Join the Smartie Party now 🥳to get EXCLUSIVE reward puzzle packs, ad free content, discord access, and so much more👉👉www.buymeacoffee.com/timberlakeB/membership Timestamps 0:00 Intro 00:24 It’s Solving Time 00:52 Puzzle Story 01:36 Step #1 09:22 Step #2 13:01 Step #3 19:19 Step #4 25:37 Step #5
An easier way to see step 3 is to notice that the 3rd low digit in row 6 and column 7 both have to be in box 6, so you can find the remote triple by just colouring starting from that box. Then if you don't remove the colouring, you can find a yellow-8 pair in boxes 6 and 7 that only works if yellow is a 3 due to the restriction on 8s, instead of doing the analysis again with x wings. Nice puzzle. I needed a few hints to get through it, particularly step 1 since I've never seen that pattern before.
I gave this puzzle a shot, even after reading the "strategies demonstrated in this video' list. My setup was very good; I filled in the blocks needed for the oddagon. But I couldn't figure it out because the 8,9&6 in block 5 were in the cells that I needed. I lost interest at the next step though (and after spending an hour), when a magic birdie tells us to fill in column 7 and block 6.
Hi Brad. This puzzle was a doozy. Glad to hear that you recognized the Trivalue Oddagon in the beginning, and that a little birdie was able to help you 😎
Every step was hard.. Ha! You used so many strategies to solve it. 🧐 Thanks for the solve, I enjoyed watching your video. 😎 And thanks for the donate!! You are a smart and kind person!!! 🤗☺
I *think* that it took less than six hours to do the puzzle; I'm not sure. I began by placing digits greater than 3 in block 1, and cornermarking them in block 5. Of course, I saw the threat of the 123 topological loop, and worked to show that in block 5, two of 123 had to be in the same column or row. I also saw 1238 in row 7: 123 in block 8 limited 123 to one per column in block 5, and unambiguously broke the puzzle. That gave me 3 in block 9 and 8 in block 8. The same thing forced a 123 in R1C7, block 3. Then came the digestive part of the problem. I placed A, B, and C in block 1 for 123. I immediately made an unwarranted assumption about block 4 and possibly block 2, and went a long ways before everything I tried crashed. Then I backtracked almost to the beginning and realized my mistake. I put the proper AB, AC, BC in blocks 2 and 4 and also created another set of letters, D, E, and F. I wound up progressing toward the combination C, D, and the digit in R1C7 which I labelled O -- while keeping the others as labels. It didn't confuse me as much as it should have. Block 5 column 4 gave me this interesting logic: if R5C4 is 7 and R6C4 isn't 4, it led to one digit (4, 5, 7) in each row and column, leading to the broken 123 loop. If R5C4 is 123 and R6C4 isn't 4, it led to a quad of 123s in column 4. Therefore, R6C4 had to be 4. Similar logic led to R6C5 being 5. 15:10 This led to yellow and purple being different. Yellow was my O, the cell above purple was C, and D was next to it. I had an 8O pair in row 6 block 6, so purple couldn't be C or O -- it had to be D and blue had to be C. 21:20 I only resolved the 8s when I changed O to 3: the 83 was above the 3. 22:00 The O8 pair which became 38 immediately forced green to be 3. Defining R1C7 to be O immediately broke up any X-wing involving that cell. 24:50 I filled that square in block 3 far earlier: two versions, in fact. I centermarked ABC along with the 7 and 9s, and cornermarked DEF. I whittled it down to a 79CD square, and that led me to define R1C7 as O -- and motivated me into using CDO. 27:00 I finished by bifurcating on a 67 cell. The centermarked choice collided, so the cornermarks were correct.
John, I am impressed. You hit upon many of the same steps I used. Congrats on solving one of the world’s hardest Sudokus on your own. Thanks for sharing your process.
@@SmartHobbies Thank you! I suppose that if one didn't recognize the 123 threat -- well, with the first puzzle there, being unaware led to a ghastly experience. It probably would have happened here. One had to recognize the 123 threat and recognize how to avoid it in order to progress. I've advocated letters for a long time, and I used them here. I suspected that I was taking my life in my hands, and utterly convoluting the grid when I decided on two sets of letters for 123. But it seemed to work out.
It was a little under 3 hours. I know you'll aak about strategy used so I've put some thought into this answer. I filled in box 1 (minus 123) and recognized the oddagon problem. I reasoned that the 123's must be offset so I set about disproving 123 in row 7/box 8. After that it was just a hard slog of trial and error eliminating best wrong guesses until one of them turned out to be right. By that point I had enough. I usually set about showing that it's a unique solution but it's late, I'm tired, and I trust you. I'll watch the actual solution tomorrow. I look forward to learning from it.
I am impressed with your diligence, Grant. Thank you for sharing your experience. This is not an easy puzzle and requires several difficult steps to complete. Please let me know how the rest of it goes and what you learned from the video. 👍
I just watched this video along with all of your extreme puzzle videos, and none of them are as hard as the ones in my new book not one puzzle has an obvious answer and all of these have at least three or four right off the bat. I can’t even get that far. Is there any way that I could send you a few shots of these that you could maybe help me get started I’ve tried doing patterns. There’s no obvious patterns that I can find most of these I’m watching I can solve just by looking .this book it’s got me stumped. I don’t have readdit or was I able to use it? Is there any other way I could send you a few shots of these puzzles? I’m desperate thank you
Hello Timberlake. Great to view your extreme puzzles, thank you so much, but I got confuse by your first explanation because before listening to you I tried to solve the puzzle and filled (pencil and paper) all the cells. I of course noticed immediately the pattern 123 and thought of the trivalue oddagon but noticed that with the 896 in block 5 it was not going to be as easy as thought. Now your explanation assuming that you must absolutly keep the triplet 123 in columm 6 is not clear at all. Why not have one different digit in each column block 5 ? It works having 4 R6C4 and 7 R4C5 and 5 R5C6 ... ?? Thank you so much in advance for your highly expected answer.
Great question Francoise, and great to hear from you. The issue arises when you compare what is going on in Block 5 to Row 7. In block 5, due to the trivalue oddagon, we cannot have 4,5,7 each in a different row and column in the block. So, at least 2 of those values have (45,47,or 57) have to be in the same column, which will leave one of the columns in Block 5 empty of those 3 values. Column 6 is the only column possible where you could have none of those values present, due to possible candidates in row 7. Hope that helps.
Thank you so much Timberlake, I shall do it again trying to remember your rules and ways for solving it. I appreciate really very much. Take care . Best regards. Françoise
Nice trick, but the explanation is hard to follow. Basic principle: do not remove colors until they become useless. If you do so, the explanation of 7 in box five is quite simple, so is the three 123 in column 7, etc.
Thank you for the feedback. I appreciate it and will work to simplify my explanations on future videos. Have you ever tried to solve extreme puzzles before?
Great question. I noticed a pattern with the 123 in blocks 1,2, and 4 that looked like Trivalue Oddagon, which got me to look in block 5 and see what the restrictions were. I featured 2 puzzles recently with similar patterns, Loki and Tridragon.
I was utterly lost with the first (Loki) puzzle until I saw the solution. That pattern was memorable, and I spotted it with the second puzzle. So once I placed the digits in block 1, the issue jumped out at me in block 5.
Hi Jon. A few months ago, I would have had no idea what to do with this puzzle. But after solving Loki and Tridragon, I saw some patterns I could work with. How are you doing?
@ all good Timberlake. Very busy time of the year as we head to year end! I am still considering getting over to Boston for sudokucon but it’s a long way to come! All good your side?
Dude your explanations are meandering and unclear. You're grasping in real time for words to explain what you're trying to say, which indicates to me that you're not well-prepared and/or not clear in your own mind what you are doing.
I appreciate your feedback. I am working to provide clearer explanations to these puzzles as I show you how to solve them. Are there any particular strategies that you would like to learn more about?
@@SmartHobbies I really appreciate the kind tone of your response. You words are gracious and understanding, and I feel a little bad about the harshness of my criticism, although I don't feel bad about being very clear and direct. The biggest issue, for me, is not hearing you explain your reasoning process, when making decisions. You'll say something like "now look at the 6's" or "now look at column 5" without any explanation whatsoever about WHY we should pay attention to those particular aspects, in preference to all the other possible aspects we might explore. Why is it, for example, that in some situation we should first look for X-wings, in preference to looking for some other feature, or trying some other tactic? As less experienced solvers, we do yet not have the same level of instincts and intuitions (and perhaps innate talents) that help you optimize your selection of "best next step to try". We're all trying to grok a "decision tree" for solving puzzles... a mental representation of which features or aspects of the puzzle to consider next, to yield the most fruitful path(s) of progress. It's very difficult to ever be "too clear" in communication. And yes, I would like to learn more about this: When we are stuck with no more trivial solves, and we are stuck facing a hard puzzle situation, how do we 'classify' the puzzle at that point so that we have some hint as to what next approach is probably most useful for that type of 'stuckness'. Essentially, take advantage of opportunities to say more about your instincts and intuitions, when facing a hard situation. As a VERY novice and inexperienced solver, that's the best question I can ask, right now. Again, thanks for your open response. I hope my input here helps in your process of improving your effectiveness as a teacher, and sudoku community influencer. Best wishes.
@@davidrichards1302 You are welcome. I believe I understand some of your frustration, and you hit on something that I do want to accomplish with this channel. I want to show you the viewer not just what to do, but why, and how you can discover these solving paths and strategies in your own solving. I'll make a note of this and see how I can better incorporate this into my videos.
Join the Smartie Party now 🥳to get EXCLUSIVE reward puzzle packs, ad free content, discord access, and so much more👉👉www.buymeacoffee.com/timberlakeB/membership
Timestamps
0:00 Intro
00:24 It’s Solving Time
00:52 Puzzle Story
01:36 Step #1
09:22 Step #2
13:01 Step #3
19:19 Step #4
25:37 Step #5
Took me an hour, but I completed it via logic and tenacity only, and I feel pretty pleased!
Wow Paula. That is awesome. Great job. 👏
An easier way to see step 3 is to notice that the 3rd low digit in row 6 and column 7 both have to be in box 6, so you can find the remote triple by just colouring starting from that box.
Then if you don't remove the colouring, you can find a yellow-8 pair in boxes 6 and 7 that only works if yellow is a 3 due to the restriction on 8s, instead of doing the analysis again with x wings.
Nice puzzle. I needed a few hints to get through it, particularly step 1 since I've never seen that pattern before.
I like the way you simplified the logic. Thank you for sharing! 😀
It's really difficult, Thank you teacher.
My pleasure to bring this to you. Have you ever heard of these strategies before?
@@SmartHobbies Some techniques, I saw here first 😊
I gave this puzzle a shot, even after reading the "strategies demonstrated in this video' list. My setup was very good; I filled in the blocks needed for the oddagon. But I couldn't figure it out because the 8,9&6 in block 5 were in the cells that I needed. I lost interest at the next step though (and after spending an hour), when a magic birdie tells us to fill in column 7 and block 6.
Hi Brad. This puzzle was a doozy. Glad to hear that you recognized the Trivalue Oddagon in the beginning, and that a little birdie was able to help you 😎
Every step was hard.. Ha!
You used so many strategies to solve it. 🧐
Thanks for the solve, I enjoyed watching your video. 😎
And thanks for the donate!! You are a smart and kind person!!! 🤗☺
Glad you liked it Ana.
I started donating to AIM as another way to do some good in this 🌎.
I *think* that it took less than six hours to do the puzzle; I'm not sure. I began by placing digits greater than 3 in block 1, and cornermarking them in block 5. Of course, I saw the threat of the 123 topological loop, and worked to show that in block 5, two of 123 had to be in the same column or row. I also saw 1238 in row 7: 123 in block 8 limited 123 to one per column in block 5, and unambiguously broke the puzzle. That gave me 3 in block 9 and 8 in block 8. The same thing forced a 123 in R1C7, block 3.
Then came the digestive part of the problem. I placed A, B, and C in block 1 for 123. I immediately made an unwarranted assumption about block 4 and possibly block 2, and went a long ways before everything I tried crashed. Then I backtracked almost to the beginning and realized my mistake. I put the proper AB, AC, BC in blocks 2 and 4 and also created another set of letters, D, E, and F. I wound up progressing toward the combination C, D, and the digit in R1C7 which I labelled O -- while keeping the others as labels. It didn't confuse me as much as it should have.
Block 5 column 4 gave me this interesting logic: if R5C4 is 7 and R6C4 isn't 4, it led to one digit (4, 5, 7) in each row and column, leading to the broken 123 loop. If R5C4 is 123 and R6C4 isn't 4, it led to a quad of 123s in column 4. Therefore, R6C4 had to be 4. Similar logic led to R6C5 being 5.
15:10 This led to yellow and purple being different. Yellow was my O, the cell above purple was C, and D was next to it. I had an 8O pair in row 6 block 6, so purple couldn't be C or O -- it had to be D and blue had to be C.
21:20 I only resolved the 8s when I changed O to 3: the 83 was above the 3.
22:00 The O8 pair which became 38 immediately forced green to be 3. Defining R1C7 to be O immediately broke up any X-wing involving that cell.
24:50 I filled that square in block 3 far earlier: two versions, in fact. I centermarked ABC along with the 7 and 9s, and cornermarked DEF. I whittled it down to a 79CD square, and that led me to define R1C7 as O -- and motivated me into using CDO.
27:00 I finished by bifurcating on a 67 cell. The centermarked choice collided, so the cornermarks were correct.
John, I am impressed. You hit upon many of the same steps I used. Congrats on solving one of the world’s hardest Sudokus on your own. Thanks for sharing your process.
@@SmartHobbies Thank you! I suppose that if one didn't recognize the 123 threat -- well, with the first puzzle there, being unaware led to a ghastly experience. It probably would have happened here.
One had to recognize the 123 threat and recognize how to avoid it in order to progress.
I've advocated letters for a long time, and I used them here. I suspected that I was taking my life in my hands, and utterly convoluting the grid when I decided on two sets of letters for 123. But it seemed to work out.
It was a little under 3 hours. I know you'll aak about strategy used so I've put some thought into this answer.
I filled in box 1 (minus 123) and recognized the oddagon problem. I reasoned that the 123's must be offset so I set about disproving 123 in row 7/box 8.
After that it was just a hard slog of trial and error eliminating best wrong guesses until one of them turned out to be right.
By that point I had enough. I usually set about showing that it's a unique solution but it's late, I'm tired, and I trust you.
I'll watch the actual solution tomorrow. I look forward to learning from it.
I am impressed with your diligence, Grant. Thank you for sharing your experience. This is not an easy puzzle and requires several difficult steps to complete. Please let me know how the rest of it goes and what you learned from the video. 👍
I just watched this video along with all of your extreme puzzle videos, and none of them are as hard as the ones in my new book not one puzzle has an obvious answer and all of these have at least three or four right off the bat. I can’t even get that far. Is there any way that I could send you a few shots of these that you could maybe help me get started I’ve tried doing patterns. There’s no obvious patterns that I can find most of these I’m watching I can solve just by looking .this book it’s got me stumped. I don’t have readdit or was I able to use it? Is there any other way I could send you a few shots of these puzzles? I’m desperate thank you
Hi. Happy to help. Please email the screenshots to timberlakesmarthobbies@gmail.com and I can take a look.
Hello Timberlake. Great to view your extreme puzzles, thank you so much, but I got confuse by your first explanation because before listening to you I tried to solve the puzzle and filled (pencil and paper) all the cells. I of course noticed immediately the pattern 123 and thought of the trivalue oddagon but noticed that with the 896 in block 5 it was not going to be as easy as thought. Now your explanation assuming that you must absolutly keep the triplet 123 in columm 6 is not clear at all. Why not have one different digit in each column block 5 ?
It works having 4 R6C4 and 7 R4C5 and 5 R5C6 ... ??
Thank you so much in advance for your highly expected answer.
Great question Francoise, and great to hear from you. The issue arises when you compare what is going on in Block 5 to Row 7. In block 5, due to the trivalue oddagon, we cannot have 4,5,7 each in a different row and column in the block. So, at least 2 of those values have (45,47,or 57) have to be in the same column, which will leave one of the columns in Block 5 empty of those 3 values. Column 6 is the only column possible where you could have none of those values present, due to possible candidates in row 7. Hope that helps.
Thank you so much Timberlake, I shall do it again trying to remember your rules and ways for solving it. I appreciate really very much. Take care . Best regards. Françoise
@ You too!
Nice trick, but the explanation is hard to follow. Basic principle: do not remove colors until they become useless. If you do so, the explanation of 7 in box five is quite simple, so is the three 123 in column 7, etc.
Thank you for the feedback. I appreciate it and will work to simplify my explanations on future videos.
Have you ever tried to solve extreme puzzles before?
How did you know to start at block 5? TIA Stay safe...
Great question. I noticed a pattern with the 123 in blocks 1,2, and 4 that looked like Trivalue Oddagon, which got me to look in block 5 and see what the restrictions were. I featured 2 puzzles recently with similar patterns, Loki and Tridragon.
I was utterly lost with the first (Loki) puzzle until I saw the solution. That pattern was memorable, and I spotted it with the second puzzle. So once I placed the digits in block 1, the issue jumped out at me in block 5.
@ Nice!
3 in the center ez solve upper right corner
Nice. Thanks for catching that. 😎
Wow! Astonishing Timberlake. Way out of my depth
Hi Jon. A few months ago, I would have had no idea what to do with this puzzle. But after solving Loki and Tridragon, I saw some patterns I could work with.
How are you doing?
@ all good Timberlake. Very busy time of the year as we head to year end! I am still considering getting over to Boston for sudokucon but it’s a long way to come! All good your side?
@ Doing great. Had a lovely Thanksgiving with the family. Getting ready for Christmas 🎄
@ ah well done and happy thanksgiving! This doesn’t happen in the UK but it seems to be a big family holiday in the US.
@ food, faith, family, and football. I am not sure what could be better. 🦃🏈
Dude your explanations are meandering and unclear. You're grasping in real time for words to explain what you're trying to say, which indicates to me that you're not well-prepared and/or not clear in your own mind what you are doing.
I appreciate your feedback. I am working to provide clearer explanations to these puzzles as I show you how to solve them.
Are there any particular strategies that you would like to learn more about?
@@SmartHobbies I really appreciate the kind tone of your response. You words are gracious and understanding, and I feel a little bad about the harshness of my criticism, although I don't feel bad about being very clear and direct. The biggest issue, for me, is not hearing you explain your reasoning process, when making decisions. You'll say something like "now look at the 6's" or "now look at column 5" without any explanation whatsoever about WHY we should pay attention to those particular aspects, in preference to all the other possible aspects we might explore. Why is it, for example, that in some situation we should first look for X-wings, in preference to looking for some other feature, or trying some other tactic? As less experienced solvers, we do yet not have the same level of instincts and intuitions (and perhaps innate talents) that help you optimize your selection of "best next step to try". We're all trying to grok a "decision tree" for solving puzzles... a mental representation of which features or aspects of the puzzle to consider next, to yield the most fruitful path(s) of progress.
It's very difficult to ever be "too clear" in communication.
And yes, I would like to learn more about this: When we are stuck with no more trivial solves, and we are stuck facing a hard puzzle situation, how do we 'classify' the puzzle at that point so that we have some hint as to what next approach is probably most useful for that type of 'stuckness'. Essentially, take advantage of opportunities to say more about your instincts and intuitions, when facing a hard situation. As a VERY novice and inexperienced solver, that's the best question I can ask, right now. Again, thanks for your open response. I hope my input here helps in your process of improving your effectiveness as a teacher, and sudoku community influencer.
Best wishes.
@@davidrichards1302 You are welcome. I believe I understand some of your frustration, and you hit on something that I do want to accomplish with this channel. I want to show you the viewer not just what to do, but why, and how you can discover these solving paths and strategies in your own solving. I'll make a note of this and see how I can better incorporate this into my videos.