The New Sudoku Players' Forum

[Max Beran]

I think wychwood's final remark captures the essence of my "hedonic principle" point

(and therefore also increase the enjoyment of these things).

Neil

i.e. Sudoku is supposed to be fun and "fun" trumps purity.

I feel short-changed if I download a "fiendish" level puzzle and discover that I can solve it with nothing more than naked triples or even quads.

X-wings and swordfish are slightly more fun (basically a positional eqivalent of a naked pair, triple etc). Forcing chains like xy-chains are even more fun even though they are searched for on the original grid. But true ecstacy is when the puzzle demands nice loops to solve it so then I can redraw the grid using my favoured
"mind-map" method posted Dec 2 2005.

[sirdave]

I tend to think of forcing chains as the last, most 'primitive' of available methods, for use only when I can't find a nice loop, rather than on a level with an xy-chain which I will try to find before resorting to a nice loop.