The New Sudoku Players' Forum

[PaulIQ164]

I was looking at this puzzle from The Sunday Times for Aug. 7:



since I don't get the Times on Sundays and I wanted to see how hard it was. I got stuck and since I was only doing it casually, plugged it into the solver at http://sudoku.sourceforge.net. This says it needs an X-Wing to complete. The puzzle's credited to Pappocom, but I thought the puzzles they supply to publications never needed them? Or have The Times coaxed the Very Hards out of him?

[possum]

I just got this from Timesonline. They don't give it a rating, do they? Haven't started it yet, so I'll report back later.

[SteveF]

I did it last night with paper and pencil, and much to my surprise had to resort to an x-wing.

I have just put it through angusj's Simple Sudoku, and it also came up with an x-wing.

Note that there is also a thread on this in the Solving Techniques forum entitled 'Whats this?'.

[george-no1]

I'm pretty sure this is a Pappocom 'Very Hard'. It definitely requires an X-Wing, as far as I'm concerned.

G

[possum]

I managed to use 2 X-Wings!

[Pi]

I didn't know the Sunday Times Had Sudoku, which section are they in?

[PaulIQ164]

The Magazine, apparently.

[Karyobin]

Yes, The Times have built in an extra level of difficulty on the weekends - finding the b**gers.