The New Sudoku Players' Forum

[sparewords]

I've been doing sudoku for several months now and found it addictive. I've enjoyed discovering "if this, then that must ..." strategies but have reached a level where I need to better understand different strategies for aspects such as the level after the obvious and secondary eliminations early in a soduku. Oddly enough, I have managed to finish puzzles tabbed as "most difficult" and have struggled with ones termed "moderate," so I figure that reflects how one's mindset matches that of the creator of the puzzle.

I turned to Sudoku for Dummies and found it fairly useless as it ends its instruction at what seems to be a good starting point. I have followed some of the threads here and realize I am waaaaay below the level of folks there, but want to progress. I have no desire to use software that fills in a puzzle because without the explanation of why something went where, I learn nothing. Can anyone provide links of articles that explain medium-level or advanced strategies in a manner that makes them feasible to follow? Or, is there a particular book that goes into comprehensive explanations?

Any help would be much appreciated.

[ab]

I've posted a pdf guide on my page:
http://uk.geocities.com/aidan_001/index.html

You could also look at the top post in the "Advanced solving techniques" part of the forum

[sparewords]

Those PDFs were quite helpful.

Beyond the obvious ones, I had been using some of the other methods but there were some there that were new to me and I plan to employ soon.

Thanks again...and the folks who do the "... For Dummies" series deserves a real-life dummy award for having published such a useless primer.

[Pat]

I have no desire to use software that fills in a puzzle,
because without the explanation of why something went where, I learn nothing.

you could try "Sudoku Explainer"

[DonM]

Below are 3 of the best tutorials to help people get started with basic & beyond basic solving. The final one by Paul Stephens also starts with a px of his excellent book, Mastering Sudoku and the last URL below is that of where you can get the book on Amazon. I have no connection w/Paul & his book- I simply highly recommend it as about the only available book that clearly explains all the main basic methods.

http://www.angusj.com/sudoku/hints.php

http://www.sadmansoftware.com/sudoku/solvingtechniques.htm

http://www.paulspages.co.uk/sudokuxp/howtosolve/

http://www.amazon.com/Mastering-Sudoku-Week-Becoming-Wizard/dp/1844834050/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1239999559&sr=1-1