Check out our other websites: Babble alt|meat GiftBox Epigroove

Difficulty: Hard Tuesday, January 16, 2007

Not Completed Play This Puzzle

CHAT LOG for Tuesday, January 16, 2007

12:12 am
Zugzug7

greens made this one a breeze.
12:12 am
skizzybiz

no greens, a bit harder :)
12:13 am
kebek

still truckin without green
12:13 am
philsown

i almost had it - then screwed up a bunch - since then i've restarted 3 times
12:13 am
skizzybiz

got 16 filled in, feeling a little stuck
12:13 am
austinuu

I'm still in the holiday spirit, so mine is lit up like a Christmas tree.
12:13 am
philsown

i'm - on the jan 15 puzzle by the way - an "easy" one - i totally suck at sudoku
12:14 am
skizzybiz

festive!
12:14 am
chrissie2006

im in the same boat. I have 18...
12:15 am
philsown

12 :-)
12:16 am
philsown

whoops 13
12:16 am
chrissie2006

\are you on todays or yesterdays, philsown?
12:16 am
philsown

yesterdays :-(
12:16 am
philsown

jan 15
12:17 am
skizzybiz

i'm about to break down and start in with the greens, so i can get back to work :)
12:17 am
chrissie2006

im still going with no greens fro now... Im pretty stuck though
12:18 am
raggedyandy3478

now im stuck too, no greens, 16
12:18 am
philsown

i hate this game :-)
12:19 am
skizzybiz

behold! a hidden pair!
12:20 am
philsown

pair?
12:20 am
skizzybiz

hidden pair is one of the names for sudoku strategies
12:21 am
philsown

googling
12:21 am
skizzybiz

you narrow it down to where a certain pair of numbers can only be in two spots in the same row, column or region
12:21 am
chrissie2006

when there are the same two possibilities in a line or square that can eliminate those numbers in any other square within the line or box
12:22 am
chrissie2006

lol, skizzy worded it much better than me
12:22 am
skizzybiz

chrissie, that's a naked pair i think
12:22 am
raggedyandy3478

right b4 u typed the hidden pair, i found a hidden pair and now im cruising
12:22 am
skizzybiz

i am decidedly not yet cruising
12:22 am
chrissie2006

the three center regions horizontally are all pairs
12:23 am
skizzybiz

right, i got that much
12:23 am
chrissie2006

I havnt found any other pairs though...
12:23 am
raggedyandy3478

theres another one somewhere else that gives it all away
12:24 am
raggedyandy3478

done
12:24 am
chrissie2006

oh there we go, I found one. That help[s a lot. I wasnt looking at it right
12:24 am
skizzybiz

progress!!
12:24 am
chrissie2006

lol
12:25 am
raggedyandy3478

aight, im off to bed, its 1:30 AM here, gl to all
12:25 am
philsown

i read about it online... so - when you have a naked pair - you can eliminate those 2 numbers from other boxes in the same column/row?
12:25 am
skizzybiz

night!
12:25 am
chrissie2006

right
12:25 am
skizzybiz

yes
12:25 am
skizzybiz

a hidden pair is the opposite
12:26 am
chrissie2006

huh?
12:26 am
skizzybiz

when you find 2 squares where a pair of numbers have to go, you can eliminate the other possibilities from those 2 squares
12:26 am
philsown

you find the pair by eliminating the other numbers?
12:27 am
skizzybiz

hmm, no
12:27 am
philsown

i'm not clear on how naked and hidden differ
12:27 am
chrissie2006

oh... see i have a lot that I know that I use, just never know any of the names for them. I didnt realize that hidden and naked were different
12:28 am
skizzybiz

so let's say you have a region with a bunch of green numbers filled in
12:28 am
skizzybiz

and you notice that 1s can only be in two of the squares, and 2s can only be in two of the squares, and they're the *same* two squares
12:28 am
skizzybiz

then you can get rid of all the other green numbers from those two squares
12:29 am
raggedyandy3478

thought I would do one more thing b4 bed, i googled 'sudoku strategies' and the first hit seems pretty darn useful. might want to try it urself
12:29 am
philsown

ok - i get it - is that naked? or hidden?
12:29 am
philsown

that's naked, right?
12:29 am
skizzybiz

that's hidden
12:30 am
skizzybiz

naked is where they're on their own -- bare, so to speak
12:30 am
kebek

yay, i made it without green :)
12:31 am
chrissie2006

im getting close
12:32 am
philsown

thanks :-)
12:32 am
austinuu

I want to type, "I really need to see a picture of naked pairs in order to understand"
12:32 am
austinuu

but that's the type of thing that's easily taken out of context.
12:32 am
philsown

i googled it - found a page that explained it - and only kind of get it
12:32 am
skizzybiz

yeah, this isn't really that kind of website :)
12:33 am
chrissie2006

I think youll understand once you do and realise :oh, that's what it is..."
12:33 am
Fizzbut

done. no greens. took a little while but raggedy was right. there's a couple naked pairs that opens it all up.
12:34 am
chrissie2006

im most deffinatly stuck!
12:34 am
philsown

and you found hidden pairs in the jan 16 puzzle?
12:34 am
chrissie2006

and i refuse to guess or use greens for this one
12:35 am
chrissie2006

ive found a lot of naked, but no hidden yet
12:35 am
Fizzbut

go for it chrissie
12:35 am
kebek

you can do it!
12:35 am
skizzybiz

chrissie, that's a pot sticker with a heart burnt onto it, right?
12:36 am
skizzybiz

for some reason it reads as a goat's face at the smaller size
12:37 am
chrissie2006

lol,, no, i took it at my friends house. he was making peroguies and burnt them. when he flipped it over that wasa the mark on the back. i though it was pretty sweet
12:38 am
chrissie2006

you mean pot as in marijuana??? cause i dont see it...
12:39 am
kebek

potsticker, like a dumpling :)
12:39 am
skizzybiz

yeah, potstickers are fried chinese dumplings
12:39 am
chrissie2006

oh... ive never heard that before....:)
12:39 am
chrissie2006

d the hidden pair!
12:39 am
skizzybiz

not unlike a pierogie, but usually filled with pork and/or veggies
12:40 am
skizzybiz

ooh, i just found another one myself
12:40 am
skizzybiz

yeah, this one's gonna clear the board for me
12:40 am
chrissie2006

still stuck
12:41 am
philsown

so i have - on the jan 16 - a column with 3 empty squares - 1 square has 3 possibles - the next has 2 possibles - and 2 of those match
12:42 am
skizzybiz

as in, two of the same numbers are in two of the same squares?
12:42 am
austinuu

so are there any rules for leaving hints for players who are stuck, like in babble?
12:42 am
philsown

is that a hidden pair?
12:42 am
skizzybiz

it depends on what's in the third square
12:43 am
philsown

yes, skizzy
12:43 am
chrissie2006

only if they are not in any of the other squares
12:43 am
skizzybiz

do those two numbers occur in the other square?
12:43 am
austinuu

Like, hey, I want to that Van Halen Concert today, but my seats were in the LAST ROW, and I thought that they would suck, but I was surprised at what I could see all the way back in the LAST ROW.
12:43 am
philsown

the 3rd square actually eliminates those 2 numbers, due to those numbers appearing in the row - so - it kinda leaves the 3rd number as the only possibility
12:44 am
skizzybiz

austinuu, most people here don't like it when people leave *any* hints about specific numbers
12:44 am
austinuu

well no one is making them look at the chatter box
12:44 am
skizzybiz

hehe, cute. even that's a little too specific for some
12:44 am
skizzybiz

myself, i just ignore it whenever someone's giving out specific hints
12:45 am
austinuu

Did I say last row? I meant my seats were randomly distributed across a grid, let's say numbered 1 through 9.
12:45 am
chrissie2006

lol
12:45 am
austinuu

just kidding. everyone knows that Van Halen isn't even on tour anymore.
12:46 am
chrissie2006

I think ive almost got it
12:46 am
philsown

sammy hagar forever! :-)
12:46 am
skizzybiz

whoo! done, finally
12:47 am
skizzybiz

45 minutes, with lots of chatting :)
12:47 am
chrissie2006

im at 40 now
12:47 am
chrissie2006

but close
12:47 am
philsown

i'm at suicidal now :-P
12:49 am
chrissie2006

yay... I finally got it. I found that missing pair that really helped
12:49 am
chrissie2006

onto the achivs
12:49 am
chrissie2006

*archives
12:49 am
chrissie2006

?
12:49 am
skizzybiz

back to work for me :P
12:51 am
chrissie2006

did you just join phils own?
12:51 am
philsown

no - i joined months ago
12:52 am
philsown

i've played like 4 games
12:52 am
philsown

finished: 0
12:52 am
austinuu

dammit. I can't get that Sammy Hagar song out of my head now. It's being going on this continuous loop ever since philsown brought it up. Make it stop.
12:52 am
philsown

i *really* suck at this
12:52 am
philsown

but - i've played tons offline on paper
12:52 am
skizzybiz

it takes time
12:52 am
philsown

(and i *really* suck at that too)
12:52 am
philsown

it feels as if i will not get sudoku :-)
12:52 am
skizzybiz

i started with the super easy ones in a book, easier than any of the ones on this site
12:52 am
chrissie2006

i like it on paper. this is the only site i like onine
12:53 am
austinuu

you might try websudoku.com. You can select the level difficulty, and after you have mastered the easy, move on to harder levels.
12:53 am
philsown

thanks
12:53 am
chrissie2006

have you guys ever done the 16x 16? those are awesome. super hard though
12:53 am
skizzybiz

yeah, those are nuts
12:54 am
chrissie2006

i dont like websudoku....
12:54 am
skizzybiz

i've only played them in a book, and i end up scratching out about half of them
12:54 am
austinuu

are those the ones that go 1 through 9, and then A through G?
12:54 am
chrissie2006

I havnt been abele to find those anywhere thoiugh. I came across one by accident once but that's it.
12:54 am
skizzybiz

as a programmer, i really appreciate that the 16x16 ones use hexadecimal :)
12:54 am
skizzybiz

0-9 A-F in the ones i've played
12:55 am
chrissie2006

the one i played was 1 through 16... no letters
12:56 am
austinuu

does the owner of this site still take an active interest?
12:56 am
skizzybiz

i like the jigsaw sudokus. first time i played one, it made my brain get all twisted around itself
12:56 am
chrissie2006

what are those?
12:57 am
austinuu

because I think it would be awesome if, let's say on April Fools Day, the letters were in Greek or Roman numerals instead of numbers.
12:57 am
skizzybiz

the regions are oddly shaped
12:57 am
austinuu

or perhaps symbols, like in the Da Vinci Code online game version
12:58 am
skizzybiz

some people find this game easier to play with symbols. they always distract me, though
12:58 am
skizzybiz

there's a contact form for him at the bottom of the page. i used that once, and he got back to me pretty quickly
12:58 am
austinuu

oops. my five year old's favorite words are awesome, totally awesome, and super awesome. Roman numerals would clearly be super awesome, not awesome.
12:59 am
skizzybiz

wow, can you imagine trying to tell the difference between I, II, and III in the tiny little green numbers?
1:00 am
chrissie2006

ive never played with symbols. i like numbers though. they have logic and order. i guess letters would be alright too though
1:00 am
skizzybiz

right, but as far as sudoku is concerned, the numbers are just arbitrary symbols
1:01 am
skizzybiz

you don't use their numeric values at all. all that's required is that they're easily discernible
1:01 am
chrissie2006

i just changed my setting to the animals.... id ont think i like it :)
1:02 am
skizzybiz

yeah, they all look too similar to me. i've seen ones with stars and squares and things that were easier
1:04 am
austinuu

Oh look, it's little penguins.
1:05 am
austinuu

And a butterfly.
1:05 am
austinuu

And an elephant.
1:08 am
chrissie2006

well, i have early classes in the morning. goodnigh all
1:30 am
h

the symbolic-one that ive found that i like is at jigsawdoku.com - especially since you can do 2x2 for super-easy practice... (msg for philsown whos prolly gone now)
1:42 am
h

wow! did drwho give a rating for tonights? i just finished it fairly quicly without greens or reds... not trivial - but very easy for me...
1:45 am
h

also, what happened with the rankings? are they updating in realtime now? the elites are tiny, compared to normally...
2:07 am
balker

not realtime, no - probably a glitch
2:11 am
h

hi balker - thanx.
2:23 am
sprite

rankings at babble are off too today - perhaps drG played around with them a bit.
6:34 am
drwho

Difficulty score 29. The computer needed to use naked and hidden pair analysis. Congratulations to h, I sure needed the greens today.
7:15 am
spreadeagle

No greens? Good job. I sure needed them too.
7:22 am
h

yeah - it was odd. i normally start using greens after "memorizing" about 2 or 3 pairs, but i mustve hit it lucky and everything just opened up when i "solved" one of the pairs (they linked)... good luck folks...
7:52 am
eyeman

Finished finally. Some people got rankings of 619 after yesterday! Shouldn't the maximum before today's be 616? Have a nice day, all.
9:19 am
spellacked

Pretty easy for a hard. I used greens, but never got close to filling them all in -- a couple of things turned up early and filled in the rest of the box.
1:45 pm
kebek

it says rankings are updated at 1am, and the puzzle comes at 12am, so if you finish in the hour, i think you get the points early. at least that seems to be what happened last night.
2:20 pm
dinoshadow

That was a hard?
2:53 pm
h

good analysis kebek, maybe drG just changed the times a bit somewhere...
6:40 pm
dorens

maybe a medium?
6:41 pm
brittlefish.com

go
6:50 pm
brittlefish.com

done
8:06 pm
cyr0715

taylor?
8:06 pm
Taylar

Oooohhh
8:06 pm
Taylar

Oooohhh
8:07 pm
cyr0715

i see you now, ready set go
9:19 pm
Andy

go
9:32 pm
Andy

ugh. messed up somewhere. dont feel like going back. oh well.
9:54 pm
LauraBee

...
10:30 pm
LauraBee


finally
11:21 pm
selenav

gah took me 3 tried to get that one...
11:32 pm
helenkeller

go
11:41 pm
helenkeller

done
11:42 pm
helenkeller

one of those easy 'hard' ones :)