The XY Ring: A Classic Sudoku Technique
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- Опубликовано: 27 окт 2024
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Today's sudoku was created for a Discord speed-setting competition y Sam Cappleman-Lynes. It's called Delirium on the basis that Sam was almost in a a trance state when he made it due to lack of sleep! Please have a go at it at the link below:
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Rules:
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SPOILER: There is some detail on the technique Simon uses in the video at the very bottom of this video description!
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SPOILER: As the title of the video notes, the technique is called an XY-Ring. It shares some logic with techniques like an XY-Chain and a Continuous Nice Loop. We can cover these in other videos if there is interest.
I don’t know what you have done to me. I cannot solve sudokus without an inner narrative in an English accent. Bobbins!
Same 😂
I have an inner monologue saying things like "The 2 goes in, the 3 goes in, this is absolutely beautiful!"
Sayme here, and I'm not even an native english speaker.
My wife and I solve together, and can't say "pair" anymore. It's "peh".
I would permanently pincil mark that lovely word on my left buttock if I had not to be a role model
It’s remarkable that a man of such obvious dexterity, with hundreds upon hundreds of hours of practice, should get no better at typing the intended digit on the first try. 😊 Love you, Simon.
I think he got the correct digit on the first try less than 50% of the time in this video. Might be a new record?
Interestingly, he always seems to err on the low side (left side) when mistyping. Left brain confirmed?
left HAND, probably, and right hand on the mouse
Using the numpad is the cheat code on typing numbers.
"How many ones do we have? Only 4"
Poor old Sam, he's given Simon more digits than his last 10+ puzzles combined, and Simon still has the gall to use "only"!
Great puzzle, thank you
Yeah, but it's a classic puzzle. The hardest classics often are the ones with more clues just because they are forcing such structures as this ring to exist.
I really enjoyed this one. I would be glad to see more really tough classics. Speaking only for myself of course.
What are those black symbols located in the middle of the grid?
They look similar to the blue symbols present in a completed grid but beyond that, I'm not sure
These are called "givens". Ask your grandfather - he'll tell you all about them.
@@afrayedknot81
"Grandad what are... guy-veens?"
Some of these sudoku variants and rules are just getting crazy.
You watch, somebody will be calling this variant "naked sudoku" soon enough ;-)
I'm very pleased with myself: I managed to do this without reading anything but the rules. The loop around the central box was very... satisfying, somehow. Took me 32:29 so I was slow but I'm still happy.
Very pleased here also, did it in 43. But I didn't do anything weird, just checked boxes, column and rows over and over again
An hour 40 for me😂
Ahhh, the classic "looping round bent quadruple". How I've waited for this day!
The bent quad is very cool to see (Simon already spoiled this in the description). It works like an XY-Chain, or Nice Continuous Loop, and it's powerful because you can eliminate all additional candidates from the row or column that contains 2 of the candidates (for example, you can eliminate the rest of the 9's in row 3). What makes it really cool is that you normally can't "rotate" the XY-Chain to make more eliminations, but with this you can because it loops. Yes, please show more videos that have these types of techniques. Thanks for sharing this puzzle.
Great fun! I saw the quadruple as well, didn’t realize it was such a powerful constraint. Once you pointed it out, I was able to force a row, a column, a couple of X-wings, several naked pairs, and the whole thing then collapsed. Thanks!
I may or may not be on my second drink on a Monday evening, alone in bed watching an English guy solving sodokus (please, this is a judging free zone, let me have my two drinks in peace). But I just needed to point out that it should be called a bent qualoopdral. Thank you and cheers.
I really appreciate how Sam guided the solver towards the strategy at the very start of the puzzle. I'd solved in in ~25 minutes today. Seeing so many numbers in a 2-wide ring created a feeling to start by filling in the candidates in those rows/cols, and quickly finding the pairs in the corner that created the ring. After that, the puzzle was quite approachable. Feels good to solve!
It's very rare that I'm able to do a Classic Sudoku from this channel, however, this one clicked me with me very well. I even did it under half-an-hour. Really good puzzle!!!
As always, Simon's logic is fantastic, and probably handy for speed. I'm not racing the clock and I don't see everything Simon spots. Funny that he says "don't go looking for an XY chain," which I don't think I would go hunting for, but when you've got one highlighted for 9 minutes, it's kind of hard to ignore. And this one was great to use 4 times and make progress.
I feel proud I only did this 3 minutes slower than SImon, I feel like that's an accomplishment lol. Fun puzzle!
36 minutes for me. I saw the bent quad quite early, but it took me a while to see its effect on the rows and columns. Well, I'm only 74. Still learning.
We judge anonymously for these competitions, but I knew this was Sam's the moment I saw it. A clear winner in my eyes!
Feels meaningful that humans can have a distinct voice in any one of a million languages. Including the setting of puzzles of all things. I also thought this "feels" like his puzzles I have solved .
I love how excited this dude gets when he is on a roll.
Ha! Found something without looking at the end of the description.
First I obviously checked for SET. No luck but I'm still a beginner and wouldn't see all options. Then I just started pencilling in like in those years before CtC. Boxes, rows, columns. And then my specialty: whenever I find at least four digits given in a box, row or column, I can keep juggling five digits in my mind - and I pencil optional digits in only if there are no more than two digits in a cell.
That's how I found that rectangular quadruple or whatever it is called. But since I have no idea how to proceed I'll watch the video now.
Thank you very much!
(Edit: I did it! Took me a little less than an hour and lots of colours, and I pencilled the two alternatives all the way up/ down/ right/ left the topple chain: one way with corner pencils, the other with central pencils. That helped me see the pattern.)
For the first time I've done a puzzle faster than Simon. I feel like a child who won in chess against their dad for the first time. But, to be fair, the title of the video gave me a clue of what to look for.
10 minutes! After the first scanning and placing of easy digits, I've just pencil-marked the possibilities of rows/columns with five digits already placed (rows 3 and 7, columns 3 and 7), and that square pattern emerged, then it was very easy to remove digits. Thanks again for showcasing great puzzles that I can now solve for myself after watching this channel for more than a year!
You know what is really amazing - to solve this yourself and realise that you have taken a different path than Simon did. This happened to me in this puzzle.
TBH after 60+ minutes on my own and pencil-marking all worthy cells I had to peek a hint in this video - and it was the XY Ring "elimination" property. I used it on the *9* 's in row 7 and it allowed me to restrict *9* 's in block #9 and thus put a *9* in block #3, cell #1. This unbounded the Ring and then it was easy to solve.
Loved this one! Finished in ~1hr! I broke it and had to back out a ways, so the 1hr is even with back tracking! Fantastic puzzle. This is one I wouldn't have been able to do before I found this channel and started learning about sudoku technique beyond scanning rows and columns. haha Thank you again for the fantastic context!
By the way, I'd _love_ a blank grid demonstration of hypotheticals to demonstrate the advanced techniques from the "spoiler" section of the description.
Hats off, Sam, very nice puzzle! I needed the tip for what to look for, but once the cells were highlighted, it was super clear.
"Entering a trance-like state" can give you access to parts of your mind that aren't normally accessible, if you do it properly.
I was able to finish this puzzle on my own, and I feel a real sense of accomplishment! 6 months ago, I struggled with the easiest of puzzles! I really appreciate you sharing your wisdom with us.
I first looked up XY chain - then realized that wasn't it - it was XY RING. Looked that up XY ring and the first option was this video. Think I'm just going to rely on Siimon's explanation.
I never tire of watching Simon solve a classic Sudoku. He rarely misses patterns and the logic that flows from them.
"They only take a few minutes each time" ... That hurt Simon, that hurt.
my time 17:58 I'm proud of myself, that is the first time I have EVER gotten a faster time than Simon. No way that would have been possible without all of the methods I've learned from the channel
What a beautiful puzzle!
10:08 for me. Somehow I was always looking just at the right spot to continue and managed to breeze through without ever stumbling for a moment. It may be not as difficult as other puzzles featured on the channel, but it provides a different kind of joy, when everything falls into place and keeps going round and round.
This was a wonderful puzzle, thanks Sam for setting it and Simon for the video solution
Spent an hour on it, figured out the bent quadrangle, but managed to somehow mess up my 3,5,8s at the very end with no idea where I went wrong. But I'm happy to see I was on the right track!
This was really nice. Found the XY-Ring, and solved it. Lots of fun.
Pretty easy for me knowing that there's some type of "loop" strategy used. But I pencil mark everything to bits, so I don't think it would have taken me ages to find without any knowledge. Really fun!
I surprised myself when I found the ring around the centre. I linked lines through the "corners". Unfortunately I ended up bifurcating as I couldn't see which way round the loop went. Really enjoyed it despite having to back-track after breaking it on the first guess. Thanks Sam. Thanks Simon.
Hi Simon love your work. I found bent quad 3's and 5's early - like two L's so a sort of Z which solved it pretty fast. It gave me the 2-3 pair vertical in the middle box early. Only learning from your logic, but this faster method got me to the exact same solution which I gather is the only way to get it right. Just different ways to get there. Great fun late at night. Cheers mate from NSW Australia.
I am watching Lion King (original movie) with my 4 and 6 year old. They can't concentrate on the movie because they say Zazu, the red-billed hornbill is Simon! I'm cracking up over here!
I can never spot bent triples. I managed to spot this quadruple, though. Shows what a good setter he is.
13:38
Great sudoku!
A funny story: About two months ago, while solving one of my first-ever CTC sudokus, I stumbled into this technique. It didn't help with the sudoku, and I was a total noob at the time (until then I would only ever do easy sudoku, never so much as pencilmarking or using logic). For these past few months, I've been dreaming of creating a puzzle to showcase the technique, since I couldn't find anything when looking up "bent quadruple" (which was the only name I could imagine for it after learning "WXYZ wing" was something else). When I saw the title I kinda just knew it was this. "XY chain" certainly sounds better than what I thought of. I guess it's time to stop thinking about the technique every night before I go to sleep, lol.
91:46 for me. I got stuck for like 20 minutes because I had the central box as being a 1 or 9 and didn’t think about the fact that the 39 pair resolved it and it gave me so much sympathy for when Simon gets stuck on something that I can see.
I’ve always loved playing sudoku but I’ve only just started learning how to use more advanced techniques and do puzzles that aren’t just classics! I never knew there was things like arrows and thermos in sudoku until I started watching the channel a couple weeks ago.
Disappointed in myself for not seeing the naked single 1 dead center when the time was right. The puzzle fell into place after that. I enjoyed this one!
That was a lovely puzzle. It wasn’t hard, per se, but very satisfying.
I think that, far from trying to distract you, maverick is actually trying to drop some knowledge bombs into the video
This was super fun, in 18.03 for me. I got lucky and spotted the ring very early on and understood its implications, including the rotational elimination. From there on it was plain sailing. A thing of beauty, for sure.
Thanks, Sam & Simon.
I surprised myself by being able to find the advanced technique and use it to solve the puzzle (without watching the video or reading the spoiler in the description). Usually I can't spot those special techniques, even when I know to look for them. Maybe there's hope for me yet! :D
Very nice puzzle, Sam! I enjoyed solving it!
Sam has proven once again he is a genius setter. Not only has he made it geniunely approachable, he has also set it in a way that may help people understand what a bent triple/XY-wing is since it's easier to spot when it's "circled" around.
I didn't know what an XY loop was but I was able to learn it just by solving this puzzle.
This is a beautiful one!
First CtC sudoku I have been able to solve myself only reading the rules. Granted I did it in bits and took me 1.5h, but it was flowing so nicely.
I don't know much of the techniques, but I found the restricted loop just by looking for weak cells and row/column restrictions, then the "windmill" pattern appeared, a few more pencilmarks and the central digit. From there it took some more row and column checking, but once I found the 7 in box 2 it unfolded magnificently. Really satisfying, albeit slow.
Thank you so much for the in-depth explanation!
Beautiful puzzle and excellent explanation of the technique! Thanks!
Very nice... Finished in exactly 14:00. Never heard of an XY-Ring, but I recognized the power of the four corners right away.
14:48 finish. Loved the break-in for this. Once I spotted the ring, everything fell neatly into place. Well done!
I started filling in candidates in columns/rows when I had 5 digits in them, and combining that with the Phistomofel Ring, I was able to see a pattern with 3s in column 3 and 7, which helped me figure out that the center digit of the entire puzzle was not a 3, which gave me the 2-3 pair in box 5. That, with the x-y ring Simon explained, got the puzzle cracked for me.
This puzzle made me actively grumpy about how good Sam is at setting. :D Really amazing.
I love classic sudoku. I usually only play the classic. I played up to when I had the ring but did not know what to do.
I then watched you explain the way the ring works and was able to finish with only a little bother.
22 minutes for me, this was fun and the ring logic wasn't too hard to spot (only because of experience gained from watching this channel, of course haha)
I knew those 4 corner cells were important, but i didn’t quite figure out what they meant. The rest was straight forward. Interesting one!
Always interesting to see these techniques. I am still quite new to "advanced" sudoku and have no chance of seeing break-ins or even recognizing patterns like this. Still love learning!
Good lord this was a fun puzzle. My solve path after the xy ring turned out completely different to Simon's and was immensely satisfying, involved a lot of pairs exposing a naked single and then chaining around the board in big flurries. Lovely work as always Sam!
Finished in 09:38. Looking for naked singles in the corners of the inner ring is an obvious first idea to look at (which only results in the pairs), but if you then just focus on completing the lines that cross-hatch through those, the 1 in the middle is discovered and the rest of the puzzle is a simple solve.
Sam Cappleman-Lynes is a brilliant Sudoku setter. He should focus his efforts on writing a computer program which will compose Sam Cappleman-Lynes style logic puzzles on demand, forever...! That way, Sam Cappleman-Lynes shall never die. Long live Sam Cappleman Lynes...!
Thank you for this wonderful puzzle !!!
I discover the ring for myself! My time: 17:30. Nice one!
Figured out the xy-ring. I don't normally do this, but I happened to pencil mark all allowed digits in the center box. That's what helped me find that naked single 1 in the center.
I'm absolutely terrible at spotting bent triples, so I was doubly (quadruply?) proud to spout the ring as quickly as I did nd use it to smoothly unwind the entire puzzle. I don't really want to know how quickly Sam set this puzzle -- probably in half the time it took me to solve.
I usually get a little disappointed when I hear Classic sudoku but then I watch it anyway and it never disappoints. Great puzzle.
Very nice classic. I did it in 22 minutes without the hint, mostly by marking candidates then following 50/50 possibilities in the restricted cells that eliminated those digits from other cells, and repeat. Missed the central 1 for a while, because I had it as a 1/3 and didn't pay enough attention to r5.
Fantastic, I liked the way you solved the puzzle.
Got it in 15:17 without too much difficulty - definitely not 'delirious' in solving it. I think I saw the intended technique, which I feel like I'd seen before somewhere here and made the tough parts pretty manageable. Now to watch the video and find out!
15:48 for me. I spotted that XY-Ring at the start only because I was looking for weak cells that could only be a couple digits.
Like you, I had no idea about the technique, but I thought it looked odd and tried looking at it like a bent triple.
Great video. I would like to see more classic sudokus on the channel
Very enjoyable puzzle. Not sure I'd have been able to solve it without the video title, but that's neither a critique of the puzzle nor the video title.
10:48 for me...pretty proud of myself tbh, it's the first time i actually take the chance and try to spot a " logic " for myself, finding the hidden pairs was kind of unreal to me and i was scared that i was wrong all along...yeah..pretty proud ahahah nice video and nice sudoku aswell =)
Huh. I did this completely differently and got the same conclusions.
By using the Phistomofel ring. Turns out it was a great way to eliminate the same digits Simon was eliminating.
my solve was 18m33s before watching the vid. Very happy with that time. Knowing beforehand that an XY wing was in play kinda helped I'm gonna be honest.
I feel like maverick is like a side character from a tv show. I find myself thinking during the day: How's Maverick doing?
OMG! 21:42 to completion, a time on par with Simon (or Mark?) for the first time. I'll take it. :)
12:21 was my time, though I wasn't explaining it to anyone either. What a fun classic!
I ended up solving the puzzle without really using the XY-ring logic. In column three and seven it is relatively easy to deduce what numbers should be in the squares that are not a part of the XY-ring. From there on it is easy sailing. I'd say, not focusing on the XY-ring makes the break-in easier to comprehend but Mark's solution is more elegant. Anyone else used that logic when trying to solve the puzzle?
Very pleased to have found the looping quadruple.
Another case of "what weird trick do I not know for this yet - Oh!" And now I try to use this in future :D more advanced techniques, please! ;D
18:18 for me - happy with that time as I had not seen this logic before!
What an excellent tutorial, thank you.
Oh, I saw the 23 pair in the middle before noticing the 1 because of the 39 the other way and the 23s in boxes 2 and 8. You finding the 1 first is better I think.
You're not strange, Simon. At least no more than the rest of us here.
Really beautiful puzzle. The interaction of the ring was so enjoyable.
Actually not too difficult.
Solved it in 13:08. One of the easiest sudokus here (I usually can't solve Simon's puzzles).
19:50 "Before we got the one, we could't make the 2/3 pair", technically before.
The 2 was already locked in 2 places in box 5, so the moment you got the 3/9 pair on R5 the 3 could only go in those exact 2 places, forming the pair (and forming another 7/9 pair in C5 that can instantly be resolved, which Simon did earlier).
The order doesn't matter though, you still get the pair, the 1 and the rest of C5, so I'll shut up and finish the video.
It was quite easy, 10 minutes. Oh how I love simple classic sudokus.
I really liked this one! Somehow managed to solve it under 30 minutes without ever having heard of a Continuous Nice Loop. Super fun :)
19:52 for me. Very good puzzle tonight!
Nice puzzle. Now to see how you did it so fast. LOL. Thank you for sharing.
Happy Monday. Have a cracking week.
I propose naming the XY-Ring a "ringed quaduple".
13:51, surprised I persevered long enough to solve it, I probably would have normally stopped, but the title of the video made it sound like there's a "trick" and I took a few minutes to find it.
14:10 ... Nice, classic puzzle!
Had already seen another nice example of XY ring in Lapidaire by Shye, so this one was easy :).
Hi Simon. A big yes please to videos on the Continuous Nice loop and XY Chain.
Took me over 40 minutes, 10 minutes of which I was just staring at it until the lightbulb moment for the 1 in the middle, after the 15 minutes of figuring out how that weird quadruple affected the rest of the squares in its rows and columns.
19:33 "I'm maligning myself unfairly", he says. After completely skipping over r9c3 needs to be a 7 and thus solves the bent-complicated-xy-quadrule-ring-chain he was previously enamored by, by forcing r3c3 to be the starting 6 of the ring!
After watching Simon for so long, I think I've determined that his biggest weakness is not resolving his pencil markings. He finds so much logic that he forgets to double check what he already has.
Oh, this is familiar! I stumbled onto the same pattern in one of the first few classic puzzles I made. This is a much more polished implementation of it.