The New Sudoku Players' Forum

[Saidin]

First post here. Hi everyone. I've been working on this sudoku for a couple days now. I generally do these just from the newspapers (Toronto Star) and I don't use pencil marks.

This one on the other hand has got me stumped. I'm also not a logician, I'm self taught on how to solve these so I don't know much about chains, bivalues etc etc.

Here is the Original Puzzle.

Code: Select all

9..|5..|.81
2..|.6.|...
...|4.3|...
---+---+---
..6|...|1.4
.1.|...|.5.
8.3|...|9..
---+---+---
...|1.6|...
...|.8.|..2
65.|..7|..3


This is where I currently am.

Code: Select all

9.4|572|.81
2..|.6.|...
...|4.3|...
---+---+---
5.6|...|1.4
.1.|...|.5.
8.3|...|9..
---+---+---
...|1.6|...
...|.8.|..2
65.|..7|..3


My mom is doing the same one and she said that she found the position for the 3 and 6 in row 1. I don't believe her and I think shes using a Trial and Error method to solve. (she does that from time to time heh, I on the other hand use a pen to solve mine and don't use t&e or pencil marks)

I can't seem to eliminate any other number possibilities anywhere else in the grid. I'm just looking for the next step and how to understand the next step. Not the full sollution!

Thanks to anyone who can help!

[Bob Hanson]

Welcome, Saidin.

An easy way to get the answer for yourself is to clip that information you sent
into http://www.stolaf.edu/people/hansonr/sudoku. Just click on "Number
block input" and either type or paste. Click on "puzzle" and then "Hint" or
"Step." Sometimes "Hint" gives different answers, but "Step" always takes a
predictable course. Also, you can click on "All" to see ALL of the implications
that might be made from this. Probably way more than you imagine....

Take a look at http://www.stolaf.edu/people/hansonr/sudoku/explain.htm
(or other similar sites) for info on what sorts of things you can do.

This is a pretty hard puzzle for a beginner. The next step I see is that 1
and 5 are "locked" into that bottom row of the middle block. With that
information, you can figure out what has to go in row 6, column 2.

Your mom is guessing.

[emm]

Saidin, in my opinion you should always believe your Mum, no matter what! Anyway, women’s intuition is not the same thing as guessing.

Do you understand the principle of pairs and triples? If not click here.

Here’s your row 6

Code: Select all

8       247     3     267     1245    145      9       267     67

In it there’s a naked triple, and a hidden pair – they allow you to eliminate candidates and place a clue in r6c2

After that there are lots of singles until you find another triple in column 5.

PS : As Bob says - there's more than one way to solve a puzzle.

[Saidin]

Thanks for the tips guys! Sometimes my eyes get stuck on a certain set of numbers of cells and I can't get off it. Bob opened my eyes up to those obviously locked numbers and I've managed to go on quite far at this point on the puzzle.

I belive I'm now at where em has talked about a tripple in c5. I'm determined to solve this one though on my own steam from this point! btw thanks for the links to those webpages. I find the explanations complicated, but I do understand them. I've managed to encorporate a lot of the rules and such into my own thinking, surprisingly I've been doing them intuatively for the most part anyways.

Thanks again