The New Sudoku Players' Forum

[Noumenon]

What a long strange trip...

I found my way here via Sudopedia, which suggested some sort of ominous events occurred elsewhere, why my old links didn't work, etc. Hope the admin posts a clearer history of what happened. Recognize some old familiar names; rockin' good news.

Anyway, once upon a time there was a backwater thread about those of us who like to solve using self-imposed rule: no marks allowed, except for writing in the absolutely correct numeral once it is proven without doubt. i.e., solving without pencil marks, or solving Sudoku without pencil marks. That's notoriously difficult to search for using a search engine, because often it's not spelled out exactly that way.

My newest discovery is simply a way to make a simple or easy puzzle more challenging. So often one finds oneself with a too-easy puzzle, in the newspaper, etc.
I have begun imposing a restriction. I select, usually, a square spiral, beginning either in the center or at top left corner, and proceed to only enter the next empty cell as I go around.

For puzzles of moderate difficulty I will select a random design, for example all outer cells, or both diagonals, and require myself to fill these in, in any order, prior to further solving.

[Noumenon]

I see the thread survived! It is at
solving-without-pencilmarks-t3640.html

[gsf]

What a long strange trip...

I found my way here via Sudopedia, which suggested some sort of ominous events occurred elsewhere, why my old links didn't work, etc. Hope the admin posts a clearer history of what happened. Recognize some old familiar names; rockin' good news.

good point about no record of the crash of '10 and the month long process to resurrect the forum on a new site
the history is on the programmer's forum
I scraped those posts and will package them up for Jason to post on the players' forum later this week