The New Sudoku Players' Forum

[katymeredith]

Can anyone comment on how fiendish the 'Fiendish' in today's (16th September) Times was?

It's the first time I've done a 'Fiendish' in my head (i.e. without marking candidates, without trial & error/chains/colours) I was just wondering if I really have cause to crow or whether it was actually a 'hard' in fiendish clothing?

Thanks

[zebedeezbd]

I would be interested to know who rates the puzzles. Does Pappacom supply the puzzles to The Times already sorted into difficulty categories, or does the newspaper rate them?

I think Pappacom's su dokus in The Times tend to be truer to their rating than the killer su dokus, for which the ratings so far have been seemingly random.

[CathyW]

I expect if the puzzle was dubbed into the Sudoku program it would be classified as medium. Can't say I did it without marking any candidates at all but it certainly wasn't 'Fiendish'. I think if you want truly Fiendish puzzles at present you have to look at the ones in the Sunday Times magazine

[kev37]

I'm new to this forum, and still getting to terms with the terminology.I managed to solve this puzzle , but no way could I have done it in my head. It wasn't till I got home and tried it in Pieter Madek's spreadsheet that I got a result. I eventually used a forcing chain based around 4 and 9 in r1 c5 and guessed the right one. Would be great to know an easier way as I can't get the champagne if I don't get in the lunchtime draw

[Pappocom]

Does Pappacom supply the puzzles to The Times already sorted into difficulty categories

Yes, but into the Pappocom Sudoku program categories of Very Easy, Easy, Medium, Hard and (in the case of the Sunday Times) Very Hard.

Papers are free to apply inventive grade-names of their own, if they choose. It would be nice if they did so consistently, however.

- Wayne

[737 driver]

Nothing beyond naked & hidden singles required on that one. The spreadsheet I use can point out (but doesn't automatically solve with) the higher stuff (naked & hidden pairs & triples) & makes forcing chains pretty easy to try out, but it automatically only shows what must be due to the singles. The spreadsheet got all the cels filled without any thought from me. Unless I have to think about it, it isn't particularly fiendish, to my computer-assisted way of thinking.

[Lardarse]

Pappocom, I don't have your program installed, nor do I have access to the puzzle deing described, but it would be nice to work out how this puzzle (and a lot of the other recent puzzles) are categorized...

[tso]

I posted ratings of some of the recent TIMES puzzles in another thread:

http://forum.enjoysudoku.com/viewtopic.php?t=1588

None of these are Sunday puzzles. They seem to be consistant other than a string of at least seven puzzles labeled "Fiendish" that were one grade lower than they should have been.