The New Sudoku Players' Forum

[Ruud]

This is the worst monstrosity I've ever created and I would like to share it with you.

The basic puzzle is a Shaolin or Gattai-25. In addition, the blue boxes, when combined, form a 26th sudoku. All overlapping regions (yellow and blue) are clueless. As it happens, 22 additional boxes also turned out to be clueless. All 26 constituent puzzles, including the blue one, are Sudoku-X, so the diagonals also need to contain digits 1 through 9.

As for required solving techniques: think singles, locked candidates, pairs and triples, crossovers, simple coloring and XY-Wings in the diagonals.

Please do not post a solution here. Send me a PM with the solution for the blue cells and I'll add you to the "hall of fame" below the puzzle.

Enjoy, Ruud

{ note by Moderator(Pat) —
www.sudokuvault.com/images/clueless-shaolin-x-001.png = broken link;
new image location thanks to enxio27 }

Code: Select all

600008300000040002100200070003000020500020900000050700300060000000500000050032000
700300050204000060000000000000450000000089000040020000000002000000500000000070000
060004005070000206000000000000041000000730000000090070000500000000007000000080000
004800003600090000080002009040000300002080005008040000000020007000004000000650030
000000000000000000000000000000000081104000000000000000000025000000070000000080000
000703000000090000000000000090000060000000000002000300000000000000905000000000000
000000000000000000000000000490000000000000701000000000000360000000040000000090000
004030000001000000000000000270010000005000000008007000000000000000800000000070000
000000000000000000000000000000000000020100000000290840000000000000010000000000000
000000000000000000000000000000000000000007030059038000000000000000060000000000000
000030400000000700000000000000070019000000300000500200000000000000008000000050000
000000000000800000000000000000000000005000000000000000000000000000200000000000000
000802000000000000000904000000000000090000050000000000000406000000000000000309000
000000000000003000000000000000000000000000100000000000000000000000007000000000000
000080000000100000000000000001005000009000000450090000000000000008000000005070000
000000000000050000000000000000830420010500000000000000000000000000000000000000000
000000000000030000000000000046019000000004010000000000000000000000000000000000000
000080000000007000000000000000700900000000400000060035000000000000000500000090700
000060000000080000000094000000000000508000000000000082000000000000000000000000000
000000000000406000000000000007000400000000000080000060000000000000060000000208000
000020000000030000000780000000000000000000902370000000000000000000000000000000000
090061000000200000100040000000080100800070300009000070500900080000020003300005400
000090000000800000000006000030040000000038000000160000000000000307000040600400080
000080000000006000000500000000050010000420000000069000000000000060000402020005001
000160030000004000000090006006050000007040005050000400090003008800070000005400009

Hall of Fame
1. Motris (dec 2, 11:54 GMT)
2. Scott H (jan 27)

[udosuk]

Oh dear, it seems the popularity of the Shaolin-theme has generated too much web traffic, and not only this pic, but also your sites (sudocue and hanidoku) are brought down in a hurry...

[motris]

A very nice construction Ruud - I love how the Shaolin builds into your Clueless style. That being said, it might be a bit much to solve. I've spent awhile on it, including making an error somewhere which forced me to backtrack a bunch. You are not kidding about the difficulty.

[Scott H]

Interesting exercise! I also needed two attempts, after making some unknown error in the first attempt. The clueless "top" square is solvable when much of the rest of the puzzle is still unknown.

I let simple sudoku do much of the grunt work in standard squares. That still left many diagonal deductions to do by hand, with plenty of delta-wings and many instances of coloring using diagonals. And of course overlap propagation must be manual.

It was fun at the end seeing several places that required diagonal constraints or overlap propagation to resolve. And square r5c1 had a tricky finish - I needed T&E to solve it, though I could see a reasonable advanced logic move (not in my standard reportoire) after the fact.

Thanks for the puzzle!

[puzzlephil]

Hi Ruud,
I have registered 2 days ago and I am working myself through the toughest puzzles. Unfortunately I cannot send PMs. But as I have just solved your wonderful Clueless Shaolin X I would like to be added to the "hall-of-fame".
Any other way to send this to you?
best wishes, puzzlephil

[enxio27]

But as I have just solved your wonderful Clueless Shaolin X I would like to be added to the "hall-of-fame".
Any other way to send this to you?

Ruud left the sudoku scene about five years ago. No one is maintaining his site anymore, although for whatever reason he still maintains the DNS registration for his Sudocue.net domain. His sudokuvault.com site (where the puzzle image was originally hosted) no longer exists (which is why you can't see the image in this thread anymore). His Sudopedia.org site has been hit with so much spam that the host has disabled it.

I collected most of his specialty puzzles and compiled them here:

http://www.rcbroughton.co.uk/sudoku/forum/viewtopic.php?f=4&t=13

As for your original question, I suppose it's up to the current forum admin whether or not to maintain Ruud's "hall of fame" for that particular puzzle. If you are using a computer program to solve puzzles (as you stated in another thread), don't expect to qualify for a listing in the "hall of fame".

[Pat]

Ruud left the sudoku scene about five years ago. No one is maintaining his site anymore, although for whatever reason he still maintains the DNS registration for his Sudocue.net domain. His sudokuvault.com site (where the puzzle image was originally hosted) no longer exists. His Sudopedia.org site has been hit with so much spam that the host has disabled it.

I collected most of his specialty puzzles
and compiled them here: Ruud's Specialty Puzzles

thanks !!

the image evidently requires no login

could you please update the links

www.sudoku.com/boards
==>
Forum.EnjoySuDoku.com
e.g.

www.sudoku.com/boards/viewtopic.php?t=5099
==>
Forum.EnjoySuDoku.com/viewtopic.php?t=5099

EDIT: sorry i neglected to mention the exception:
where using "#" to point to a specific post,
need also insert "p" after the "#"
e.g.
Forum.EnjoySuDoku.com/viewtopic.php?p=24457#p24457

[enxio27]

EDIT: sorry i neglected to mention the exception:
where using "#" to point to a specific post,
need also insert "p" after the "#"
e.g.
Forum.EnjoySuDoku.com/viewtopic.php?p=24457#p24457
[/list]

I'm confused. The link seems to work the same way here with or without the p after the #. Am I missing something?

Oh, and thanks for fixing the missing images!

[Pat]

I'm confused. The link seems to work the same way here with or without the p after the #.

right you are !
evidently i'm the one who missed something;
our Admin has fixed it to work equally with and without the extra p.