The New Sudoku Players' Forum

[mariano_donati]

Hi to everyone.
I've read a lot of websites with details of every known solving techniques. But the rates of difficulty I get from them is really different from my personal experience i.e. when I actually solve a sudoku. For me is harder to spot hidden subsets than an x-wing or xy-wing pattern, but hidden subsets are always considered basic techniques while x-wing and xy-wing are intermediate ones.
I was wondering if there's someone who has searched for it, made some investigation on the topic.
I just want to know where's the difficulty for us, humans solvers, assuming that all the candidates for each cell have been written down. Is it when we need to follow a chain with that doesn't contain bi-value cells? or when there are candidates that hide the pattern we're looking for?.
I really want to know what do you think about it and how would you rate the techniques you use while solving a puzzle with just a pen and a pencil.

Thanks.