The New Sudoku Players' Forum

[domt]

Mornin,

My memory is poor but this tricky looks exactly like one previously published with the 15 over 5 boxes straight down the middle? (and the given numbers)

Am i wrong? If not the book isn't going to be very challenging......we willhave done them all already!!

Dom

[Karyobin]

Just done it and I must admit it did seem very familiar. It seems they are brazenly re-publishing past puzzles with a few clues inserted. I am led more and more the the conclusion that complaints from the unwilling-to-be-challenged general public have brought us to this.

By the way, if anybody fancies writing a 'Killer' program, that'd be good.

[zebedeezbd]

It's a shame they are dumbing down the Killer Puzzle already. I really enjoyed working through those five progressively difficult ones they published on the first day.

For me the 60 Pence cost of The Times breaks down thus:
- 30p The Killer su doku
- 20p The other 2 su dokus
- 1p Yesterday's solutions
- 7p The crossword
- 1p The Polygon anagram
- 1p The rest of the newspaper, news, weather, sport, etc.

Recently the Killer su dokus have not been worth 30p, so They had better publish another tough Killer soon, or I'm gonna get disenchanted and stop buying the paper! Besides, if you're patient enough to wait until around 11:30pm, you can print the su dokus off their website for free.

[PaulIQ164]

For me the 60 Pence cost of The Times breaks down thus:
- 30p The Killer su doku
- 20p The other 2 su dokus
- 1p Yesterday's solutions
- 7p The crossword
- 1p The Polygon anagram
- 1p The rest of the newspaper, news, weather, sport, etc.

Aah, I love Student Discount. 20p for the whole lot!

Edit: oh, and once again, the given numbers were all very easy to work out for yourself anyway.

[whohe]

Bloody ridiculous.

It's the same as last week's, but with numbers given!

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,18209-1769363,00.html

Last week it was "Moderate", this week it's "Tricky", and you're given the starting point.

What on earth are they playing at?

[Lardarse]

I'm not sure that last week's puzzle was correctly called "Moderate"

[zebedeezbd]

It's the same as last week's, but with numbers given!

I can't believe they recycled it, that's crazy. It must be a mistake, surely. They could at the very least have rotated it 90 degrees or mirror-flipped it, to at least make it SEEM a bit different!

[Karyobin]

Yes, it does seem as though they have a little dice somewhere with the words 'Moderate', 'Tricky', etc. on it. Perhaps they just give it a roll each evening and slap the result on the next morning's puzzle.

More importantly, I think we need to somehow channel this righteous indignation. Personally, I plan to write to The Times, à la tso, to voice my disgust at their pandering to lesser mortals, who wouldn't consider themselves lesser if only they allowed themselves more time to solve a puzzle than they do to cleanse their various passages each morning of the foetid detritus of the previous evening's kebab meat and chips.

I only write this as you'll all agree that whatever is written here is basically preaching to the converted. If you don't like what the shop stocks, there's very little point in complaining to the customers.

[PaulIQ164]

It's all especially daft when you compare it to the Crossword, which I've been trying for a good few years now and still can only very rarely do, and even then taking a heck of a long time over it. But they haven't started putting hint letters into that, have they?

[sloth]

I thought the killer today looked familiar. Last week I was stuck for ages then decided that perhaps digit duplication was not allowed within the dotted boxes in addition to normal su doku rules, and could solve it fairly easily on that basis. But...

Today I tried it without that constraint and got stuck, well for the length of my commute anyway.

Any clues?

[Karyobin]

It all depends on where you got stuck, really. Have a go at tomorrow's and log on here to see what folk made of it, no doubt someone'll begin a thread about it at some point. It'll probably be a reprint of one of last week's anyway.

[whohe]

I thought the killer today looked familiar. Last week I was stuck for ages then decided that perhaps digit duplication was not allowed within the dotted boxes in addition to normal su doku rules, and could solve it fairly easily on that basis. But...

Today I tried it without that constraint and got stuck, well for the length of my commute anyway.

Any clues?

From last week..

http://forum.enjoysudoku.com/viewtopic.php?t=1528

TBH, I haven't tried any killers assuming digit duplication is allowed within a dotted box. I'm pretty convinced that the Times has that wrong (unless of course anyone would care to point me to one that cannot be solved without duplicates).

[PaulIQ164]

Well, this is the thing. As far as I can tell, all the Killers so far haven't required you to assume that there aren't duplicate numbers in enclosures, but neither have any of them actually had duplicates, so it's an ambiguous situation. This coupled with the instructions when they first appeared compared with the rules as they're stated now, it's hard to imagine how they could have contrived to make the situation any more ambiguous.

[tso]

It's all especially daft when you compare it to the Crossword, which I've been trying for a good few years now and still can only very rarely do, and even then taking a heck of a long time over it. But they haven't started putting hint letters into that, have they?

Exactly! I like to think that I'm a pretty smart guy, but it's not unusual for me to find word based puzzles in newspapers and magazines that I'm unable to complete.

You should email the TIMES that comment.

[nd]

Yes, I was disappointed to print the puzzle off the site & then notice it was already quite familiar. I wish they'd get rid of the silly starter numbers--they're not necessary (I haven't yet encountered one where they are required for solution).

I wish they'd run more "Deadly" puzzles--I don't suppose they could find room to print two Killer puzzles, one easy one, one really hard?....


One of the original Japanese puzzle-creators states on his site that the little dotted boxes (I like to call them "cages") must contain no duplicate numbers, which certainly simplifies things, but the Times hasn't explicitly stated that rule in their instructions, though neither have they printed a puzzle contradicting it. For my part I'd be happy if they permitted duplications--I like tricky problems--but it doesn't really matter, as long as the initial instructions are made clearer.