I think I speak for many of us when I say that the reason we enjoyed the podcast was that, over the last X months, we've come to love yours and Mark's wit and charm regardless of the subject matter.
I never thought I'd hear Simon say "It's a bit sus, this" but he's correct, as usual. Another great puzzle today! I also learned about a new kind of swordfish. I might have to make a puzzle with one of these. . . .
Fun fact: "finned" is actually just a prefix that can apply to any fish - x-wing (2), swordfish (3), jellyfish (4), etc. Basically, the fish ONLY works on the squares that are seen by both the fin AND the swordfish - in the case of this puzzle, just the two squares that make up the 6 cage. Beautiful setting. There's also other fish variations but they're less common, more complicated and less powerful, and as a result I wouldn't be able to tell you how they work.
@@KyleBaran90 I agree with you. Often I open up the puzzle and just look at it, and then think of what I might do to tackle it. It's usually at that point that I just watch the video, and if I got as much as I already concluded up to that point right, I'm happy. That's for the variant puzzles. If it's a classic Sudoku, I battle it out until I get it, and, given enough time, I always seem to. For me, that's what I initially wanted most: to be good at regular Sudoku and to be able to solve any given sudoku in the newspaper handily. For me, the biggest leap in ability with those came when I learnt better how to recognise where digits are being limited in rows and columns (x-wings, etc) followed by recognising hidden triples and leveraging the implications. I'm still getting better and better, and far better than most of my friends. (Well, actually all of my friends, if we don't include any friends I made because I got into Sudoku.) I wish I had a better feel for "the truth current" and knowing that all my logical deductions up to a given point have been perfectly sound and that I can rely on them with certainty. For me, that's the trait that Simon has that I regard with the most envy. I wish I could do what he does, but not yet.
@@tadperry1817 I find regular sudoku to be "too boring" even if I can't solve the harder ones. I like the way that different rulesets interact. For example, knights and cages will give you a VERY different puzzle than knights and thermos, or thermos and cages. I do try to give myself an hour or so on a puzzle before watching the video, and if I don't have any digits or a decent number of pencilmarks, I'll watch the video. I've started grabbing a few puzzles off of Logic Masters, but I end up no better there, haha.
@@KyleBaran90 I can totally understand that. I used to give myself an hour like you do when the hard variants first showed up, but my success rate was so low, I gave up putting that much time Into it and scaled way back. I solved some of them, and it always felt great when I did, but it was disheartening when I couldn't. I want to be as good as Simon at classic Sudoku, and it took him years to get to where he is now, so I don't mind concentrating on them for the next several years until I get as far as he did. For me, I'm happy to just be able to help anyone having trouble with one out of a jam.
I find it a bit funny that it's not even worth mentioning the fact that there are no given digits anymore. The sudokus/puzzels have become so incredibly clever, it's a treat to have daily entertainment of this quality. Thanks CTC! Edit: Was the "No swimming" clue maybe a hint to the Finned Swordfish?
"The critical thing we need to look at is five... But it's complicated." That might be one of the most frightening sentences that I've heard this month.
@@Samish30 I cannot seem to find the making of vlog, only a playlist by his account.. maybe he did it as a livestream.🤔😅 If I refind it I will let you know 🙏
@@Samish30 it was a livestream on Discord indeed. I picked up a rumour Qodec will drop something like a making of soon at CtC ! We'll just have await the master I gues^^
This puzzle is aptly named Bahamas because in order to solve it, you have to island hop (which is something we do down here where we visit multiple islands in a single trip). Great puzzle
Simon and Mark, you two already do so much for us, but I'm imagining how amusing a Comment of the Day would be! I also love how Simon brought it up as if it were a long-time channel tradition lol
I worked with this video to solve it. I never knew about swordfish, so that step helped me a ton. I used the rest of the video to mostly check my answers, but I realised I accidentally put a 5 in R4C6, so I used your video to fix that. I also ended up studying swordfish methodologies. Got a bite to eat as well. And I ended up completing this puzzle within the span of about 6 hours.
tbh, i still dont get it. Makes no sense to me how he could place the 5 while having the 5 in box 9 unplaced. I don't understand why it was excluded from being placed in the 6 cage in box 5
10:05 The easier way to think about it is to ask whether the 6 cage can contain a 5. If you put 5 in, then you get an X-wing on 5's in rows 1 and 4. That will eliminate the 5's from r7c3 and r7c6 and it would be impossible to put 5 in row 7. Therefore, the 6 cage must be a 24 pair which gives us a 5 in r1c9.
The digits from the 6-cage in box 9 need to appear somewhere on row 7 as well and therefore must go in the two remaining open positions in box 7 and 8, which is a sort of swordfish as well. Now consider that you fill the 6-cage with a 1,5 pair then this must be copied onto r7c3,6 but it also eliminates 5 from column 9 in rows 1 and 4, resulting in an x-wing for 5s in r1,4c3,6 but there is already a 5 in those columns in row 7. Thus the 6-cage must be a 2,4 pair and you get the 5 in r1c9.
I have always struggled in seeing, understanding and using the Swordfish pattern, and I've been following the channel for about one year and a half (it has been one of the few good surprises of my 2020). When Simon said that he hasn't explained the swordfish pattern "not for two years" I was screaming "I know!" :D
I've seen some earlier videos with a swordfish or finned swordfish, and I can always understand them when you explain them. But I never think to look for them, and even if I do I'm not sure I could see them without a really strong hint (such as "look at the fives in these three rows"). I'll say that the rest of the puzzle was also pretty nice, the setter did an excellent job.
I really enjoy watching the crazy long and complicated solves you've been posting lately. The way the community has apparently rallied together to try and stump you has been fascinating. But I also love to watch the videos on core sudoku technique. Finned swordfish you say? I got it. Never heard of it before, probably won't ever see it again, but I got it. This was great.
You should try and solve (hand-set) classics. More advanced techniques such as swordfishes, y-wings, etc are much more common in classic sudokus. They're kind of frowned upon in variant sudokus actually, which is a shame if you ask me, because the combination allows for so much intricacy, as demonstrated beautifully by Qodec here (not to mention he managed to telegraph it so well that anyone who is familiar with finned swordfish would be able to find it, and even if people are just familiar with regular swordfish they might be able to figure out how the fin works).
46:14 When I came to this channel a year ago, my most frequent and irritating need-a-hint answer on classic sudoku apps was 'finned swordfish'. Today, I'm proud to have reeled it in without help... even spotted it without staring for 20 minutes!
47:49 for me, I felt that it was slow going for me. I struggled to see what the next steps were (or what square i should be looking at) and had the whole grid annotated pretty early on (before i had figured out 5 of the killer cages)
Thanks for explaining what a finned swordfish is. Now I understand the concept. I managed to work out the 5s without that fishy thing, but it took me quite a while. Very surprising, a unique solution with so few cages.
If anyone's interested in learning more about the "finned fish" concept, Philip Newman constructed an insanely difficult but also beautiful classic called "Chironex fleckeri" which I covered on my channel. It makes use of 3 overlapping finned jellyfish and then just gets harder from there! Definitely worth a look! (On my profile, look in the "How to solve featured puzzles" playlist, first video called "A brilliant use of Set Equivalence Theory!")
Simon, about doing more podcasts, I really like the idea and there's no reason to limit yourself just to Sudoku or even logic puzzles although you might want to change the title of the podcast to something like Talking with Cracking the Cryptic. I simply like listening to you guys and the way you express yourselves with humour and would not mind hearing your opinions on all kinds of topics. Maybe it's time to acknowledge that you've become minor celebrities and branch out. I'm sure it could be successful even if all you did was have conversations with each other.
This was a fun puzzle. Took about 2 hours and I am definitely one of the 99%. I almost lost hope dealing with the 11 cell and then I finally saw the 1/4 conflict. It actually brought me a little joy that Simon didn't see it the first time he tried placing the 6 in column 4 of the 11 cell. Of course he noticed about 30 seconds later vs. my 30 minutes.
So that's what that's called! I used a slightly more roundabout break-in by seeing that the 6 cage was either 15 or 24 to remove it from r4c9 (would leave no entry for r1c9) before placing the 5 in r1c9.
Finally did one of these sudokus on my own, I had to guess at the very end bc I didn't spot the way the 14 pair in the 5 cage above prevented the 614 arrangement for the 11-cage. Still, I somehow got the 5 as the first digit without the swordfish, or at least w/o thinking about the swordfish. Loved the puzzle, and enjoyed watching the video after.
Really lovely puzzle. I tried high/low colouring, and noted the positions of 5s, but missed the logic of the two two-cell cages in box 7, and didn't get the finned swordfish, so didn't manage to break in.
Let's see if the trick is "the secret"... Ehm... holy crap, no a winged swordfish. No chance I would spot something like that. On a good day an x wing, on very very good day a swordfish maybe, but...
See I didn't think to look for it either, but I did notice that the 5s weren't fitting into many places on those rows, and I sorta stumbled onto it by trying to see if 1-5 would work for the 6 cage at the bottom right and it just wouldn't!
I didn’t know about the finned swordfish itself. I said 5 couldn’t be in the bottom right cage because it would make a 5 x-wing in rows 4 and 1, leaving no place for 5 in row 7. I did solve it alone(although almost twice as long as you), but It’s interesting to notice the logic you’ve explained behind it.
On the subject of the podcast: I'd love if you make a RSS for it. Not many people use RSS feeds these days, but it's relatively simple to make and I, at least, would appreciate tremendously. Cheers, KCruz.
I did have a go on this one, probably tempted by the relatively short duration of the video, assuming that the puzzle was "approachable" (although the title indicated the opposite), somehow worked out the thing with the fives and that 6-cage in box 9 and managed to stumble through the whole grid. On watching the video afterwards I learned, that this thing I found was one of those sudoku-creatures that have a name: a finned swordfish - is there an encyclopedia with all these animals somewhere to be found?
Always nice to see standard Sudoku logic/techniques in variants, because while I tend to prefer variants there is some beautiful logic in standard Sudoku that just don't often spring up in variants. ...Using the term 'standard' loosely considering it started with a finned swordfish, mind...
A standard killer like this seems to be about as close as we get to regular sudoku these days from the channel, in terms of probability that some of the standard sudoku ‘tricks’ will show up somewhere.
For some reason thought I wasn't likely to solve this - perhaps I saw a reference to a swordfish, the sort of thing I never spot - but managed to crack it. Very neat.
I found the solution ... but I was nowhere NEAR solving this one. Took me over an hour (1:04:16), and I bifurcated the H*** out of this one. Just couldn't get a bead on what I was 'supposed' to do. Time to watch the video and see all that I missed. EDIT ... amazing. I missed how a 5 *had* to go into the 9-cage in c8; from there, I was able to figure everything else out. Were it not for that one oversight ...
I never heard of a fintailed swordfish before, but there was a 6/7/9 triple in box 6 that I was screaming at the monitor for a good while about! It makes me feel good that I can spot things that you miss sometimes (well, more occasionally than sometimes, to be fair). :)
This puzzle was really interesting and fun to solve. It took me an hour and a half to get my first digit and it wasn't the same digit that Simon got first. In total, just under two hours and ten minutes to solve but I didn't have to refer to the video. Yeah!
I got the finned swordfish blindingly fast, then spent literal hours on this trying to find the next move. The simple "where is 5 in column 8" did not occur to me without looking at the video
The link for the puzzle generates a pop up re cookies, yet provides no means of closing it or declining, legally you cannot force a user to accept cookies, so you really should give the option for them to decline. Come on gents bowl fair to the wicket.
"We thought that it was a fairly mad idea to have two people talk about Sudoku on a podcast..." Yes, about as mad of an idea as to record videos of people solving Sudokus. But boy does it work!!!
27:12 You can place a 2 at R3C5 because of the 2 in the 3rd box affecting and the 2-4 column restriction, that also would mean that the killer box in box 5 is a 3-6 pair which is just how I got there instead of your method. There is a weird saying in my language: "there are many ways to Rome" I kinda got that feeling about typing this whole message lmao
Much as I enjoyed the finned swordfish, wouldnt it have been much easier at that stage just to ask "can the 6 cage be 1,5?" and then realise that by doing this you put a 5 in r7c6 and then 2 5s in column 3 which breaks. Dont know whether this read is specific to this puzzle, or whether that is effectively what a finned swordfish arrives at in all grids, but it just seemed a lot easier logic to me.
I mean, it was nice learning about the sword fish, but that 5 in box 3 was a given by sudoku and killer cells logic. The 5-9 pair in box 7 was there for the taking...
With the 245 pencil mark in R1C9 and the restriction to 1245 in the 6 cage in box 9, could you logically make a case that what you have is a 245 triple, eliminating the possibility of a 1 in the 6 cage, thus eliminating the 5 from that cage and finding that 5 in R1C9 that way? I feel like it might be a lucky logic stretch in this case, but I can't figure out why you couldn't make that leap. As a result, the finned swordfish wouldn't be so overtly necessary.
Just a thought to help declutter things. The moment you can pin down any square as being "one of X digits" (i.e. center marks), immediately delete all corner markings in that cell.
I like that they keep corner and center marks in the same cell. Wish that the apps did the same. Now, when he gets a pair inside a box and leaves the redundant corner marks, that’s another thing
@@stephenbeck7222 You should be able to adjust the app settings to keep both mark types. As for deleting the corner marks, they're still useful when you've only isolated the center marks from one of two cells that a number goes into, since noticing that you've removed one is the prompt to go looking for the other one.
@@stephenbeck7222 Yes. I was referring to redundant marks. "These two must be a 1/4 pair (puts in center marks), so... (moves elsewhere, leaves a corner marked 1/4/5)" It just a housekeeping suggestion that helps declutter distracting data.
30m 19s for me. Ah... That's what it's called. I did find the strange combination, and I even manage to figure out what to do with it, but I had no idea it had a name! :D
I already do that. Not always, though, but when there is a good comment I write it like "Quote of the day: (…)". They sit somewhere in the depths of the comments.
"it's sus" "it's beautiful" "it's complicated" "what do we do now? We should cry"
Quite the whirlwind relationship you have with this puzzle!
The roller coaster of emotions
I think I speak for many of us when I say that the reason we enjoyed the podcast was that, over the last X months, we've come to love yours and Mark's wit and charm regardless of the subject matter.
Exactly!
16:05 "So, what should we do now? We should... cry." I laughed so hard in this part.
I thought to myself "way ahead of you, Simon!"
I never thought I'd hear Simon say "It's a bit sus, this" but he's correct, as usual. Another great puzzle today! I also learned about a new kind of swordfish. I might have to make a puzzle with one of these. . . .
Fun fact: "finned" is actually just a prefix that can apply to any fish - x-wing (2), swordfish (3), jellyfish (4), etc. Basically, the fish ONLY works on the squares that are seen by both the fin AND the swordfish - in the case of this puzzle, just the two squares that make up the 6 cage. Beautiful setting.
There's also other fish variations but they're less common, more complicated and less powerful, and as a result I wouldn't be able to tell you how they work.
When I see a short video I always think that I could probably do that then I realize that I actually couldn't .
I'm just happy when I figure out the break-in on the tough puzzles
That and 35 minutes for Simon is still a more difficult puzzle. He can do simple puzzles in 10 min or less.
@@KyleBaran90 I agree with you.
Often I open up the puzzle and just look at it, and then think of what I might do to tackle it.
It's usually at that point that I just watch the video, and if I got as much as I already concluded up to that point right, I'm happy.
That's for the variant puzzles.
If it's a classic Sudoku, I battle it out until I get it, and, given enough time, I always seem to.
For me, that's what I initially wanted most: to be good at regular Sudoku and to be able to solve any given sudoku in the newspaper handily.
For me, the biggest leap in ability with those came when I learnt better how to recognise where digits are being limited in rows and columns (x-wings, etc) followed by recognising hidden triples and leveraging the implications.
I'm still getting better and better, and far better than most of my friends. (Well, actually all of my friends, if we don't include any friends I made because I got into Sudoku.)
I wish I had a better feel for "the truth current" and knowing that all my logical deductions up to a given point have been perfectly sound and that I can rely on them with certainty.
For me, that's the trait that Simon has that I regard with the most envy.
I wish I could do what he does, but not yet.
@@tadperry1817 I find regular sudoku to be "too boring" even if I can't solve the harder ones. I like the way that different rulesets interact. For example, knights and cages will give you a VERY different puzzle than knights and thermos, or thermos and cages.
I do try to give myself an hour or so on a puzzle before watching the video, and if I don't have any digits or a decent number of pencilmarks, I'll watch the video. I've started grabbing a few puzzles off of Logic Masters, but I end up no better there, haha.
@@KyleBaran90 I can totally understand that.
I used to give myself an hour like you do when the hard variants first showed up, but my success rate was so low, I gave up putting that much time Into it and scaled way back.
I solved some of them, and it always felt great when I did, but it was disheartening when I couldn't.
I want to be as good as Simon at classic Sudoku, and it took him years to get to where he is now, so I don't mind concentrating on them for the next several years until I get as far as he did.
For me, I'm happy to just be able to help anyone having trouble with one out of a jam.
I find it a bit funny that it's not even worth mentioning the fact that there are no given digits anymore. The sudokus/puzzels have become so incredibly clever, it's a treat to have daily entertainment of this quality. Thanks CTC!
Edit: Was the "No swimming" clue maybe a hint to the Finned Swordfish?
Yep it definitely was!
I guess so. For me it was also true because that puzzle really didn't go swimmingly...
This one's a killer, and it's been customary right from the introduction of killer sudoku not to have any given numbers.
"The critical thing we need to look at is five... But it's complicated."
That might be one of the most frightening sentences that I've heard this month.
I thought the 14 domino bottom left with 5/9 in it meant the 5 was in top right.
Qodec’s setting is repeatedly and constantly astonishing, I’d love to see how one of his puzzles was built.
I do believe he himself has a channel where he recently gave a peek into his proces...🤔
@@liesjelualockse6377 I don’t find anything like that so if you happen to know how to find it I would be grateful :)
@@Samish30 I cannot seem to find the making of vlog, only a playlist by his account.. maybe he did it as a livestream.🤔😅 If I refind it I will let you know 🙏
@@Samish30 ruclips.net/p/PLCAgqIEtYj4crEImqPbtjmmY73yKgmpiJ
@@Samish30 it was a livestream on Discord indeed. I picked up a rumour Qodec will drop something like a making of soon at CtC ! We'll just have await the master I gues^^
“Comment of the day” sounds like a fun concept :)
Thank you for the birthday wish! Very nice surprise that made my day even better :)
- Chiel / bakpao
Happy Birthday and thanks for the catalog
Happy birthday, Chiel!
This puzzle is aptly named Bahamas because in order to solve it, you have to island hop (which is something we do down here where we visit multiple islands in a single trip). Great puzzle
Simon and Mark, you two already do so much for us, but I'm imagining how amusing a Comment of the Day would be!
I also love how Simon brought it up as if it were a long-time channel tradition lol
Heck, I'm just proud that I was able to identify a swordfish, even if I couldn't figure out what to do with that knowledge.
You're ahead of me :)
The sudoku secret is one of my favorite gags of all time, please never stop
I worked with this video to solve it. I never knew about swordfish, so that step helped me a ton. I used the rest of the video to mostly check my answers, but I realised I accidentally put a 5 in R4C6, so I used your video to fix that. I also ended up studying swordfish methodologies. Got a bite to eat as well. And I ended up completing this puzzle within the span of about 6 hours.
tbh, i still dont get it. Makes no sense to me how he could place the 5 while having the 5 in box 9 unplaced. I don't understand why it was excluded from being placed in the 6 cage in box 5
10:05 The easier way to think about it is to ask whether the 6 cage can contain a 5. If you put 5 in, then you get an X-wing on 5's in rows 1 and 4. That will eliminate the 5's from r7c3 and r7c6 and it would be impossible to put 5 in row 7. Therefore, the 6 cage must be a 24 pair which gives us a 5 in r1c9.
Easier way to get to the first digit: (spoiler)
The digits from the 6-cage in box 9 need to appear somewhere on row 7 as well and therefore must go in the two remaining open positions in box 7 and 8, which is a sort of swordfish as well. Now consider that you fill the 6-cage with a 1,5 pair then this must be copied onto r7c3,6 but it also eliminates 5 from column 9 in rows 1 and 4, resulting in an x-wing for 5s in r1,4c3,6 but there is already a 5 in those columns in row 7. Thus the 6-cage must be a 2,4 pair and you get the 5 in r1c9.
Yep, that was how I got it, too. The swordfish is quite clever, but this is much more straightforward.
I continue to be amazed at the way Simon so easily spots these complicated things.
"And now we've unwound that putative swordfish." If I had a nickel for every time I had heard that...
I would be five cents richer.
Wow, thanks for the shoutout! It was a pleasant surprise. :)
I have always struggled in seeing, understanding and using the Swordfish pattern, and I've been following the channel for about one year and a half (it has been one of the few good surprises of my 2020). When Simon said that he hasn't explained the swordfish pattern "not for two years" I was screaming "I know!" :D
Not sure how many of these I've watched but the "secret" of sudoku always blows my mind.
I actually noticed the anomally with the 5, but I am ABSOLUTELY a member of the 99%. My goodness.
20:38
The pseudofish to get the first digit was a beautiful thing once I stopped doubting myself😂
Brilliant puzzle.
I've seen some earlier videos with a swordfish or finned swordfish, and I can always understand them when you explain them. But I never think to look for them, and even if I do I'm not sure I could see them without a really strong hint (such as "look at the fives in these three rows"). I'll say that the rest of the puzzle was also pretty nice, the setter did an excellent job.
I really enjoy watching the crazy long and complicated solves you've been posting lately. The way the community has apparently rallied together to try and stump you has been fascinating.
But I also love to watch the videos on core sudoku technique. Finned swordfish you say? I got it. Never heard of it before, probably won't ever see it again, but I got it.
This was great.
You should try and solve (hand-set) classics. More advanced techniques such as swordfishes, y-wings, etc are much more common in classic sudokus. They're kind of frowned upon in variant sudokus actually, which is a shame if you ask me, because the combination allows for so much intricacy, as demonstrated beautifully by Qodec here (not to mention he managed to telegraph it so well that anyone who is familiar with finned swordfish would be able to find it, and even if people are just familiar with regular swordfish they might be able to figure out how the fin works).
the finned swordfish: "fives but it's complicated"
46:14 When I came to this channel a year ago, my most frequent and irritating need-a-hint answer on classic sudoku apps was 'finned swordfish'. Today, I'm proud to have reeled it in without help... even spotted it without staring for 20 minutes!
Got the first digit in the same way as Simon, then spent ages splashing around with minor discoveries before giving up and watching the video :D
47:49 for me, I felt that it was slow going for me. I struggled to see what the next steps were (or what square i should be looking at) and had the whole grid annotated pretty early on (before i had figured out 5 of the killer cages)
Nice solve by Simon. This puzzle was at least as hard as some of the hour plus videos lately.
Thanks for explaining what a finned swordfish is. Now I understand the concept. I managed to work out the 5s without that fishy thing, but it took me quite a while. Very surprising, a unique solution with so few cages.
What a gifted setter!" Incredible how it held up for so long. Also nice solve, Simon!
If anyone's interested in learning more about the "finned fish" concept, Philip Newman constructed an insanely difficult but also beautiful classic called "Chironex fleckeri" which I covered on my channel.
It makes use of 3 overlapping finned jellyfish and then just gets harder from there! Definitely worth a look! (On my profile, look in the "How to solve featured puzzles" playlist, first video called "A brilliant use of Set Equivalence Theory!")
28:37. A nice smooth solve. I never got stuck for more than a minute, which is pretty rare for me on these.
Simon, about doing more podcasts, I really like the idea and there's no reason to limit yourself just to Sudoku or even logic puzzles although you might want to change the title of the podcast to something like Talking with Cracking the Cryptic. I simply like listening to you guys and the way you express yourselves with humour and would not mind hearing your opinions on all kinds of topics. Maybe it's time to acknowledge that you've become minor celebrities and branch out. I'm sure it could be successful even if all you did was have conversations with each other.
8:18 when the sudoku is sus 😳
Looking for an "Among Us Sudoku" version
Hearing SImon say "sus" gave me a very visceral reaction
@@thefallenarm589 ruclips.net/video/6lwzb9E9E2E/видео.html
Best time of the day.
29:15 finish. Complicated is right. But fun as always!
Rules: 3:31
Let's get cracking: 4:05
This was a fun puzzle. Took about 2 hours and I am definitely one of the 99%. I almost lost hope dealing with the 11 cell and then I finally saw the 1/4 conflict. It actually brought me a little joy that Simon didn't see it the first time he tried placing the 6 in column 4 of the 11 cell. Of course he noticed about 30 seconds later vs. my 30 minutes.
Got it at 31:43. I figured the last thing I needed was the 11 cage. Simon figured out what I needed a minute later.
He-man voice: BY THE POWER OF SUBTRACTION
So that's what that's called! I used a slightly more roundabout break-in by seeing that the 6 cage was either 15 or 24 to remove it from r4c9 (would leave no entry for r1c9) before placing the 5 in r1c9.
Finally did one of these sudokus on my own, I had to guess at the very end bc I didn't spot the way the 14 pair in the 5 cage above prevented the 614 arrangement for the 11-cage. Still, I somehow got the 5 as the first digit without the swordfish, or at least w/o thinking about the swordfish. Loved the puzzle, and enjoyed watching the video after.
Another brilliant puzzle by Qodec! Would love to see a constructor video by him/her.
Really lovely puzzle. I tried high/low colouring, and noted the positions of 5s, but missed the logic of the two two-cell cages in box 7, and didn't get the finned swordfish, so didn't manage to break in.
I feel like I just went on a bahamas cruise around the islands. thanks for a lovely puzzle
Loves sharpie Simon. Amazing. Love the sword fish 5 analisys
It's interesting that on some days, Simon trusts his pencil marks, and on other days, he largely ignores them.
I really do love these videos :)
29:52 the 5 start was kinda obvious. It just smelled of some fish or wing. When dealing with 5&10 cages or V&X, always look at the 5s.
Let's see if the trick is "the secret"...
Ehm... holy crap, no a winged swordfish. No chance I would spot something like that. On a good day an x wing, on very very good day a swordfish maybe, but...
See I didn't think to look for it either, but I did notice that the 5s weren't fitting into many places on those rows, and I sorta stumbled onto it by trying to see if 1-5 would work for the 6 cage at the bottom right and it just wouldn't!
I didn’t know about the finned swordfish itself. I said 5 couldn’t be in the bottom right cage because it would make a 5 x-wing in rows 4 and 1, leaving no place for 5 in row 7. I did solve it alone(although almost twice as long as you), but It’s interesting to notice the logic you’ve explained behind it.
I really hope Simon sticks with the blue outline. It's much more pleasant to look at for some reason
On the subject of the podcast: I'd love if you make a RSS for it. Not many people use RSS feeds these days, but it's relatively simple to make and I, at least, would appreciate tremendously. Cheers, KCruz.
Good call! We'll definitely do that :)
I did have a go on this one, probably tempted by the relatively short duration of the video, assuming that the puzzle was "approachable" (although the title indicated the opposite), somehow worked out the thing with the fives and that 6-cage in box 9 and managed to stumble through the whole grid. On watching the video afterwards I learned, that this thing I found was one of those sudoku-creatures that have a name: a finned swordfish - is there an encyclopedia with all these animals somewhere to be found?
Amazing construction! Amazing solve!
Mad respect to Simon for explaining a finned swordfish, not an easy concept.
I sincerely hope the "No swimming!" rule turns out to be really important.
i choose to belive it's a hint about the swordfish lol
Don't go swimming because there are swordfish in those waters, only one though.
Always nice to see standard Sudoku logic/techniques in variants, because while I tend to prefer variants there is some beautiful logic in standard Sudoku that just don't often spring up in variants.
...Using the term 'standard' loosely considering it started with a finned swordfish, mind...
A standard killer like this seems to be about as close as we get to regular sudoku these days from the channel, in terms of probability that some of the standard sudoku ‘tricks’ will show up somewhere.
For some reason thought I wasn't likely to solve this - perhaps I saw a reference to a swordfish, the sort of thing I never spot - but managed to crack it. Very neat.
You guys need a shirt that says “Do you know the secret?” On the back. I would wear that everywhere!!!
The answer to life, the universe and everything is not, after all, 42.... Deep Thought was wrong!
I would too.
I found the solution ... but I was nowhere NEAR solving this one.
Took me over an hour (1:04:16), and I bifurcated the H*** out of this one. Just couldn't get a bead on what I was 'supposed' to do. Time to watch the video and see all that I missed.
EDIT ... amazing. I missed how a 5 *had* to go into the 9-cage in c8; from there, I was able to figure everything else out. Were it not for that one oversight ...
I'm too stupid to figure it out, but smart enough to go on RUclips and watch it.
I think the no swimming was a clue to the swordfish in the water!
10/10 voice. grandson out like a light in minutes :)
I love seeing old school techniques using variants logic
I never heard of a fintailed swordfish before, but there was a 6/7/9 triple in box 6 that I was screaming at the monitor for a good while about! It makes me feel good that I can spot things that you miss sometimes (well, more occasionally than sometimes, to be fair). :)
This puzzle was really interesting and fun to solve. It took me an hour and a half to get my first digit and it wasn't the same digit that Simon got first. In total, just under two hours and ten minutes to solve but I didn't have to refer to the video. Yeah!
Beautiful puzzle today!
Brilliant puzzle! I would never have solved this due to the swordfish with 5s!
What a pleasant solve to watch!
Just an amazing spot with the finned swordfish!
Im getting better, I needed help with the finned swordfish, but before and after that I was able to get through this one :)
I got the finned swordfish blindingly fast, then spent literal hours on this trying to find the next move. The simple "where is 5 in column 8" did not occur to me without looking at the video
@19:46 "Has it finished the puzzle?" *4 digits in the grid*
The link for the puzzle generates a pop up re cookies, yet provides no means of closing it or declining, legally you cannot force a user to accept cookies, so you really should give the option for them to decline. Come on gents bowl fair to the wicket.
I suspect “No swimming” is a hint for searching for the swordfish
No swimming because there are sharks in the water, or more accurately "finned swordfish".
9:21 yup. 5 can only appear once per row.
I don't want to sound bad, but I use a lot of your videos to sleep because your voice is too relaxing and smooth 🤤
I do too. Old ones that I've seen before. Very soothing!
I found this to be an elegant and beautiful puzzle, but not too hard if you’re careful. A perfect combination!
:-D
29:38 - Simon didn't trust (or seemingly even notice) his pencil mark in box 6.
"We thought that it was a fairly mad idea to have two people talk about Sudoku on a podcast..." Yes, about as mad of an idea as to record videos of people solving Sudokus. But boy does it work!!!
27:12 You can place a 2 at R3C5 because of the 2 in the 3rd box affecting and the 2-4 column restriction, that also would mean that the killer box in box 5 is a 3-6 pair which is just how I got there instead of your method. There is a weird saying in my language: "there are many ways to Rome" I kinda got that feeling about typing this whole message lmao
Much as I enjoyed the finned swordfish, wouldnt it have been much easier at that stage just to ask "can the 6 cage be 1,5?" and then realise that by doing this you put a 5 in r7c6 and then 2 5s in column 3 which breaks. Dont know whether this read is specific to this puzzle, or whether that is effectively what a finned swordfish arrives at in all grids, but it just seemed a lot easier logic to me.
25:50 We can hear a cat, and would love to meet them!
We've heard this cat before. C'mon, Simon, give Puss a cameo!
Maybe that's TotallyNormalCat, with tomorrow's puzzle.
Is the swordfish unique to killer cages?
I mean, it was nice learning about the sword fish, but that 5 in box 3 was a given by sudoku and killer cells logic. The 5-9 pair in box 7 was there for the taking...
wrong twice including a deadly triple so I knew it was wrong. Would help if I could count up to 9! Got it on the third attempt.
With the 245 pencil mark in R1C9 and the restriction to 1245 in the 6 cage in box 9, could you logically make a case that what you have is a 245 triple, eliminating the possibility of a 1 in the 6 cage, thus eliminating the 5 from that cage and finding that 5 in R1C9 that way? I feel like it might be a lucky logic stretch in this case, but I can't figure out why you couldn't make that leap. As a result, the finned swordfish wouldn't be so overtly necessary.
I thought after a year I heard about most of the tricks, but this is one weirdly mutated swordfish
Just a thought to help declutter things. The moment you can pin down any square as being "one of X digits" (i.e. center marks), immediately delete all corner markings in that cell.
I like that they keep corner and center marks in the same cell. Wish that the apps did the same. Now, when he gets a pair inside a box and leaves the redundant corner marks, that’s another thing
@@stephenbeck7222 You should be able to adjust the app settings to keep both mark types.
As for deleting the corner marks, they're still useful when you've only isolated the center marks from one of two cells that a number goes into, since noticing that you've removed one is the prompt to go looking for the other one.
@@stephenbeck7222 Yes. I was referring to redundant marks. "These two must be a 1/4 pair (puts in center marks), so... (moves elsewhere, leaves a corner marked 1/4/5)"
It just a housekeeping suggestion that helps declutter distracting data.
Whenever you say "Sorry, I am bit stuck" I feel like the tears drop down my cheeks :(. I would not even post 1 single digit within this.
I didn't spot the finned swordfish - but I did spot what the 6 cage did to row 7 of the grid, so I got there in the end!
30m 19s for me. Ah... That's what it's called. I did find the strange combination, and I even manage to figure out what to do with it, but I had no idea it had a name! :D
"Comment of the day" should be a thing.
Only when there's one worth highlighting
I already do that. Not always, though, but when there is a good comment I write it like "Quote of the day: (…)". They sit somewhere in the depths of the comments.
@@mightworth3735 Thanks! I'll do more scrolling and look for them going forward. Hopefully the CTC will notice them as well.
No swimming! Dangerous finned swordfish spotted in these waters.
That was lovely to solve! :))
So close to cooking with gas, but left just huffing fumes.