I always enjoy watching you solve these puzzles. Kind of like the Bob Ross effect. For me, the most important characteristic of your approach is not the lack of pencil marks, but the fact that you never make a mistake. I don’t know how it is off-camera, but your public presentation never ever places a number without absolute certainty. I will never be able to cultivate a memory like yours, but I CAN minimize both my mistakes and my pencil marks. I’ve been practicing on Web Sudoku with medium and hard puzzles marking only twins - i.e. matched pairs within a house. On the difficult puzzles I occasionally mark some solitary pairs, adding an x to indicate there’s no twin. I haven’t started on the evil puzzles at Web Sudoku yet, but by making certainty my primary focus, my sudoku has come a long way. Thanks!
Thanks for your comment. I appreciate learning how others view and use the videos, and what they get out of them. I'll try to answer your questions, and give you some more info. When solving puzzles on camera, I've already solved and know them. I also create a "cheat sheet" with steps to solving it the way I solved it before. I do that because I have a specific reason for making each video, and if I don't have steps written down, I may solve the puzzle differently, which could well defeat the initial purpose of doing the video. (I learned that by experience early on.) If anything, the videos are deceiving -- I usually take longer to solve them initially. I am, however, certain of each number placement, even when solving for the first time. I am able to keep candidates in my head, and like to do that because it's a good brain exercise for someone like me getting up there in years. :-) You've probably noticed that I really like the Sudoku To Go magazines. The publisher of this magazine uses websudoku.com puzzles (stated on the inside front cover of each issue). I really like their puzzles. They seem to flow well and are very consistent. Again, thanks for your comment! I hope this information is helpful. Happy solving!
You said, “I am, however, certain of each number placement, even when solving for the first time.” That is precisely the thing that you have taught me. I’m not concerned with how long a puzzle takes. The only important thing is finding the next number with certainty. I once saw you get really stuck. So you picked a random pair, and a pencil, and played through with one member of the pair at a time to see if it led to a contradiction or a solution. Brilliant! A really nice feature of web sudoku is the “How am I doing?” button. It gives me time to double check a number before finding out whether it’s right or not. By checking each number two things happen. First, I get to see exactly what I did wrong (and it is invariably a careless oversight). Second, as I continue, I know that everything to that point is correct. That is an advantage over paper puzzles, but I am starting to do your puzzles on paper before watching the video. It’s good practice.
This has made my day. I somehow missed it when it was released. Such a pretty puzzle, with such elegant logic. Great fun to solve (34 = row 3 column 4): 34, 22, 55, 43, 54, 45, 76, 99, 33, 97, 59, 95, 77, 86, 79, 23, 39, 51, 53, 21, 71, 28, 87, 88, 17, 73, 89, 37, 19, 32, 93, 91, 13, 11, 31, 15, 35, 12, 82, 75, 98, 78, 84, 26, 65, 57, 67, 42, 62, 46, 66, 56, 24, 48, 68, 44, 64. As always, I hope you're well. If you have a bit of spare time, perhaps you'd like to try one or two of my June puzzles. First, a warm-up, but not an easy one without notation: 003 400 080 200 050 700 010 006 009 009 060 001 080 000 020 700 090 300 600 900 040 001 080 005 050 007 600 003400080200050700010006009009060001080000020700090300600900040001080005050007600 HoDoKu rating: Medium 960. Andrew Stuart rating: Moderate Grade 80. =========== Then something a bit more resistant: 020 006 700 003 050 008 100 400 090 900 000 200 080 703 050 007 000 006 060 001 007 500 020 900 004 300 080 020006700003050008100400090900000200080703050007000006060001007500020900004300080 HoDoKu rating: Hard 930. Andrew Stuart rating: Tough Grade 132.
Nice to see you again. Just i saw yesterday you are in the field now. Gteat. Im not notation free solver, but I can able to solve hard puzzles with pen paper pencil eraser, sorry, i solved your 7 puzzles with notations, 349 to 355., last three puzzles little hard, rest of four easy. Thanks 🙏. Next i watch your vedios one by one, how you solved.❤
That's okay if you use notation, I won't tell anyone. 🙂 That's great that you can solve all of those puzzles. And I'm glad you watch my videos. Thanks for the comment! And happy solving!
Very interesting puzzle. Part of the fun was that my first digit was in an empty block, the 1 in block 1, but mostly, how empty block 5 with myriads of digits pointing in its direction quickly becam a busy block with the 59 pair i=on the right forcing the 1 into r4c5, the 7 below that 1. And with this, the 2 original plus pattern blocks become 4 with the 9 placed in block2 and the 7 in block 4. I had a great time, Harold, thanks for sharing this, and great demo as always.
It took me a long while to solve it, but I did notation free. It was a case I didn't find any kind of flow, but I did eventually see that 2 using plus patterns (not that I considered what to call them.)
Hello Harold, I have a Level 5 of 5 Sudoku Puzzle I'm having trouble completing. I have filled in around 4 or 5 cells only. Ive probably spent 4 hours off and on looking at the puzzle but I can't find my next move. I was wondering if you would be interested in attempting to solve it on your channel please? I would be interested in finding how you arrived at the breakthrough point in the puzzle. Possibly from the point I got stuck. Or from start to finish so that all of your viewers can learn your thought process. I have 2 months of Sudoku playing experience. Thank you for your consideration Harold!
Thanks for your comment and request. You can send the puzzle to sudokuprimer@gmail.com. I will look at it, and if I feel it is a good puzzle to use, I can make a video solving it.
