#352 Sudoku – rated 8/10 [Very Hard]
Update: I might downgrade this from a 9 to an 8 as I've just realised the intended pattern used is very similar to the original Phistomefel pattern, which perhaps is a bit easier to spot and make use of...
Thursday, 5 November 2020
Puzzle 352 Sudoku
So here's a puzzle with an idea on a recent theme. I'd say the execution is reasonably good, but as I'm working mostly by hand it doesn't quite feel polished to its true potential. It's still doable if you don't get the idea, but fair warning, it might be a bit of a slog. Failing that it's probably very guessable. But I have more faith in you than that, dearest reader. Enjoy!
All puzzles © Tom Collyer 2009-20.
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Nice puzzle, Tom. I did use Phistomefel, curious to see what your intended path is.
ReplyDeleteYou might also be interested in this puzzle, which I posted yesterday: http://forum.enjoysudoku.com/garam-masalas-t38403.html
Hi Philip,
ReplyDeleteThese comments are rubbish (I'd post an image if I could) - but if you go to the google sheet I set up and set
Rows 3,7 as -1 and Row 5 as +1
Columns 3,7 as -1 and Column 5 as +1
Boxes 1,3,7,9 all as +1 and Box 5 as -1
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1dTAJNB-U-5d8bxwFsWwyVHEU9xAGiBf3mjMmUboHzFI/edit#gid=0
The you end up with a nice tartan style pattern, similar to Phistomefel but not quite - in particular there's an extra 1-9 set to take account of, which in this case I filled with givens. There might be nicer ways of executing the idea so that it doesn't quite as easily reduce to a "standard" Phistomefel (I say, standard, but it really hasn't been that long since accidentally finding on LMD what was the first non-trivial example to me)
That same pattern can be viewed as a normal Fred partition, which is how I solved it.
DeleteYeah you're right Sam - it is equivalent to one of Fred's 5/4 partitions.
DeleteEquivalently you can set:
Rows 1,2,5,8,9 to +1
Columns 3,4,6,7 to -1
And you get the same pattern