The New Sudoku Players' Forum

[ronk]

Can this method be described by anything other than "brute force" or "guessing" or "trial & error?"

You will not find an exotic fish without "trial & error". Another word for "brute force" would be patience. "guessing" for me is "trial & error" without a concept.

All eliminations can be expressed as elimination-by-contradiction (EBC). But using EBC as the technique makes no distinction between patterns and chains. And comparing patterns and chains is like comparing apples and oranges IMO.

[Myth Jellies]

Can this method be described by anything other than "brute force" or "guessing" or "trial & error?"

You will not find an exotic fish without "trial & error". Another word for "brute force" would be patience. "guessing" for me is "trial & error" without a concept.

It really all depends on what it is that one is assuming. Assuming there might be an exotic fish, or a naked pair in a puzzle, and searching for them in some methodical manner is significantly different from tentatively assuming the truth value of a candidate and then following along that assumption to see if the puzzle crashes.