I haven't seen a thread on this yet and wondered if anyone else has got into it.

I've figured out the Difficult times ones using about 3 or 4 basic steps, but the Times Fiendish ones need a new trick. I know the trick is there, I can smell it, but I can't work it out.

Anyone else doing these?

I did these a few weeks ago in the sunday telegraph.
At first I couldn't finish one, but have persevered and actually managed to finish a couple of them (they were probably one of the easier ones :laugh: )
There is a website somewhere that gives you advice on how to solve them. If I find it again, I'll post a link on here.

But my local paper has advertised today that they are starting to put them in tomorrow, Wooooooo.

Ooh, found the link

http://www.sudoku.org.uk/

scroll down to the "Help with tough and diabolical puzzles" and there is a link to "Solving sudoku" (its in PDF format)

Thanks a lot Andrea. I've looked at a few sights with "tips and examples", and the one you put the link to is by far the best one I have seen so far.

He seems to end up where I do, and that is when you have worked out all the possible numbers, to take a square with only two possible numbers and try one of the numbers and see if it leads to a solution.

He describes "truly diabolical" sudokus where the potential blind alleys start to stack up, and when guessing on a pair, each leads to another blind alley, but I haven't seen one of those yet. The times Fiendish ones seem to require only one "guess", or trial, which will either work or not. If it doesn't work, you go back to where you started and know it must be the "other" one, and that number then leads to the solution without any further "bifurcation".

I still wonder if there are still some logical, but more tricky (logically), steps he doesn't cover. eg if there are three boxes with say 125, 25, 15 in a box, if there is anything to be deduced other than the 15 box is more "probably" 1 (so a better place to bifurcate if you have to?). In the example above, I had the 125 and 15 in the same row, and in another cell on the same row there was a 56 and a 26 (each in different 3x3 boxes though). It is niggling me that I should be able to start deducing something, but the logic seems to fail.

Anyway, I hope other people are having fun with these.

Oh I saw these featured on some programme as being the 'new' crossword - apparently it started in the far east where regular chinese [or japenese] characters don't suit or work with a normal crossword - so hence numbers.

I have yet to do one - trouble is if I go and find one on Andreas link - then I may not get the ironing done - so I may do one afterwards as a reward for a pile of ironing.:thumbsup:

They do seem to be getting popular in the papers now.

If you do a google search on sudoku and go into the times website, there are a few available there if you want to find some, but other websites have some too.

Andrea's link is worth going through very carefully (and there are a couple there too), especially the bit on the three boxes where you have three common numbers. In the harder ones, this trick is needed every time, but it helps in the easier tones too.

I think Sudoku is Japanese for number. I guess its not really mathematical in any way as you can do it with symbols or letters, so its just a logic and deduction puzzle. Fun though.

Yep, our local paper now has them in there.

And I actually finished the two that they printed.
I can follow the way the guy explains it in the link I put up earlier, but I also go along the lines, work out what numbers are missing from the lines and see what numbers are in the boxes and try to put some numbers in that way.

But I also think its hard explaining how to solve them.
Sometimes I put a number in and wonder how I got there:wacko:

Just found the best site for this, www.sudoku.com

It has all the tips needed.

Basically you need two things to be able to tackle the Times Fiendish ones with confidence, the "N" Box rule, and the X-WING.

Yup - sounded greek to me too but if you search the forum for these two things and then spend a little while understanding it (took me a couple of minutes with the x-wing, but then it was eureka and obvious - always obvious when you know how i guess), then the Fiendish ones become procedural.

I think the www.sudoku.com site produces some that are classified as "very fiendish" compared to the Times, which almost always require the x-wing, but not sure if the times fiendish ones require x-winging (sounds like top gun), don't know.

Su Doku made easier at (spam link removed by Haydon)