I think this is worse than the Expert

true, lots of greens

screw this.

done... no easy point through the end... but no guessing is required :)

Bah, I saw the clog after painting the green: I feel stupid. Finished without guessing.

give me the answer

augurus - what does "I saw the clog mean"?

I saw the clog/wall/obstacle that had barred my path to complete this Sudoku.

Thanks - I thought you had a divine revelation!! - I'm waiting for one!

red/green works for freebie too. yay! if you want a hint, id say start with the 4 and 1s. no guessing required.

Morning all

morning

Freakin' 4s. Now I see it ...

I am having trouble finding a starting point this morning.

h had the right idea.

i just got here, but i can already see what u mean

hoaf: 4s? how you see what?

Yeah, just started, will be okay in a while ;)

i give up

You get one free 4, then ... if you look harder ... you get the second, and it moves on very nicely from there. :^)

k, thx

Not a problem.

duh

Heh.

:)

Not still being crosseyed from sleep certainly helps. One of those 4s is not in the box I thought it was.

I do agree, though -- yesterday's "expert" was a LOT easier than this "hard."

Guess I need to play more "Brain Age." :^P

Absolutely. I'll never get those rating.

*ratingS

stumped.....

Not much progress here either.

Yesterday and today's puzzles are rated correctly.

In your humble opinion.

Ya think?

never had a puzzle that I couldn't see a few moves instantly before.

I only saw one right off the bat -- the second was, er, "hard."

This hard one involves more grunt scanning work whereas yesterday's puzzle involved a lot more deductive work.

I'd settle for the one. lol

Ah, there is an opening. My least favorite kind, where you have to check every square to find "then it can only go there'.

The rating system makes perfect sense when you know which things you want to parse and identify.

I guess I'm just better at the "open-field-sherlock-holmes" variety ...

You mean I have an expert mind that doesn't like to be bend towards hard?

Nah. Just expert. The hard puzzles are beneath my dizzying in-tah-lekt.

Besides, I rocked at "Clue."

Lol

Oh, fun. I get to start over.

I take back all of my advice.

Oh wow, some people get all the fun ;)

Oh, you betcha.

Want some of mine? No guarantee I will not hit the pink gutter anywhere soon of course ;)

Well ... maybe ... maybe that 5 DIDN'T go there. Oh, wait -- you already said that, didn't you? :^P

Okay, done!

You da best, sprite.

idk how i did it but i did it

poo

difficult to get started, pfff, need all the greens

Same here, but then I really don't know how to eleminate them. I goofed yesterday until I finally quit..............

I see too many greens before me :o(

and I have only managed to place three 4s, much rather have yesterdays expert!

i only have two 4s

only one 4 for me so far. I see why it's Labor Day here!

i'm just making some headway now... after too many greens!

yup, one has to guess on this one

this is alot easier on paper for me.

no, i didn't guess. but it takes a while to see it.

well I am just not moving on it, just need to go through and see if I have input too many greenies!

can someone explain the "green" thing?

you have the abilit to insert little green numbers that are possibles in a blank square by clicking on the blank square and using the shift key to select the numbes you think are possible in that square

ah...didn't know I could do that! Thank you!

Sorry that is appalling English.

mine?

glad you get it even after my poor grammar, you can also input reds which can be treated as numbers it definitely cannot be.

oh gosh no, my grammar was appalling

just teasing you Moozey.

cheeky

;o)

how do I insert a red?

use the alt key

thanks. I am truly struggling with this one.

so am I and I flew through yesterdays expert :o(

Songbird, in addition to the greenies, you can also use "reddies?" by pressing shift and alternate key and clicking.

Thanks Eyeman...

can i divulge a little clue?

I'm open to it....

i see a triple on row 4. that's how got me going....

what's a triple?

That was trickier than yesterday's expert, to me.

triple... can someone explain? i have difficulty explaining/describing. i'm sorry.

I can't help as I don't do advanced stuff (though I might do it without realising it) LOL

i hope i can explain this clearly...

a triple is when there are 3 tiles in any row, column, or square that contain a combo of 3 different numbers. you can exclude those 3 numbers form the rest of the row/column/square, but you cant figure out immediately which number belongs in which tile.

thanks evan

I made an assumption in the middle box on the far left involving squares that could only have 2 possible numbers. It turned out to be right (much to my surprise).

Onpaki, that was a pretty huge clue. Let's see how far I get with it. =D

all done, no guesses needed!
all greenies needed for me though...hehe

WTG Evanadine

what's wtg?

Way To Go

thanx m

vega, what do you mean by huge? :p

yw

not my day

i surrender

I'm starving and I have restarted this puzzle twice. I think I must leave it for a while.

this is shaking out beautifully. clearly i've made a mistake somewhere. and won't be able to tell until i'm down to the last three cells.

how far are you? i found it was slow for the first bit, and after i placed my 8th number it all rolled along very smoothly

well, i have the two lower right boxes complete. the rest has not yet congealed.

yeah that doesn't really sound right

hmmm. considering starting over. I marked it with greens while half asleep during the night....

yesterday's was so so simple, while this one is much more challenging for me.

The first was like pulling teeth... I haven't found a second yet.

finally

the first was a 4, yes greylurk? i think the next i found was a 3...

Yep.

finally

just started - found two fours. woohoo!

... three fours ... ok i think i'm stuck on fours for now, lol. how's everybody this mornin?

hello everybody and especially btwrt!

aww yul :) how are you doin? i was very very bad yesterday, and i guessed ... :(

how on earth did you find TWO fours right off??

well if you look at it closely ;)

you will see - in the leftermost column - that there is one place only for one of the fours

i am fine and not doing the puzzle yet. just cheking what kind it is today. we are goind to yauatcha for afternoon tea. it is a micheline star place :)

got that one btwrt

lol i have no idea what that is but, it sounds wonderful as i am very hungry ;) i hope you enjoy it thoroughly

yay sc!

you don't know about micheline stars, btwrt?

nope *is ashamed*

it nothing to be ashamed of. it's a european thing... do you know a michelin logo with a funny man made out of taers. looks like a ghost from ghostbasters?

yes, i definitely know that guy

he's especially cute in live action, in his commercials. huggable.

it is friench car related stuff company which do road maps. they also give stars to very special restaurants all over europe. very good restaurants like el buli

i have to run. i'll see you later

i am getting nowhere.

me too on the 3rd try!!

4th for me

this is harder than yesterday took me ages to put one number in

i got first number easily...but i can't get past the second number I found

looks like guess work to me

yeah i've had three 4s for a loooong time ... stuck ...

i GIVE UP.

done more luck than judgement lol

wtg trev...

thx

i now have three numbers...WOOHOO!

begin...

how are you doing btwrt?

Ha

Nailed that puppy!

No green, red, or guessing!

Rank me, baby!

Cue theme music!

HOW?

Limer, what ?

you are certainly joiking

...

this is really tough! i've got greens everywhere

i only got 3 numbers

You should get your fourth number (assuming you have three 4s) in the middle ...

hoaf yeah thanks

no actually no ;)

Alright. Try the lower left, then the lower right.

i have seven numbers and i'm stuck again

:^)

well. after putting all greens.. i got it :)

well.. nope. my mistake again :) !!!!

give in!

im stuck. i give up

time for a beer. peace!

Finally. Ick.

Want another hint, bzikofski?

OMG! Just finished!

Any guesses?

hoaf, shoot the hint :)

wow i got it!

URE luck!

PURE, i mean

this one is a nightmare. . .

but i got it! no guessing, even.

find those triples!

that one triple really got me rolling, after filling in about 5 million greens

sam.

I mean, same.

More coffee, please.

whats this triple that you are talking about.... i'm not sure on any of these strats that people talk about.... anywhere i can find out about them?

Search "sudoku strategy" in google - you'll find a bunch of different sites

i've never gotten any help out of the strategy guides, it's all intuitive for me.

but there are some logical rules -- if 3 (green) numbers appear in the same 3 squares in a particular row or column or block, and *only* in those 3 squares, then you can eliminate all other numbers from those 3 squares

that's sometimes called a "hidden triple"

i'll have to check them out... between ducking out from the boss and actually doing my work i can't concentrate enough to solve this one alone

oh ok, i understand what you mean by a triple now... i do that already didn't know thats what it was called

the converse rule, a "naked triple", is when you've filled in *all* the greens, if 3 numbers appear on their own in a particular column or row or block, then you can eliminate those numbers from the rest of the squares in that row/column/block

same goes for any number of squares and numbers

man, i can only see naked triples - i never see the hidden ones.

it was a hidden triple that got me going on this one

wow, didn't know that about naked triples, thanks skinnybiz. does the same thing works for doubles?

but i'm stuck again. probably something obvious that i'm missing...

yep, you can get naked pairs and hidden pairs

oh cool! *files away info*

try to reason out for yourself why it's the case, and you won't need to file it for the future -- it'll just make sense after that

yeah, I'm thinking about it right now :)

tough one

whoo! found the obvious thing that i was missing

ahhh, finally finished. that was a good one.

that was fun :)

That was tough, no guessing, but I wore out the greens...

go

go?

i quit for sure!! please give us an easy one (which is still always hard for ME)

hello

looks like a nightmare allready

it wasn't too bad. just had to use a lot of green

am trying to do the evil expert one from august 2nd

i don't like lots of little numbers, they are confusing me :(

look for hidden triples

i don't remember that one

do i see hidden triples or not? have to risk it...

finished without satisfaction.

it was so simple at the end... hidden pair was so obvious :/

Does anyone use the red numbers at all? It seems using greens are more efficient.

I don't use reds or greens

That's great! I never jotted notes until only recently and only after trying other strategies first.

hehe - it's not great, really... I'm OCD and the jumble of colors makes me too anxious toplay :p

Yeah, those OCD tendencies really prompted my spending $14.95 to get those unplayed puzzles in the Archives! Ugh. How much of one's life is spent on on-line games?

too much? I did the same thing!

though... I've reached mylimit... bedtime

g'night

Bye.