The New Sudoku Players' Forum

[Wecoc]

This forum uses a lot of acronyms, so I decided to make this list. I hope it will be useful.
Feedback and suggestions will be appreciated.

TECHNIQUES

NS - Naked Set
LS - Locked Set
HS - Hidden Set
LC - Locked Candidates

Note: Inside each Set there are more specific subgroups; Naked Pair (NP), Naked Triplet (NT), etc.
Those are the most basic techniques, you can read about them here.

ANS - Almost Naked Set
ALS - Almost Locked Set
AHS - Almost Hidden Set
ALC - Almost Locked Candidates

Note: ALS is a group of N cells which share N+1 candidates. If they share N+2 you could define it as Almost ALS or AALS, and you can have AAALS and so on. Same happens with AANS, AAHS... More info here.

CoALS - Combined Overlapping Almost Locked Sets Rule
DB - Death Blossom

QNS - Quantum Naked Set
PNS - Pseudo-Naked Set

MSLS - Multi Sector Locked Set
MSNS - Multi Sector Naked Set
MSHS - Multi Sector Hidden Set

SS - Skyscraper

DIC - Double Implication Chain
AIC - Alternating Interference Chain

DP - Deadly Pattern
DR - Deadly Rectangle

Note: You could also have ADP and ADR for Almost Deadly Pattern/Rectangle, the real deadly thing here is the terminology

RP - Remote Pair
ARP - Almost Remote Pair
RT - Remote Triplet

BARN - Bent Almost Restricted Naked Set

EM - Equivalence Marks
GEM - Graded Equivalence Marks

3DM - 3D Medusa
SDC - Sue-De-Coq

UR - Unique Rectangle
AUR - Almost Unique Rectangle
HUR - Hidden Unique Rectangle
EUR - Extended Unique Rectangle

Note: Unavoidable Rectangle and Almost Unavoidable Rectangle are NOT the same as Unique Rectangle and Almost Unique Rectangle, so it's better to not use the acronyms UR and AUR for them.

UL - Unique Loop

IQ - Incompatible Quads

BUG - Bivalue Universal Grave
MUG - Multivalued Universal Graves

HBUG - Hidden BUG

UCC - Uniqueness Clue Cover, yuck!

FC - Forcing Chain
DFC - Digit Forcing Chain
NFC - Nishio Forcing Chain
(D)CFC - (Dual) Cell Forcing Chain
UFC - Unit Forcing Chain

Note: There's also Triple Cell Forcing Chain, Quad Cell Forcing Chain, Region Forcing Chain and Contradiction Forcing Chain, but the acronym is not used.

APE - Aligned Pair Exclusion
ATE - Aligned Triplet Exclusion

CSP - Constraint Satisfaction Problem
DLX - Dancing Links, used to solve CSPs

JExocet - Junior Exocet

Note: You can read basic info about Exocets here. There's also a Senior Exocet but it's not abbreviated as SExocet, probably for the good of all.
Note: On Exocets some also talk about BC (Base Cells), TC (Target Cells) and CC (Cross Cells), but it's not common terminology.

DExocet - Double Exocet
GExocet - Generic (or Generalized) Exocet

Note: You can abbreviate even more using JE (JExocet), SE (Senior Exocet), DE (Double Exocet) and GE (Generic Exocet) but it's not preferred.
Note: Generic Exocets can also be Double and Junior so you can have DGE or JGE...

AGE - Almost Generic Exocet
GE2A - Generalized Exocet with Aligned Targets

SDP - Single Digit Patterns

POM - Pattern Overlay Method
BB - Bowman's Bingo
T&E - Trial and Error

TM - Triangular Matrix
FUD - First Upper Diagonal of a Triangular Matrix
BTM - Block Triangular Matrix
MBM - Mixed Block Matrix
PM - Pigeonhole Matrix
FM - Forbidding Matrix
SPM - Symmetric Pigeonhole Matrix

TDP - Technique of Tracks (Technique des Pistes, in French. More info in this PDF)

SIS - Strong Interference Set
WIS - Weak Interference Set

DLoop - Domino Loop
VLoop - Virus Loop
SK Loop - Steve Kurzhal's hidden-pair loop
SLG - Set Link Graphs

b/b plot - Bilocation/bivalue plot

(W)XYZ-Wing - Basic types of Wings

Note: More info in The Ultimate FISH Guide
More advanced types of Wings are defined here, here and here.

W-Wing - Basic type of Wing, named after George Woods, who discovered it.
M-Wing - Medusa Wing (simplest case of Medusa coloring)
L-Wing - Local Wing
H-Wing - Hybrid Wing
S-Wing - Split Wing
T-Wing - Transport Wing

Note: Check this post for a more extended & updated classification of Wings: March 13 2019
Note: Wings can also be classified based on the placement of V (value) and L (local) links: April 28 2019
More info here: What is XYZ-Wing Hybrid strategy?

BLR - Box Line Reduction

DS - Disjoint Subset
DDS - Disjointed Distributed Subset
ADDS - Almost Disjointed Distributed Subset

ER - Empty Rectangle

Note: ER are formed by lines (ERL) that cross in an intersection (ERI)
The ER can be spotted when an Empty mini-Area (EmA) is observed. More info in the hidden text of this post.
Note: You can read about TowER Cranes and LoadER Cranes here, of course it wouldn't be a good acronym list without some acronym-based puns...

RC - Restricted Common
RCD - Restricted Common Digit
RCC - Restricted Common Candidate [Outdated]

NL - Nice Loop
CNL - Continuous Nice Loop
DNL - Discontinuos Nice Loop

SSTS - Simple Sudoku Technique Set
AST - Advanced Solving Technique

Note:
- A pearl is a puzzle where initially the player cannot fill in any cell using SSTS (eliminations could be made, but no cells could be filled in directly)
- A diamond is a puzzle that doesn't have any "backdoor cells" (A backdoor cell is a cell where if you put in the correct value, with or without any logical reason, it would lead to the whole puzzle being solved by further moves under SSTS)

SOLVE NOTATION

Note: The Eureka notation often abbreviates even more the names of many basic techniques, but I won't include them here.

stte - Singles to the end, sometimes called Singles to end (ste)
btte - Basics to the end
lste - Locked Sets (and singles) to end
lclste - Locked Candidates, Locked Sets (and singles) to end
sstste - Simple Sudoku Technique Set (SSTS) to end

VARIANTS

LS - Latin Square

X - Diagonal Sudoku
NC - Non-Consecutive
AK - Anti-King, also known as Ferz
FNC - Ferz Non-Consecutive

AN - Anti-kNight
DP - Diagonal Pairs
FP - Forbidden Pairs
DG - Disjoint Groups (SudokuP)
AC - (Non-Consecutive) Adjacent Cells
CP - Contiguous Psets
SF - Frame Sudoku
GT - Greater Than Sudoku

KCC - Killer Cage Convention
MM - Multiple Modes

OTHERS

P&P - Pencil and paper
PM - Pencil-mark

RPC - Arcilla's Rows-per-Column list
CPR - Arcilla's Columns-per-Row list
EE - Arcilla's Eventual-Elimination
CEC - Candidate-Elimination Cell
DCB - Difference Cover-Base

DDS - Double Diagonal Symmetry of the clues

CP - Conjugate Pair

SE - Sudoku Explainer

SE - Main difficulty score given by the program Sudoku Explainer
ER - Explainer Rating
EP - (Explainer) Pearl rating
ED - (Explainer) Diamond rating

Note: You can read more about rating types in the first post of the Patterns Game

FOL - First Order Logic
MS-FOL - Multi-Sorted First Order Logic
LAS - Local Area Set
MSG - Minimum Set Group

UFG - The Ultimate Fish Guide thread

OTP - One Trick Pony, puzzle that requires only one hard trick

PE - Potential Elimination

SIN - Single Implication Network

NRC-, NRCT-, NRCZ-, and NRCZT- chains - Oriented 3D Chains
N-Rope, N-Braid, Z-Braid, and Z-Rope - Patterns used in Braid Analysis

MDCD - Multiple-digit Concept Diagrams

WU - Weekly Unsolvable Sudoku from Andrew Stuart's webpage

WSC - World Sudoku Championship
WPC - World Puzzle Championship

WTR - Wecoc Totally Rules (Ok, I just made that one up)

[Mauriès Robert]

Hi Wewoc,
It's a very good idea to have made this list, because for those who, like me, have been on the forum for a short time, it will help a lot to understand the comments.
A comment on the TDP.
You've made a link to a topic in the forum. There is an explanatory text in English more convenient with the following link : http://www.assistant-sudoku.com/Pdf/TDP-anglais.pdf that it would be better to propose.
Sincerely
Robert

[Wecoc]

You've made a link to a topic in the forum. There is an explanatory text in English more convenient with the following link

Ok, I included both

[eleven]

Seems, that no moderators are around anymore. Should become a sticky thread.
Brave work.

[tarek]

I should have posted earlier,

I agree with eleven that plenty of work has been done here in collating this. Well done!

I would probably post somewhere down this thread the short terms for techniques that I've included with Sukaku explainer command line interface.

As Sukaku explainer is still evolving. I will wait a bit longer before posting them

tarek

[rjamil]

Hi all,

1to9only gives acronyms to most of the techniques here.

Hope that remaining techniques will also be covered for common/acceptable suitable acronyms soon.

R. Jamil

[jco]

Hello Wecoc,

I have three acronyms to suggest:

LoL meaning "law of leftovers" (used here)

ALP meaning "almost locked pair" (used sometimes in the puzzle section).

In "others":

meaning of OP (see mith's post)

Regards,
jco
[EDIT: removed incorrect meaning for OP (thanks mith!)

[mith]

OP on forums usually means Original Post or Original Poster.

This hasn't really been used on the forums outside of a puzzle title, but this has caught on elsewhere and I'm sure I will use it at some point:

SET - SET Equivalence Theory

(This is my pet blanket term for the sort of argument used in e.g. Garam Masalas, using intersections of houses to equate two sets of cells (modulo complete sets of 1-9) - which is an alternate way of looking at equivalent MSLS/MultiFish/etc. deductions.)

[Pupp]

I know a pearl has it's hardest step first, but what is a diamond puzzle?

[jco]

Hello,

It would be nice to have a link for "dynamic forcing chains". I have searched for it but I did not find a thread on this topic.

Edit: I found this link outside this Forum.
The topic "Forcing chain" is missing a link. One such link in this forum is this.

[denis_berthier]

.
Please include the following abbreviations, first introduced in my approach to Sudoku solving.
I've tried to include all the abbreviations used in my approach, but I may have missed a few.

Abbreviations for references:
[HLS1]: BERTHIER D., The Hidden Logic of Sudoku, First Edition, Lulu Press, May 2007.
[HLS2]: BERTHIER D., The Hidden Logic of Sudoku, Second Edition, Lulu Press, November 2007.
[HLS]: any of [HLS1] or [HLS2]
[CRT]: BERTHIER D., Constraint Resolution Theories, Lulu Press, November 2011.
[PBCS1]: BERTHIER D., Pattern-Based Constraint Satisfaction and Logic Puzzles (First Edition), Lulu Press, November 2012.
[PBCS2]: BERTHIER D., Pattern-Based Constraint Satisfaction and Logic Puzzles (Second Edition), Lulu Press, July 2015.
[PBCS3]: BERTHIER D., Pattern-Based Constraint Satisfaction and Logic Puzzles (Third Edition), Lulu Press, November 2021.
[PBCS]: any of [PBCS1], [PBCS2] or [PBCS3]
[BUM1]: BERTHIER D., Basic User Manual for CSP-Rules-V2.1, Lulu.com Publishers, August 2020.
[BUM2]: BERTHIER D., Basic User Manual for CSP-Rules-V2.1 (Second Edition), Lulu.com Publishers, November 2021.
[BUM]: any of [BUM1] or [BUM2]
Note: all these references to published books, plus more (to published articles), are freely available in pdf form :
- either on ResearchGate: https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Denis-Berthier/research
- or within the Publications folder of CSP-Rules on GitHub: https://github.com/denis-berthier/CSP-Rules-V2.1

General abbreviations:
FOL and MS-FOL = resp. First-Order Logic and Multi-Sorted First-Order Logic
AI = Artificial Intelligence
CSP = Constraint Satisfaction Problem
w1-tte = Singles and whips[1] to the end

Abbreviations for fundamental concepts first introduced in [HLS]
rc-space, rn-space, cn-space, bn-space
2D-space: rc-space, rn-space, cn-space or bn-space ; the 4 2D-spaces make the Extended Sudoku Board (© Denis Berthier, July 2007)
rc-cell, rn-cell, cn-cell, bn-cell
2D-cell: any rc-cell, rn-cell, cn-cell, bn-cell
ECP = Elementary Constraint Propagation = elimination of candidates via direct contradiction with a decided value
BRT = Basic Resolution Theory (of a Constraint Satisfaction Problem) = rules for Singles + ECP
RS = Resolution State, the abstract concept, represented as a PM
rc-view, rn-view, cn-view, bn-view = representation of the RS in the corresponding 2D-sapce

Abbreviations related to Trial and Error
- First introduced in [CRT]:
T&E(T, n) = Trial-and-Error to depth n for resolution theory T with the confluence property
T&E(n) = T&E(BRT, n)
T&E = T&E(BRT, 1)
gT&E = T&E(W1, 1)
- First introduced in [BUM]:
FTE(T) = F2TE = Forcing-T&E based on resolution theory T with the confluence property
F3TE(T) = Forcing{3}-T&E based on resolution theory T with the confluence property
BFS, DFS and SFS = respectively Breadth-First, Depth-First and Simplest-First Search

Abbreviations for classical resolution theories
S2 = resolution theory defined by W1 + Subsets of size 2, i.e. Naked Pairs + Hidden Pairs + Super-Hidden-Pairs (= X-wings))
S3 = resolution theory defined by W1 + Subsets of size ≤ 3, i.e. S2 + Naked Triplets + Hidden Triplets + Super-Hidden-Triplets (= Swordfish)
S4 = resolution theory defined by W1 + Subsets of size ≤ 4, i.e. S3 + Naked Quads + Hidden Quads + Super-Hidden-Quads (= Jellyfish)
S = S4

Abbreviations for resolution theories introduced in [HLS] or [CRT] or [PBCS]
llc = left-linking candidate
rlc = right-linking candidate
W1 = resolution theory defined by BRT + whips[1] (whips[1] are equivalent to intersections in Sudoku)
BCn = resolution theory defined by W1 + bivalue-chains of length ≤ n
Zn = resolution theory defined by W1 + z-chains of length ≤ n
tWn = resolution theory defined by W1 + t-whips of length ≤ n
Wn = resolution theory defined by BRT + whips of length ≤ n
Bn = resolution theory defined by BRT + braids of length ≤ n
gBCn = resolution theory defined by W1 + g-bivalue-chains of length ≤ n
gWn = resolution theory defined by BRT + g-whips of length ≤ n
FWn = resolution theory defined by Wn + forcing-whips of length ≤ n
FgWn = resolution theory defined by gWn + forcing-gwhips of length ≤ n
FBn = resolution theory defined by Bn + forcing-braids of length ≤ n
FgBn = resolution theory defined by gBn + forcing-braids of length ≤ n

The previous two groups of symbols can be combined, e.g. S+Wn to mean the resolution theory consisting of BRT + Subset rules + whips of length ≤ n
By extension, when no confusion is possible, the same symbols also denote the sets of puzzles solvable by the corresponding resolution theory.

Abbreviations for ratings associated with the above resolution theories
S, BC, Z, tW, W, gBC, gW, gB, FW, FgW, FB, FgB: the rating associated with resolution theories based respectively on: Subsets, bivalue-chains, z-chains, t-whips, whips, g-bivalue-chains, g-whips, g-braids, whips+forcing-whips, g-whips+forcing-gwhips, braids+forcing-braids, g-braids+forcing-gbraids.

Abbreviations for rules and ratings mainly related to puzzles in T&E(2)
WpWn = resolution theory defined by BRT + W-whips (generalised whips) of total length ≤ n, with inner whips of length ≤ p
BpBn = resolution theory defined by BRT + B-braids (generalised braids) of total length ≤ n, with inner braids of length ≤ p
BpB = BpBn for unrestricted n
Note: B = B0B, gB = B1B

Abbreviations for collections of puzzles
cbg = the collection of near 6,000,000 puzzles generated by the controlled-bias generator
cbg-000 = the sub-collection of the first 21375 puzzles in cbg (forming a smaller controlled-bias collection)
Notes :
1) cbg is available on GitHub, together with the controlled-bias generator (+ a bottom-up + a top-down one) and with the W rating of all its puzzles + the SER of the first million (https://github.com/denis-berthier/Controlled-bias_Sudoku_generator_and_collection)
2) cbg-000 is also separately available on GitHub, in the Sudoku examples of CSP-Rules, together with many more ratings and with precise comparisons between them


Abbreviations for the solvers associated with the above resolution rules
CSP-Rules: the generic solver of finite CSPs associated with the above resolution rules, including all the following applications:
SudoRules: the application of CSP-Rules to the Sudoku CSP
LatinRules: the application of CSP-Rules to the Latin Squares CSP (including its pandiagonal variant)
KakuRules: the application of CSP-Rules to the Kakuro CSP
FutoRules: the application of CSP-Rules to the Futoshiki CSP
HidatoRules: the application of CSP-Rules to the Hidato and Numbrix CSPs
FutoRules: the application of CSP-Rules to the Futoshiki CSP
MapRules: the application of CSP-Rules to the Map Colouring CSP
SlitherRules: the application of CSP-Rules to the Slitherink CSP
Note: this solver is freely available on GitHub: https://github.com/denis-berthier/CSP-Rules-V2.1 under the GPL v3.0 license
.