dailysudoku.com

[thebullroars]

If people thought Mar. 28 was hard try Mar 31!
The word hard is in cap's for a reason!

I'm surprised no one had any comment on it!

After putting it aside several times I finally got it!
I thought it was a good one in that it did not require
naked pairs to help to solve it! To me the technique
to solve it, is advanced, in that it is rarely used but
does not need any of the "official" advanced techniques!

The Bullroars

[Marty R.]

Hi, welcome to the forum. I can't comment on the puzzle since I haven't done it. But feel free to join the party and make comments/ask questions as often as you'd like.

[sdq_pete]

This one wasn't so bad, I thought... You should reach the following position without too much work:

[keith]

Where's that soapbox!

I think this is another illustration of a puzzle that gets much harder if you fill in all the candidate pencil marks. You should try to spot pairs by looking at the solved cells, not by examining pencil marks.

After filling in the singles you will see that there are solved cells <1> and <7> in C78 and in R5, all pointing at B6. So, R46C9 are a pair <17>, which places a <4> in R6C7, and you are done.

[crunched]

There is no doubt from my experiences that hard puzzles (and sometimes mediums too) are not easy --- for me.
I don't remember how long it took for me, but I did solve the March 31 puzzle. Sometimes x-wings are available and useful to solve these. I know that wings are not supposed to be required in anything less than VH. I frequently understand the xy-wings and xyz-wings when pointed out, but there is simply slim to no chance I can find any of these kinds of wings on my own.

Another problem I have is seeing the lengthy chains pointed out by the geniuses in here. I do not have the power of concentration to follow a long chain through to see how it works out. It is like playing a chess game. I have always been a fair chess player, but I have never been able to look ahead 10 (or 100 or whatever) plays like real good chess players can do.

For me hard puzzles can normally be solved in 2 hours or less. I know that there are those who need only 20 minutes or less for any puzzle, but such people are math geniuses I am sure. I have a good math aptitude, but I am not a math genius.

[Marty R.]

[nataraj]

This was indeed a very tough "hard". The key to the puzzle (at least for me) was a quad 1367 in row 6, followed by another -very difficult to see - quad 2689 in box 6 which solved r6c7 like sdq_pete pointed out. Took me a long time.

[cgordon]

Keith: I like that "trick" for finding hidden pairs. I usually find that harder than spotting the quads.

Meanwhile, a terrible famine has come upon us. Only two very hards in the last 14 days. That's cause for a lot of wailing and gnashing of teeth.

[ravel]

[cgordon]

Ravel !!! What a most excellent Sudoku. Where did you find it? What is gsf?

I started off thinking you had missed a number on the grid but slowly I found 5 pairs (79/C5; 45/C3; 38/R6; two 4's/B4; two 5's/B4) and one triple <467> in C7. ..... and yet I still haven't made a single new entry!!!
-------
Edited Later:
Actually... Hold the praise! I used 2 UR's <467> C78 and eventually found some "no-solution" cells. It doesn't seem to work. Did you copy it right?? Couldn't possibly be me !

[ravel]

The puzzle is from the Patterns Game thread on the Players forum. They select a pattern and try to find as much as possible puzzles with different ratings.

The challenge with this one is to find the first number, because it needs some steps, which i would not be able to do without pencilmarks.

I also checked it with the online solver here to be sure, that it meets the VH criteria. So no UR's are required.

[cgordon]

[ravel]

[kragzy]

ravel,

Thanks for the elegant puzzle. So many seeming break-throughs, only to be confronted with a new challenge, time and again. Not only that, the puzzle retained a high degree of symmetry as cells were solved - as I said, how elegant. A pleasure to solve.

Cheers