done

Done

Done, one mistake, had to restart, but not bad...

Four shame.

the thing I love most about experts: if I mess up, I don't have to feel stupid :)

go

33 filled but stuck, going autofill green

h - Stuck after 33 filled? That doesn't sound good...

it is an expert, after all - i think i need a forcing-chain or something now...

I guess I'd better get busy and see what I can do as soon as I'm fully awake.

its a little slov going, but steady until this point... im looking at an interesting pattern, but not sure what to do about it. a rectangle (4 corners) with xy,axy,xy,bxy... i imagine theres some xy-wing solution for it...

I've never been willing to think hard enough to figure out the wing things.

me neither, even with greens - it is still too much... im going reds now - tired of staring at it...

force-chain found endpoint... prolly gonna be done soon...

I just getting started, 10 filled pretty easily

done

gl

thanks

hi all

come to visit my space http://orsetta87na.spaces.live.com/

and write me a comment if you like it

I'm waiting for all you

:-)

yep, 33 filled and stuck, going green

Greens don't help. I think I will go have a cup of coffee and come back and try to apply the x-wing thing to see if I can figure it out.

well that was a toughie, no greens used.

hi all

hmm, tricky

hi peter.....ohhh an expert...I won't have time to do that now, I'll pop back at lunchtime

wow...that would have been one to mark time on...think it took me about 18min!!!

morning eeryine... go!

*everyone*

ok, time to go

done! with greens of course

yeah, done with a couple of post-St. Patty Day greens.

done with greens at the end but it went swimmingly to be honest...probably didn't need to use the greens at all

Done, but I had to force it. I could not find any way to apply x-wing, y-wing, or any of the other solution methods I can find.

easy... :)

Difficulty score 49. I thought I was breaking new ground in solution techniques, turned out to be old logical fallicies rediscovered.

oh good, somethng a little more meaty

now you made me want meat.

filled in 22 and am stuck.. Trying not to guess..

you generally do have to use forcing chains on the experts here. unless you have a very very good memory.

my memory is stuck, too...!!

you can get more than 22 though. i have.

yeah, it was right in front of me,, and left. I'm workin it.. Thanx

hmm, looks like i will have to use some greens, sadly.

i'm just not in a determined enough mood today.

Go.

where?

Go here. And I'll probably use auto-greens pretty soon.

nah, you can get a long way without greens.

Okay, I'll try.

darn, going very well, when suddenly I get a conflict.

I have 33 filled in and have run out of techniques. Anyone in the same quandry??

tarting over with autogreenies

experts are really just sort of silly, in a way. cause forcing chains are not hard. they're just unsatisfying. and since you know you need them, you don't bother about trying to find a way yourself. so actually this one did not take me long at all... about 20 mins.

did you force after 'greening' up??

yep, but i didn't do that until pretty late.

but as soon as i greened, a quick glance told me that i wasn't going to get anywhere without forcing.

What you mean by "forcing?"

Forcing is the same as guesing.

Sounds nicer, eh?

so, have we determined that a forcing chain will be necessary? i just got stuck

drwho earlier made it sound like he did it without forcing.

Going green.

Ah, a solo.

Are you with us drwho?? I'm going to keep staring at this one for awhile without guessing.

Gman. Check for solos. When I quit crosshatching, there were three of those that opened up quite a bit.

I'm going to check for unique rectangles before i start forcing chains - often they're tucked in there somewhere...

there was one (a type III i think) but it didn't do much - just removed one option, and now I think I am stuck with forcing chains

I'm starting chains with 23 spaces left... sound about right?

i have 23 spaces also

I have 23 left, also.

When you start guessing, is there a technique for improving the odds of a good guess?

i start by picking one of a pair that i know will resolve a bunch of other pairs - for instance this time i started with the 89 pair in the middle box

When I guess, seems like the guess with legs is always the wrong one.

i haven't found that to be true for me, but i don't have any particular instinct about which way to go on a guess

keep track, though, because if you run into a conflict, you know the other guess is definitely correct

unless you've made an error in logic

It's probably a meaningless observation.

I theorize that if you're down to a choice of 2 numbers, choose the number that will eliminate more of that number in adjacent cells/boxes. Also, save yourself checkpoint work by making sure a guess is going to lead to multiple other cell solutions. Clear as mud??

all done

yeah, gman, i agree with you

I must have done something wrong, because my chain led to two solutions -- a rectangle of 14

I'm down to your 23 cells left.

whew got it -- I recommend the 1/5 pair in the middle box for solving the chains

I'm going to try the 4,3 at lower left.

Go it.

whoo

i don't get this angst over using greens? my memory is appalling, i can't remember every pair i uncover so i click in the greens for those squares. is that such a bad thing??!!

ata... that's fine. it's like using the list. you know.

so ... what else do people do with them? oh - autofilling etc?

hmm, oh, yes, i am rather disdainful of the auto-green programs...

disdainful should be my middle name...

why am i such a snob???

me too. they take away the fun

Mrs L. Disdain

might as well have high standards!

uhoh sily wants to help play

it's my parents' fault.

play, sily, play!

noooooo last time she tried to play she entered 9s in every square, more or less

never seen so much pink flashing around

oh, i didn't see the word "help" before.

i just thought she wanted to play. not sudoku.

loooool yeah, she can go play! shoo! go play!

she's sure she can do anything I can

anything you can do, i can do better...

wonderful competing with a kitten *sigh*

don't bother trying, you'll never win

dont we all know it!

did you see me say on babble, i have an appointment with a local temp agency next week.

oh coooool! no, I've been concentrating on this for once. dont like the grid on babble today!

really? grid seemed fine to me.

oh its fine, I just don't like it. I dont like the words its producing. its not as satisfying as other grids!

i need another week or two, though, to find out a key piece of information that will determine whether i want to look for a job west of here or one northeast of here...

you have time

yes. but it's hard because some ads are like "immediate opening", so then i'm like, should i apply, or not, cause i'm not ready to take something until i find out that info.

it usually takes a couple weeks to go through the process of interviewing and stuff anyway

well if you can't start immediately ....

"immediate opening" just means that it's not like three months away

oh well ignore me then :)

I always assumed they meant starting immediately!

lol

i am very much looking forward to finding out that info so i have a better idea where to apply, though.

i think it means more like "immediately after we get 20 people in HR as well as several unrelated vice presidents to sign off on this"

not if it is a small office...

that has been looking for someone for at least a month...

hi all

come to visit my space http://orsetta87na.spaces.live.com/

write me a comment if you like it

and see, i'm in the boonies, so a lot of things i'm looking at are loooong commutes, and i don't want to bother interviewing and all that so far away if it's the wrong direction far away.

is orsetta a bot?

I'm waiting for all you

what' s a bot?

a script that posts the same thing over and over again

yay! an expert

oh maybe you're right but I love to receive comments from people of other countries

i think most people probably assumed you were a spammer, no offense

lol

oh my god no I'm an Italian girl

and I have never met a spammer in my internet experience

you must lead a sheltered internet life.

OK, I just figured out how to solve this without using a force (guess) after having 33 filled in. There is a site called BrainBashers.com with explanations for many techniques. There is one on there called "swordfish" (no, I'm not making this up) that allowed me to eliminate several 4's. Maybe someone else has a better way, but this worked for me.

oh hell.

Just for the heck of it I went to Orsetta's site. She is a pretty 19 year old Italian girl from Napoli. Maybe that is what we call Naples? The site appears to be in Italian, so I can't tell you much else.

Thanks for the tip. I never look for those except in dire circumstances, but I solved it right away when I started to get stuck.

yes, that's Naples

Orange - You're welcome. I've never seen that before, but it sure worked for me.

I'll try anything to keep from guessing.....

Knowing which technique to use is often all the help one needs :)

Well I guess I can't say that, but it's often all the help I need.

I know several of the ugly techniques, but having to employ them is so rare that I don't automatically "see" them when I'm searching a puzzle.

Done! Medium hard. Used greenies and only one guess.

I think the reason is was an expert and not a medium was because of the technique required to solve it without guessing.

It was rather easy other than that.

And probably had the same effect, since the swordfish only eliminated one candidate from one paired cell (though that did solve the puzzle).

Wow, I just tried that "swordfish" technique after filling in33 only with 7's. I elliminated 1 7 and the rest of the puzzle was easy. Tks spread.

Yep, the 7 goes on to solve the swordfish chain.

Glad to help.

Go

WHAT????? That was no expert.

That was easier than half the easy ones nowadays.

you must have made a right guess

No guesses

just greens

I'm very surprised.

nvm. I've had a breakthrough

had to make a guess..... wrong. I claim mulligan.

whahooo 5 expert points... thank you very much!

has anyone solved without green? i'm down to 23 squares but i appear to be stuck. and i've never solved an expert without the green. trying to hold out...

You need to use green unless you want to force the puzzle.

darn

ok, thanks

There's a system of remote locked pairs that allow a logical isolation of one cell that opens the puzzle.

sounds fancy

:) yeah. i bet there's someone who could hold it all in their head, but that's not me.

Kind of icky, actually.

i just got down to 23 myself

welcome

i'm saving this for later, got stuff to do

after that it apparently gets gross

Look at the chat log, about one page up from the bottom.

yeah, i'm reading up on my swordfish. :)

it's easier than it looks.

Here goes - I'll have to look up that swordfish thing I bet, but am trying without it, maybe I know the strat without the name

ehehe

the swordfish is a more complicated version of something most people do without thinking about.

Seems it. I'm liberally using greens (and trying not to feel bad about it, hehe) but I seem to be making slow, steady progress.

37 squares left, starting to get stuck -- someday I'll be better at this. :D I'm not paid either, so, no checkpoints to make guesses

It's good not to guess then :)

The swordfish uses the 4's.

Having read more on it, yeah, I do swordfish already, just didn't know it had a name. :)

Well it's basically using locked pairs, the only difference is it uses several of them at once.

I'm down to 23, which seemed to be what people said was the sticking point. :D Digging around now for some sort of swordfish-y solution with the 4s

Well, I applied the swordfish thing, although it seems awfully fishy (no pun intended), and it seems to have worked, because that broke the whole puzzle open and the rest fell into place.

wow i see lots of crazy talk

what did i miss?

hi joel... what's up these days?

who are you?

Mark - I went to high school w/ you

webmasters

i'm sorry, my memory is failing me. wanna aim me? same username

sure... i'll have to get aim :)

this puzzle is killing me. i believe i understand x-wing and swordfish, but i'm not seeing how to apply it here. maybe i just haven't eliminated enough yet...

forget it. i just guessed

i'm outta here. i'll be on AIM, mark

not that bad with greens

go

done

Chewy piece of pie . .

Well, the adjective "green" would apply to anything of that particular color.

In this case, green numbers.

System, if you hold down the shift key when you put a number in the box it will mark it up as a small green number.

you can do this when you want to make a note what a particular square *might* be

Hello, All. How is it?

Hello. Wasn't too bad today.

just peachy... tantalizing over this darn puzzle.

The answer is in the chat log.

Ah! I'd better read it, then!

I have no idea but I finally got it! This was really getting to me. At work I go as far as I can and then print 2 or 3 copies and play around with them until I get it. This was way too tough for this late in the evening.

It needs an ugly maneuver.

Though if you didn't guess for anything, you must have pulled it off.