The New Sudoku Players' Forum

[Pi]

did anyone else think that

I today solved the bottom left sudoku without even starting on the rest of the puzzle and would rate it as about mild

It took me less that half an hour and that is only 6 mins for aech sudoku

Whan samurais first came out some of the guide times were as high as 85 mins and now they are down to the fourty something they had today.

[PaulIQ164]

Yeah, I did the four outside sudokus without putting any numbers in the middle one. In fact, I was so surprised you could do that that I forgot to fill in the middle grid at all, so technically I took nearly an hour...

[Enigma]

Totally agree with you. I completed it in 21 mins whilst keeping an eye on the kids playing tennis and making sure our baby was happy in his pram! I noticed that I completed the 4 interlocking boxes in about 4 minutes flat - this is usually the most challenging piece because after that it resorts to 5 individual puzzles to solve. The other thing strange on the interlocking boxes was that I didn't fill in any of the cells in the peripheral grids prior to completing those 4 boxes. On occasions before now I've taken more than 21 mins just to complete the interlocking boxes, so I was disappointed. I guess that gives me more time to read the paper today though....

What I'm going to do is have another crack at one of the first couple of Samurais published a few months ago to see whether they've really got much easier, or whether it's just practise at solving them that's drastically reduced the time required. Good of the Times to ask us to send in our times for the first few to use as a comparison, eh ? Now let's see whether I cleared out my outbox a few months ago......

If anyone else has a go at this, it would be interesting to see what sort of consistency folk have had in time improvements based on our now vast experience of these things....

[nj3h]

Anyone care to email me a copy of this easy one? Thanks

nj3h@yahoo.com

[Enigma]

I had another crack at the Samurai from June 11th yesterday. Far more enjoyable than the recent handful, and much more challenging. I'd certainly forgotten any shortcuts I may have used to solve it previously, but I did find I did it quicker this time round with the additional experience - took about 40 mins vs 65 last time round.

I'd recommend it you fancy a better challenge again.

Paul

[andrea]

Could anyone please tell me where to get the 11 June Samuari from? I missed that one.
Thanks

[nj3h]

I sure would love to try this Samurai. Can someone please email the grid to me. Thanks.

nj3h@yahoo.com

[Enigma]

Follow the link in my above post... I tried to make it easy for you Just click on the Samurai from June 11th bit. It's in one of the posts in that thread.

Oops... done it again...

Several of the earlier Samurais were posted to the forum for our overseas friends to have a go.

[nj3h]

Thanks for the link. I was actually looking for the 24 Sep samurai. Thanks again f helping, though.

[andrea]

Thanks for the 11 June link, it will probably take me forever and three days to do . . . .