such puzzles so that other people might pick up those techniques. You already knew all of them and you could have solved it faster? I would hope you could. Way to brag about your capacity to complete a logical puzzle and miss the logical point of this video. It is not like he is trying to hide what his purpose is or doesn't even mention it...
Vendavalez you are correct. He did a very good job using a few helpful techniques throughout the puzzle to come to a solution. Alot of the people who solve these puzzles are competitive, and look for quick solutions. Alot of sudoku apps encourage this by recording your puzzle completion times. There's even a Web site that compares your time, with other people's times and apparently there are people that can solve harder puzzles in about 20 seconds! Of course, most people solve these to relax. Whatever way you find enjoyable, then that is the way you should do it!
Was my first Sodoku related video, praise youtube autoplay. Did learn 1 new method. I was using this before and learned it more or less by myself. Never wrote anything down, because I do this to relax and memorizing possible solutions helps me a lot. I also see one flaw in his explanation. He does this up to down scan and gets stuck and starts then with left to right, what is unnecessary. It gives no new information compared to up/down, because it gives exactly the same results. he overlocked just an solution. And it was not like intentional, he was stuck. Over all it is a really good video, good explanations, easy to reproduce. The catchphrase was a bit annoying maybee.
What I got from this video is that his methods need to be perfect but it does solve the hidden pair problem, maybe. But this puzzle doesn't have a hidden pair problem, which is a problem.
Never watched a Sudoku solution before on YT. This was great to get someone else's perspective or approach. I noticed a couple of missed solutions of course but he saw others before I did. No big deal. It is not easy to sustain the concentration over an entire solution while recording for YT. Learned another way today. Big thumbs up and thanks.
Rob Van Wyck I was frustrated that a diabolical puzzle was solved by the normal elimination techniques. What happens when you can’t eliminate? This puzzle didn’t go into that at all! It doesn’t become diabolical to me until there is no solution without guessing at one to cars the domino effect (that we all do). If that guess is wrong you are screwed. It’s not his fault, but the puzzle maker labeling it as “diabolical” should have thrown in something that makes it lock up at the end. Then he’d have to show us how to solve that. I know there are techniques, but I just can’t seem to understand them!!!
Even though it’s frustrating seeing how you keep missing the 1 & 7, but the way you showed how to play sudoku is freaking easy!! Thanks for the time you spent. I’m sure there’s a lot of other videos teaching how to play sudoku, but yours is the first that i had watched. So thanks again. Enjoyed it.
lol. Same here. The 5 at the start too. Gotta try not to let it bug you though, because sometimes you'll be looking in a different spot than he is or will be going in a different order. Always makes it appear easier to the onlooker than the person playing.
Great video. I have been solving Sudoku for years. I have had many friends ask me how to solve them. When I try to explain how it is done I can see the confusion on their faces. We all have our own patterns and methods we use while solving puzzles that are hard to explain to others. Now I can just tell them to watch this video. Of course those of us who already know how to do these noticed numbers that could have been filled in. But a beginner who is learning for the first time would not notice. He was teaching a technique that he uses. And I think it takes a lot of skill and patience to go through and explain it as thoroughly as he did. More so than just solving it. I never woud have thought that people would comment on it like it was an issue. Thank you for the video.
"Sokath - his eyes open" ! ! ! Your meticulous demonstration with ongoing explanation is the last work in getting across the technique required to do these maddening puzzles. Thank you so much ! I had all but given up on these Sudoku puzzles. Now I'm back on and must say that what you've shown here has made a world of difference. Brilliant ! ! !
It is easy to solve sudoku puzzle just looking for the character which perfectly will suit the square as per the rules of the game.First go for column or row.If repetition is there twice look for the third similar .You will fix it
I dont know why RU-vid recommended me this, but I really enjoyed this and watched the whole thing without skipping anything. Thanks for this strategy btw, you made me interested in Sudoku again.
guys his detail helped me to fully understand sudoku for the first time. tried to do it on my own many times for years and didn't fully understand it. I am thankful for this video.
It's just the begin. When you practice, you would discover by yourself the tricks, without watching tutorials. Sudoku is is a logical puzzle, so you need just to follow logic. I normally solve extreme sudoku's in 10-15 mins (don't even bother to solve simple ones, not challenging)
Thank you for this very informative video! I hope you don’t let the commenters who think they’re about get the Nobel Prize for pointing out where you simply missed numbers etc, get to you. You’re a wonderful teacher and I hadn’t been exposed to many of these strategies - so thank you again!
The master of sudoku has just solved fantastically a diabolical puzzle showing his extraordinary talent and prowess calling for unstinting accolades from all concerned. Please keep on enriching your sudoku students with the amazing skill of a teacher par excellence.
This guy way going through the steps to take for those that are not used to doing these puzzles, so missing out what is obvious was deliberate to help people understand the various routes that you can take to solve the puzzle, he was giving people a few different methods to solve the diabolical puzzle. Kudos to him and poor show to those of you putting him down for missing out the obvious, he was going through explanations for those who find it difficult to solve these types of puzzles.
19:37 no the bottom right box can only be a 1 because there's already a 1 in the middle row of the middle column. THIS TRIGGERED ME FOR THE REST OF THE VIDEO
Definately, I have learnedq. I was struggling from long years back and i meet no one to teach me at the same time i have huge interest. Thanks a lot. This video opened up my idea
This guy is a putz , you would think he would hv solved the puzzle before "missing" some glaring clues, very frustrating to watch an idiot teach something
Why? His method is straightforward, functional and doesn't backtrack much. He did miss some stuff but he's making a video which causes some distraction. His method also show that if you miss something, you are still likely to catch it when you switch from searching rows to searching columns.
Thanks a lot, I like your method. It’s more structured, I usually only did levels 3/4. But someone bought me a lot of diabolical sudokus, so I decide to try my hand...Totally fail. I used to write all the candidates, it was a little bit overwhelming. I kind of feel like a cheated, by seeing your tutorial lol. But thanks a lot, I was getting frustrated.
This video was really helpful. Thanks for that! However, at 10:50, the end of the 3rd row could have directly been filled with a 2 since a 4 can’t be in the square as indicated by a 4 in cell 1st row 7th column.
Thank you! I did learn something helpful-writing every missing number from each column along the top. I also felt good to see that I have been using all the same reasoning ideas you did. I see now there isn’t any magic I was missing, unfortunately. (That’s important to know.) Very enjoyable sudoku lesson. Do some more!!
I wrote software in school for years. Solving the most difficult problems always started with hand written attempts, followed by iterations removing steps until one “perfect” set of steps resulted in a universal solution algorithm. I haven’t looked but I’m sure there are sudoku software solutions all over the web. But what fun would that be. Thank you!
You made a mistake @10:39, but it's not that big of a deal as the puzzle book who calls this a very difficult puzzle, as it was rather easy (in terms of problem-solving techniques you needed to use). Overall, you made a great and entertaining video; A great teacher who invites new and advanced players to understand different techniques, which are necessary to solve (hard) Sudokus.
I do similar but I use dots 1,2,3 top row - 4,5,6 middle row, and 7,8,9 bottom row to indicate the possible numbers in each cell. This Sodoku puzzle was hard, but I solved it pretty fast using my similar method. It's just a different means to the same end. Good trainer though, as this method works on every one I have encountered.
This was excellent. I was basically taught to go through all the columns and rows first, looking for numbers that can get filled in straight away, as well as pairs of numbers, but after that to start pencilling in all the possible candidates in each unfilled square. This meant that there were lots of little numbers cluttering up the puzzle, making it harder to identify patterns. This chap's approach is much simpler and cleaner and very logical.
Fantastic video. Thanks for that, I learned a lot of techniques. I'm stuck on lots of sudoku puzzles in my book. After watching this video I'm going to go back and try them again.
You can trigger about the one for a long time, he'll there was a couple that triggered me for awhile but then again we were not the one trying to do a video about it. Thanks for this video, I actually did get something out of it....use a pencil and a felt, box or circle pairs seems to work well. I'll add a pencil to my lunch pail for tonight's puzzle.
I had to check this out because RU-vid recommends my channel videos to people who liked this one. I enjoyed watching your solving technique, and I think you make the top 7 Sudoku strategies used to solve puzzles like this easy to understand. I'll be checking out more of your content.
To his credit, it would have probably taken way less time for him to find it if he were just solving it and not deliberately slowing down for explanation.
It makes me mad how some people commenting about how easy this is. At one point this wasn't easy for you. You weren't just instantly great at it. Everyone has to learn. This helps the people who aren't amazing at sudoku yet. If you think this is to easy, then look up a different video.
I found myself talking to you! haha. "IT'S a 2! when you missed the obvious one, but easy for me, I'm not teaching it! I really enjoyed it and I do appreciate the video!
Thank You for posting! I think you're a great teacher, and what a good method. I tried to work the puzzle and hit a few snags. It's nice to watch you explain the different techniques.
I think this is one of the most informative videos about Sudoku puzzles, and how to solve them! Not only informs this video about strategies to tackle these things, it also shows to none Sudoku players how they could get into this. Well done MLA! New sub!
In the USA, “The Penny Press” a Publisher of a Variety Puzzle Books called these puzzles “Numbers” decades before its popularity in Japan. Once you start figuring different techniques and complete puzzle after puzzle, they definitely kinda sorta become addicting. Have Fun
Nice puzzle, but not difficult. If no swordfish, x-wing or other more advanced techniques are required a puzzle is not difficult, in my opinion. By the way, I find it much faster to go 1 through 9 over the entire board instead of first doing verticals then horizontals. Because when doing verticals I always also look horizontally anyway.
i remember having this stupidly hard sudoku book, where i had a xy wing that stretched across 6 different numbers. difficulty rating. 4/5 * i had to look it up online to solve it, to this day i still dont understand how I was meant to get it without brute forcing it.
Probably late reply but i think on 20:18 thats an x wing technique. Because he eliminated the 2 candidate on column 3 because of the small rectangle . Hard to explain haha but it really is xwing
Probably late reply but i think on 20:18 thats an x wing technique. Because he eliminated the 2 candidate on column 3 because of the small rectangle . Hard to explain haha but it really is xwing
This puzzle didn't seem "diabolical," but it did provide a way to demonstrate some advanced solving techniques. I do appreciate the desire to not waste our time by going fast. Another way to approach this would be to speed up certain sections, then slow way down when some new logic principles are introduced. Anyway, I learned some stuff. --Thum Bsup
Use triples to single out numbers when you have 4 unknown numbers in a row or column. For example, you had 1568 as possibility in column 8 at timestamp 11:54. R1 was 168, R2 was 1568, R7 was 18 and R8 was 68. By having the triple for R1, R7 and R8 being that R1 contains R7 and R8, in other words 168 contains 16 and 68, you can determine that 168 can be eliminated from R2 and 5 is the only contender left for R2 since R1, R7 and R8 can only contain the numbers 168.
There is some good technique in here, he uses Snyder notation and puts emphasis on finding cells that only require two digits. One of the mistakes many beginners make is trying to fill in too many pencil marks in individual cells, making it much more difficult to spot any patterns, which become useful to solving harder sudoku's. Only thing I would change is that when you get a big number then just do a quick LCR and TMB to check the ramifications of the big number. Ignore the people going on about the 1 & 7, we all miss obvious things and you got there eventually.
wow! A diabolical sudoku from start to finish. You have a pleasant voice, it's clear and concise. You explain things very well. I'm new to this hobby. KYour videos have helped me the most out of everything out there. Thank you for sharing your knowledge.
This is not at all a diabolical level Sudoku. This is a nice tutorial that lets you solve most medium difficulty puzzles. The technique here are very good for starting all puzzles, but a lot more is required for even the semi-hard puzzles.
I hope I didn't come off as upset or belittling. It's not Monica's or OP's fault, it's the fault of the puzzle maker for labeling it as "diabolical." I've noticed that trend - such mislabeling doesn't really help anybody. I agreed with Monica, this was, as I said, a "nice" tutorial that is very helpful.
Thank you. With your dialogue explaining your every thought as you go along, it is like watching a human mind at work. Pretty cool, when you think about that. Keep them coming!
Dot from UK Never really grasped the concept of Sudoku but you explain it really well. I think I'll have to watch lots more though of your videos before I'm let loose to do this on my own. Thank you for taking the time to explain and share. Stay safe, lots of love from UK, Dot x
25 clues... it's more of a medium than a "diabolical". I came here looking for a swordfish or x-wing tutorial, guess I overestimated the titles these puzzles are given.
I see it all the time in my Sunday paper. The difficulty level is always highly subjective. The Sunday puzzle is always a "5 star" puzzle, but some weeks it solves as easily as a 3 star - other weeks, it's more like 6 stars. I was hoping for more advanced techniques, myself.
Some 17's are very easy. The correlation between difficulty and number of clues is very weak. Even puzzles which need X-wing or Swordfish are nowhere near diabolical.
The first time doing the third column he said there was not enough info for the 4 but clearly it can go in the middle of the last column in the middle box
An alle, die hier rumnörgeln wegen des angeblich zu geringen Schwirigkeitsgrades: Wenn Ihr alle solch Sudoku-Meister seid, was schaut ihr Euch noch Tutorials an? Und wenn er auch einige Lösungen mal übersieht: Das ist sicher nicht einfach, gleichzeitig zu lösen und zu erklären. Das ist wie mit WWM: Auf dem Sofa ist die Antwort ganz einfach, auf dem Stuhl im Studio vielleicht nicht mehr. Ich find seine Tips und Erklärungen gut und sehr hilfreich und vor allem und easy anzuwenden. Keep on plugging away, i like ur Tutorials!!! :-)
+Madnesss96 - He said: "To all of you who are complaining about the allegedly too low degree of swirling: If you are all such sudoku masters, what are you looking at tutorials? And even if he overlooks a few solutions, that's certainly not easy to solve and explain at the same time. It's like WWM: the answer is simple on the sofa, maybe not on the chair in the studio anymore. I find his tips and explanations good and very helpful and above all and easy to use." (thanks to Google translate, not that difficult).
+Old Man Gaming Yes, I agree. Where he makes a mistake, that's OK to mention. But to mention that somewhere, he has missed mentioning something that "might be", no, that's not worth mentioning.
We non-beginners were click-baited by the word "diabolical" in the title. The only sudoku rated diabolical I've encountered were on this site: www.sudoku.org.uk/Daily.asp, and they were almost always unsolvable using advanced logical patterns such as the various kinds of wings. They were solvable only by long forcing chains (guesses) which I consider not legitimate. This one was easy and solvable by elementary basic techniques.
I just wanted to show that there are Germans with a better grasp of the English language than +Kevin Fegan I have translated the original comment as well: "To all those that are complaining about the allegedly too low difficulty: If you are such sudoku masters, why do you watch tutorials? Even if he overlooks some solutions: It is certainly not easy to solve and explain simultaneously. It is like WWTBM: On the couch, the answer is really easy, on the chair in the studio it maybe is not anymore. In my opinion, his tips and explanations are good and very helpful and most of all and easy to use. Keep on plugging away, I like your tutorials!!! :-)" All the grammatical and logical errors I kept in were to stay closer to the original comment which is full of these too.
At 8:08, I understand that R7C5 was possibly a 1 or a 4 but what definitely eliminated it from being a 7? I can't find enough information to eliminate it myself.
Because the 1 & 4 are both in the middle row on the left column, neither of them can be in the middle of the center column. In the center column, there are only two squares that are not in the middle row, so those two squares must either hold the 1 or the 4. That should be simple enough, but to go a step further and risk confusing it... If you were to put the 7 in the top spot in the center column, it would force the 1 or the 4 to be in the middle row, and we know that is impossible because they are already both there in the left column.
He did put in the two "7's" on row 6 in columns 5 and 6 very early, right after he wrote in the "5" at 2:20. At that time, the "1" on row 6 would have to be in column 5 or 6, OR in the next group in column 7 or 8. It seems that he didn't necessarily "miss" the "1's" but rather that: 1) He was working on "7's" at the time, and 2) part of his technique is to only (generally ) write down "clues" if the clue is a "pair"... he just doesn't write down "things of 3", or "4", etc... He might make a mental note of it, but beyond that he wouldn't write it down. What's so special that he "missed" the "1's"? Right from the beginning, there are many, perhaps dozens of similar situations, a set of 4 squares that one of the 4 squares must be particular digit. It's just not that "uncommon" of a thing, and writing them all down makes it cluttered.
Kevin Fegan, they are not talking about at 2:20 when the answer is unknown, they are talking about at 19:45 when the answer become clear but he just doesn't notice it because his brain was processing something different at the time.
Many people have made comments like “It was maddening that he didn’t see the 1 & 7 over there”. Initially I kinda agreed, _but_ the more I watched the more I appreciated what was going on. That is, he always stays very focused on the row/column that he’s currently working on. Once I realized that, I started to admire his technique. I.e. I tend to hop around a lot (and I often hose myself that way). So it was great watching his discipline in action. Also, this deliberate, step-by-step approach is really good for a “teaching-oriented” video like this. Makes the logic _much_ easier to follow Great job. I learned a lot watching this.
Thank you. I found your method of noting down the possible solutions in pencil to be very helpful. I always try to keep a mental picture of where they should go but it becomes like a juggling act and I often need to re-figure. So from now on a pencil and a pen will become necessities. An entertaining 32:49.
It's actually reassuring to see that I'm not the only one to sometimes overlook really obvious solutions choices for certain fields while concentrating on other parts of the puzzle...
Dude, I didn't know people actually used corner and center marks when solving sudokus with pencil and paper! i thought those were only Sudoku app things! Cool!
Prashant saini some day you will be a master at solving these puzzles. You will look back at all the time, amounting to years put toward mastering these puzzles, and ask "Why did I devote so much time toward this endevor?" Because anything you do should be done to the best of your ability! It's also like mental gymnastics : )
