I nearly forgot to put out a post – just like the good old days – but luckily enough there was something lurking at the bottom of the pile in my “unpublished” folder.
And with good reason too.
Christmas is an occasion the newspapers like to fill with bumper sized crosswords, and extra hard sudoku puzzles, and other puzzling novelties given that we have all this spare time on our hands. The thing with this puzzle is it’s much harder than that. Enjoy!
#110 Sudoku – rated hardAll puzzles © Tom Collyer 2009-10
I wouldn’t call it a very hard sudoku by itself, but it is certainly much harder than most of those published in newspapers, indeed.
ReplyDeleteBy the way, it is nice to look at and was nice to solve.
Nice puzzle, in looks and in solving. I never know how to rate a Sudoku. The only advanced steps needed here were a few XY chains (and possibly a Y-Wing thing). Not exactly diabolical, but much more complez than most US newspapers would offer. My experience with London papers makes me think that a few are as complex as this one on a weekly basis
ReplyDeleteTheSubro.
Indeed, you could use XY-Wings or XY-Chains but I personnally used unicity (basic unique rectangle). Very easy to spot, and it killed the puzzle – that’s why I didn’t find it that difficult. There are specialists of high difficulty who are able to craft harder sudokus (really harder) by hand, but I can’t tell you the way they do so.
ReplyDeleteIn France, a few monthly publications offer harder puzzles than this one but of course, all are computer-generated.
Bastien