Platinum Blonde is a relatively old puzzle
With a rating Sudoku Explainer 10.6/1.2/1.2, it looks relatively low in the family of hardest puzzles.
It has been the first sudoku identified by “abi” as a variant of the Exocet having one target made of 2 cells with a locked extra digit (4r7c89).
“blue” as far as I remember has seen later a variant with a target of 3 digits with 2 extra digits locked, but I did not store this variant.
After the “golden nugget” not yet solved by “yzfwsf” 'code, I wanted to see if this sudoku was solved.
It is and, surprise, the sudoku has also a MSLS giving , with the Exocet, a cleaned PM solved with about 20 more steps of various solving technics by “yzfwsf”’ code.
I’ll copy in the next post this path, till the point STTE;
I wanted also to see if the strategy to clear remaining options in the Exocet could be applied with relatively short “contradiction” sequences, this will be shown in the following posts.
The start PM after hidden single 5r9c3
- Code: Select all
35678 34589 34679 |4679 5689 4578 |679 1 2
15678 14589 4679 |124679 125689 124578 |679 56789 3
15678 1589 2 |3 15689 1578 |4 56789 6789
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237 2349 1 |8 236 234 |23679 234679 5
235 6 349 |124 7 12345 |8 2349 149
23578 23458 347 |1246 12356 9 |12367 23467 1467
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1236 123 8 |5 1239 1237 |123679 234679 14679
9 123 36 |127 4 12378 |5 23678 1678
4 7 5 |129 12389 6 |1239 2389 189
And the solution grid
- Code: Select all
1=839 465 712
2=146 782 953
3=752 391 486
4=391 824 675
5=564 173 829
6=287 659 341
7=628 537 194
8=913 248 567
9=475 916 238
