Dear Simon, I could not have wished for a better video. There are several steps to the solution, where there are „dirtier“ workarounds, but you found exactly the intended solution path. Thank you very much!
What's really funny about that is while I don't know what the dirty workarounds you're referring to may be, I solved the puzzle (without watching first) relatively easily. Then I watched Simon's solve because I was all "how is this a 30+ minute video?". Turns out I got lucky -- I made a logic assumption (which in hindsight I am pretty certain was not an assumption I should have made) VERY early on with the magic square (I got the 9 and 1 placed quickly). And the whole puzzle unlocked. But I am pretty sure it was a bad (but fortunate) flaw in my logic, and nothing more because in hindsight, I have no idea what led me to placing those digits quickly 😂
This is singularly the most elegant use of a magic square I've ever seen in a sudoku on this channel, and consequently one of the most elegant solves, congratulations to you both.
My favourite puzzle I've seen on this channel, the way the geometry worked with the magic square. Would never have figured it out. I have nothing but praise for you man.
I don't know how many times it's gonna take for me to learn the lesson that, when the killer cages form a suspicious shape, I should immediately add everything up and see what happens. Hopefully it sticks this time...
I had the opposite problem! I immediately focused on the geometry and finding inequalities, but I couldn't resolve them until I noticed that the 24 cage must be 789.
Me: shakes my head at Simon missing the 7 that would have resolved the cage in square 1. Also me: never in a million years would have figured out the trick to get that far.
Yes, I find myself thinking Simon misses a lot of "easy" ones like that, looking for the harder answers. I do the same myself, missing the easy ones .... though it is just straight missing, I am not looking for anything but low hanging fruit ... and rarely find it ;-)
Simon has a weakness where he doesn't look to see if his pencil marks he is putting down are optimal, then he dismisses that they are not optimal, so he can't see it anymore when he is scanning. It happens a lot. He can only come back to it if he gets completely stuck. Also he misses naked singles when he has 8 digits filled in a row, box or column a lot. he missed one today as well.
Mark to Simon: This puzzle is completely approachable. LMG: Five Stars. Simon: Solves it anyway, in under half an hour. There can be no greater revenge on Mark trying to troll you, Simon, than kicking a puzzle's butt.
I like how 20 min in, Simon still only has a 5. The entire vid is 37 min long, so clearly once he finally figured out what he was missing it went quick.
Absolutely thrilling watch! 20 minutes of pure logic just to get a second digit on the grid. Seeing your mind work through every step of it was incredible.
This is the most sublime video so far (and I have watched over a hundred) - I didn't even try to 'play along' - I just watched and listened. I'd like to add 'and learned...' but my brain simply can't do what yours can, Simon. Sometimes one has to simply fill a glass with wine and savour every word. Thanks again to both you and Mark for being here during this time. You have made a worrying time so much more bearable. I am sure all here agree. You are our NHS - 'Numerically Hypertalented Superstars'. PH
A few seconds in: I got a 5 Two hours later: I have a 5 Another two hours later: I give up, at least I got a 5. This was tickling the grey ones more than a bearded barber in a hotrod.
I found a nice solution, it is: 913465827 768129435 425387196 137294658 684753219 592618743 249836571 376541982 851972364 and it is wrong. Why don't 4, 3 and 1 add up to 10, as intended? 3 Hours, 12 minutes, and I had the impression my solution is right, until Simon put the two 8s in the 22cage at 28:55 - My magic square has the 8 in the lower right corner. I had a lot of pencilmarks all over the place and didn't double-check the cage sums in the end, so I didn't recognize my errors. Surely needless to say, that my approach didn't involve the outer ring trick.
At least I'm bright enough to know that if one of them failed it, I'm not even gonna try it. And having seen the solve, I'm doubly glad I didn't try it. It's as of yet outside of my event horizon to figure out such a solution.
My favorite part of watching this channel is the dialogue of the logic happening inside the mind of Simon or Mark. I love the realization that we are both going down the same pathway or the realization that you have stumbled onto something that I had yet to consider. Fun!
I typed a bunch in a Notepad file as I worked through the dwindling minima and maxima for the corners, edge, and the eight internal squares not in the sums or the magic square. Finally worked it out and was thrilled when it led to the solution.
I'd actually love to see both of you compete in real-time. By compete I mean you two are on a Discord call (for example), start at the same time, as you solve the puzzle we can see both of your solutions advancing and when one is done they announce it in the call. While solving you can mute yourselves to avoid someone whispering a solution step or something like that. The puzzle type may be different - classic/custom rules sudoku, puzzles like tapa and aquariums, and cryptic crosswords. Edit: I'd also love to hear after one is done what logic was used and was it different for both of you.
This wouldn't really work though. Simon loves to use logic and logic alone to solve a given problem but Mark, when in speed solve mode, will always resort to bifurcation as soon as things get tricky.
They could simply both record a video of the same puzzle and then show both of them on half the screen. Or the winner gets the full screen while the other is shown in PiP (picture in picture) mode.
@@Ruddigore well, since they will compete in logic, I think that they simply need to create a rule that prohibits bifurcation. That is also why I suggested different types of puzzles.
@@onman999 Well, while that sounds quite interesting, I think that it is kind of a harsh punishment for the loser. I'd love to see both solutions, but I am not speaking for everyone. As for tow videos, I suggested a call so they could exchange emotions and logic steps right away after the solve, while it's still fresh in their mind. However, your method also works.
One puzzle would not work with them. There should be at least two out of three with different tipe of sudoku. Then they don’t get advantage against each other because with some stuff one is better then each other and vs
For the first time ever I solved it faster than Simon! I figured out the "sum to 62" trick in 5 minutes, and then the sudoku part took me much longer than him. Great puzzle!
I love going back to see these older videos. I started watching a little more than a year ago, so am trying to find some of the older ones. Mark definitely played a trick on Simon, this was definitely not easy, what a break-in.
Really impressive break-in to the puzzle!!!! I was very amused by Mark's outburst in the Puzzle Hunt solve video, but I felt very guilty at potentially laughing at something that caused Mark so much anguish. I am relieved it is only as serious as frustration over a Sudoku puzzle!
"we can actually work out the value of these 4 3x3 boxes by adding the cages and then adding 20 on at the end, now is that in anyway useful? the answer is of course no its not."
for the 9 and 7 restrictions when you found the square pattern, looking at the 24 reveals the highest that digit can be is a 6. inputting the maximum digits in the other places shows that with that 6 it adds to 62, making the solving process much easier
There’s only one that I remember where Mark is solving a renban line sudoku (or something similar, I might be wrong) and Simon appears behind him and helps him out with a step and then leaves.
I'm actually fairly surprised Simon took so long to notice the "yellow squares", considering the only reason I found them so quickly (or indeed, at all) is specifically watching your videos and seeing you find and unravel tricks like these. The moment I ran out of easy steps I started counting up the boxes. As such I got that step done remarkably quickly, but ultimately I was slower at cleaning up the rest of the puzzle, putting our times just about dead-even. I think Simon even still beat me by like ten seconds, given the brief talk and musical fade-out at the end of the video.
He's a mad man! An absolute madman! I swear sometimes it is so enjoyable to watch someone else succeed at games you like on another level. I'm still not even sure I follow the starter logic with the 9 digits. Well done sir :)
That was a bit frustrating for me, as I came to same conclusion of the 8-digits sum being 62, but I didn't know what to do with that information, as there were still a few degrees of freedom. That reasoning allowing only two 7s and two 9s in the sum was the bit that was missing and after that I could solve it by myself. Thanks again for a great puzzle and a great solve!
I got the 9 in box 5 by considering that if I used a 7 instead of a 9 that it would break box 5 because I would need another 7 to make 15 on whichever row had the 2. Inevitably, I took much longer than Simon to solve the puzzle. This was very fun! Thank you!!
@22:00 I could never have begun that chain of logic myself, but once you narrowed it down to 62 in 8 cells, I was able to see that due to the magic square's mandatory 7+9 somewhere in those three rows+columns, that one of those rows+columns must contain a 6+8 as the final 2 digits because that's the maximum you could put in and adds up to exactly 62. I look forward to seeing the magic you work with that information!
@25:30 Though you did take a more scenic route to the same destination than I did, on this piece of logic. I was just going on sudoku logic. You could only contain a maximum of two lots of 789 without seeing the all of the magic square's odd digit cells. At that point, a 3rd 7 and 3rd 9 are impossible, the highest digits left are 6+8. We can call it a... uh... H-Wing on 7s and 9s. ;p And since 789+789+68 = 62, that forces the maximum values for all 8 cells. As expected, you took that info and spun gold.
I solved it a similar way, but I considered the four corner squares and the 4 pairs of "inner" squares not in cages. For me the key thing was noticing the smallest numbers I could place in those inner squares (1, 2, 3, 4 & 6). This made it slightly easier to reach the arithmetical restriction on the corner squares, which had to be 6,7,8 & 9.
Also the fact that whichever way round the magic square went, either the central row or central column had to have a 3 in the magic square, so the minimum sums for those inner dominoes became 1+2+4+6 and 2+3+4+6, making a combined minimum of 28.
tried the puzzle before starting the video, saw tha magic square saw the killer boxes , and thought hey a magic killer sudoku, and now watching the video i see avada kedavra, killing magic!!! hahaha
I broke into this puzzle by using column 6 and seeing that three groups of 7 or Domino's existed. Slowly figured out that the seven had to be c5r9. But I never found Simon's logic to the puzzle, thus I took 2:34.17 but I did solve it.
Wait, I managed to solve this without watching any of the video so far. How did Mark manage to be defeated by it? Solved in 51:39. I almost immediately struck on the idea to sum the possible values in the rows and columns where the dotted regions were, add these sums to the dotted regions and the magic square, and subtract them from 405. This gives us 62. I subtracted two 24 totals from this, and got 14. This means you have two 789 totals, and then additionally either a 6 and an 8 or a 5 and a 9. A 5 and a 9 cannot be doable, mind you, because either the middle row or the middle column of a magic square must contain both a 5 and a 9. This solved the combination of numbers not included in my sum. Now, the 24 gives me the position of the 6, and then further clues gave me the way to victory.
I also did. None were as useful as the one Simon finds, but I wouldn't say they were absolutely useless. E.g. looking at rows 6,7,8 and subtracting the cages and magic triple gives you a very low total (22) for the remaining 8 cells. Also looking at row 6 alone, I found that by going through combinations in the top half of the 22 cage, lots leave no possible pair in the bottom half and are thus ruled out.
Yes, mirror cells, triples, quintuples, pairs, even an X-wing on 1s at one point if I recall correctly. I especially used the 89s and later the 6s locked into rows 7 and 8.
when i first read the title i got the ambition to be better than one of them. Now, it's two hours later and i just cracked 8 numbers out of 81. Time to go to bed, tomorrow is a new day.
ok, now the next day is over and i can proudly say that i got the only solution. I spent another two hours or so with it but i finally got it and i didn't make any mistakes! Yay! Now i can watch the video to see how Simon can do this in half an hour.
well, i watched it now. at first i was happy because i think i found the first few numbers faster, but then he found that pattern counting to 202 what i didn't do. i think that way is the most elegant solution to this puzzle (like Philipp Huber wrote it was the intended solution) and seeing the fast way of solving it from that point on was kind of depressing for me. I did it with dirtier workarounds but i still can say that i'm better in this as Mark. ;P
I thought for sure the purple squares would turn out to be hidden magic squares and that the nine cells you singled out in the edges would be another magic square! Great solve!!
You failed to spot (early) that 789 was unavailable in the corner of box 9. You had 3 degrees of freedom in your total, and that reduces it completely.
3 degrees of freedom would only reduce a 9 to the 6. If you went forward with the 789s and the middle 14, you could just as easily lower a 7 to a 4 in that corner (789/489/589). The geometry would break it of course, but degrees of freedom isn't sufficient to disprove it.
I just wanted to say that i clicked on this video, but i saw it continued off past the intro, and i was like "Why did i leave this video in the middle of the solution?" The FIRST words out of Simon's mouth was "Now let's do some arithmetic..."
Still 39:41 on my second attempt (without watching the video). I got the intended solve path in my first pass before messing up one of the digits - which is discovered much later. So, I restarted, and obviously did it much faster - probably a total of 1 hour and 20 minutes on this!
Absolutely loved this puzzle, managed it in one hour 35 minutes once I had your help on the outside cells. Would not have had a cat in hell's chance of completing it otherwise. It is so wonderful to be aware of my improvement practically on a daily basis, which probably says more about the amount of time I am spending on solving totally guilt free as we are living in such strange times. Thank you so much for continually exercising my little grey cells - unfortunately my body is growing in direct proportion to my neural pathways.
This honestly reminds me of some mystery show like house of Sherlock Holmes. 1 hour long at times, maybe more, and little clues and banter along the way.
Took just over two hours, half of it just to find the break-in, and half of the rest to apply it correctly. (Made a careless incorrect assumption when first placing the 789s, and it bit me. Checked the end of the video to confirm the screw-up, erased everything, figured it out properly.) Still got stuck one more time after that. If this is easy, I am very, very dumb. Edit: I conceived of the break-in a little differently, though it's the same geometry involved. I was looking at the "leftovers" from the addable cells in rows 6 through 8, which is 22. Couldn't do anything with that. Then also looked at the "leftovers" from rows 2 through 4, which is 36. Couldn't do anything with that either. But mark it all up and add the 15 down the middle and you have 73 -- a very small number considering it sums all but 8 cells in columns 1, 5 and 9. Subtract 73 from 135 and you get 62 as the sum of those 8 cells. Possibly this is one of the setter's "dirty workarounds". Edit edit: Though I'm happy I stuck with the puzzle enough to find it, I'm usually not super satisfied when a puzzle is as front-loaded in difficulty as this one is. The real elegance in the puzzle's construction I think was the following step, when the "find the critical geometry" part intersected with the magic square to yield just one possible set of numbers for those 8 cells. (You could not, for instance, have set that 6 in the lower right to be a 4 or 5 and still had it work out.) Even with my carelessness that made me do it twice, I really liked that part.
Thought I would try it despite the 37 minute video time. Sometimes Simon can take a long time to explain a magic square. Managed to get the 5 in R5 C5. Then after 20 minutes of not getting another digit I gave up.
Simon, if you're reading this: the sum of the 9 cells (start/middle/end of each green row/column) is also influenced by the fact that you had 789 triple in box 9, and 5 in the center of the grid, so the sum for the remaining 7 cells was only 56, giving you an average of exactly 8. Since you can't fill 7 cells with 8s, you need 7s and 9s. How many? Equal number of 7s and 9s, otherwise the average would get lower/higher than 8. So you can have one 8 and three 7s and 9s or three 8s and two 7s and 9s, which is decided by the magic square.
I somehow got the 8 boxes in the corners summing to 62 (came at it from a different direction), but failed to see the center box ruling out three 9's or three 7's in that sum. Pretty straight forward after that.
Reduces the elegance, I presume. Elegance isn't the only factor in setting a puzzle, of course - if it were we wouldn't get puzzles shaped like elephants on occasion - but it is definitely a factor.
Oh wow I did not expect you to pronounce Joke van Veenendaal's name the way you did, you almost got it too! It's more of a Vay-nen-Dahl then Vee-nen-Dahl. :)
There are weird flickering artifacts in the grid that made this hard to watch until I reduced the resolution - so if anyone is distracted/put off by that, try it at 480p
The windows were dirty when I did the puzzle, so I bifurcated found the 95 for the 14 cage was a bust, bifurcated again on the 10 cage when I got stuck and got lucky as the 6 looked like the best choice for R2C8 as it forced the other to be a 13 pair. From there it worked out, but I feel just plain dirty. Sorry I didn't see the beautiful clean sparkling window version you saw. Great solve!
I messed up 3 times on this puzzle and had to restart. I was really trying to do the row and column math, but it only succeeded in telling me I'd messed up somewhere.
The title of this video is what I think about a lot of the puzzles in this channel... Between me and Simon, one of us fails to solve a lot of puzzles. 🤔
I got a lot of numbers in the grid much faster than Simon. Of course at 37 minutes in I also had 2 6's in col 7. And I couldn't figure out how to fix it. So there's that.
99% of the time I am amazed how he does all this and barely understandig it. 1% of the time I sit here frustrated because he overlooks things easily solved by simple sudoku.
bottom right could only be a 6, I would have thought of doing the right 3 adding to 135, with the restrictions of the 10, 20 and 7,8,9 cage, could that have been useful?
If I could actually add properly I could have solved this. I put 95 into the 15 cage instead of 96. That made sudokuing lead to a big mess. I quit after 3 hours. I had already restarted an hour before that. Didnt do what Simon did tho. He is amazing.
Dear Simon, I could not have wished for a better video. There are several steps to the solution, where there are „dirtier“ workarounds, but you found exactly the intended solution path. Thank you very much!
This is one amazing puzzle Philipp. Really really impressed with it.
Love the feedback from the setter. I noped from trying it after learning of Mark failing his attempt. It was a very nice puzzle to watch. Thank you
What's really funny about that is while I don't know what the dirty workarounds you're referring to may be, I solved the puzzle (without watching first) relatively easily. Then I watched Simon's solve because I was all "how is this a 30+ minute video?". Turns out I got lucky -- I made a logic assumption (which in hindsight I am pretty certain was not an assumption I should have made) VERY early on with the magic square (I got the 9 and 1 placed quickly). And the whole puzzle unlocked. But I am pretty sure it was a bad (but fortunate) flaw in my logic, and nothing more because in hindsight, I have no idea what led me to placing those digits quickly 😂
This is singularly the most elegant use of a magic square I've ever seen in a sudoku on this channel, and consequently one of the most elegant solves, congratulations to you both.
My favourite puzzle I've seen on this channel, the way the geometry worked with the magic square. Would never have figured it out. I have nothing but praise for you man.
I don't know how many times it's gonna take for me to learn the lesson that, when the killer cages form a suspicious shape, I should immediately add everything up and see what happens. Hopefully it sticks this time...
I don't know why I am surprised to see you here 12 tone!
@@HenryRSeymour 12tone recently set a puzzle for them! ruclips.net/video/Hl20PNtwCm4/видео.html
I had the opposite problem! I immediately focused on the geometry and finding inequalities, but I couldn't resolve them until I noticed that the 24 cage must be 789.
I jumped right into that by adding the cages + 45 for box 5 and trying to place limits on the 4 corners and the remaining 8 cells and I got lost.
Me: shakes my head at Simon missing the 7 that would have resolved the cage in square 1.
Also me: never in a million years would have figured out the trick to get that far.
Yes, I find myself thinking Simon misses a lot of "easy" ones like that, looking for the harder answers. I do the same myself, missing the easy ones .... though it is just straight missing, I am not looking for anything but low hanging fruit ... and rarely find it ;-)
I was proud to figure out where the six went before he did! Greatest accomplishment of my life.
Simon has a weakness where he doesn't look to see if his pencil marks he is putting down are optimal, then he dismisses that they are not optimal, so he can't see it anymore when he is scanning. It happens a lot. He can only come back to it if he gets completely stuck. Also he misses naked singles when he has 8 digits filled in a row, box or column a lot. he missed one today as well.
Mark to Simon: This puzzle is completely approachable.
LMG: Five Stars.
Simon: Solves it anyway, in under half an hour.
There can be no greater revenge on Mark trying to troll you, Simon, than kicking a puzzle's butt.
I like how 20 min in, Simon still only has a 5. The entire vid is 37 min long, so clearly once he finally figured out what he was missing it went quick.
"The Puzzle One Of Us Failed To Solve"
(Butter and salt with my popcorn, please.)
Absolutely thrilling watch! 20 minutes of pure logic just to get a second digit on the grid. Seeing your mind work through every step of it was incredible.
Oh Mark, you've scarred poor Simon and now he's suspicious of every puzzle you send him!
26:46 "Mark is a great bobbins-talker" !!!!!
This is the most sublime video so far (and I have watched over a hundred) - I didn't even try to 'play along' - I just watched and listened. I'd like to add 'and learned...' but my brain simply can't do what yours can, Simon. Sometimes one has to simply fill a glass with wine and savour every word. Thanks again to both you and Mark for being here during this time. You have made a worrying time so much more bearable. I am sure all here agree. You are our NHS - 'Numerically Hypertalented Superstars'. PH
A few seconds in: I got a 5
Two hours later: I have a 5
Another two hours later: I give up, at least I got a 5.
This was tickling the grey ones more than a bearded barber in a hotrod.
I found a nice solution, it is:
913465827
768129435
425387196
137294658
684753219
592618743
249836571
376541982
851972364
and it is wrong. Why don't 4, 3 and 1 add up to 10, as intended? 3 Hours, 12 minutes, and I had the impression my solution is right, until Simon put the two 8s in the 22cage at 28:55 - My magic square has the 8 in the lower right corner.
I had a lot of pencilmarks all over the place and didn't double-check the cage sums in the end, so I didn't recognize my errors.
Surely needless to say, that my approach didn't involve the outer ring trick.
This is the best use of a magic square in a sudoku I have seen so far. Great setting and a great solve to watch.
Just wow. I think this is the most impressive solve I have ever seen on this channel. Well done.
I am in love with this channel, because they explain simply as much as possible even if it's a clear for the majority of their audience.
Best use of a magic square i've seen yet. By FAR!
Simon, you are a joy to watch. Brilliant solve, and your enthusiasm is contagious!
At least I'm bright enough to know that if one of them failed it, I'm not even gonna try it.
And having seen the solve, I'm doubly glad I didn't try it. It's as of yet outside of my event horizon to figure out such a solution.
My favorite part of watching this channel is the dialogue of the logic happening inside the mind of Simon or Mark. I love the realization that we are both going down the same pathway or the realization that you have stumbled onto something that I had yet to consider. Fun!
I simply love the enthusiasm of a good solve.
I typed a bunch in a Notepad file as I worked through the dwindling minima and maxima for the corners, edge, and the eight internal squares not in the sums or the magic square. Finally worked it out and was thrilled when it led to the solution.
I'd actually love to see both of you compete in real-time.
By compete I mean you two are on a Discord call (for example), start at the same time, as you solve the puzzle we can see both of your solutions advancing and when one is done they announce it in the call. While solving you can mute yourselves to avoid someone whispering a solution step or something like that.
The puzzle type may be different - classic/custom rules sudoku, puzzles like tapa and aquariums, and cryptic crosswords.
Edit: I'd also love to hear after one is done what logic was used and was it different for both of you.
This wouldn't really work though. Simon loves to use logic and logic alone to solve a given problem but Mark, when in speed solve mode, will always resort to bifurcation as soon as things get tricky.
They could simply both record a video of the same puzzle and then show both of them on half the screen. Or the winner gets the full screen while the other is shown in PiP (picture in picture) mode.
@@Ruddigore well, since they will compete in logic, I think that they simply need to create a rule that prohibits bifurcation. That is also why I suggested different types of puzzles.
@@onman999 Well, while that sounds quite interesting, I think that it is kind of a harsh punishment for the loser. I'd love to see both solutions, but I am not speaking for everyone. As for tow videos, I suggested a call so they could exchange emotions and logic steps right away after the solve, while it's still fresh in their mind. However, your method also works.
One puzzle would not work with them. There should be at least two out of three with different tipe of sudoku. Then they don’t get advantage against each other because with some stuff one is better then each other and vs
Great puzzle and great video. Had a really good time watching you solve this one. Thanks again Simon.
For the first time ever I solved it faster than Simon! I figured out the "sum to 62" trick in 5 minutes, and then the sudoku part took me much longer than him. Great puzzle!
I love going back to see these older videos. I started watching a little more than a year ago, so am trying to find some of the older ones. Mark definitely played a trick on Simon, this was definitely not easy, what a break-in.
That was a genius solve. Well done. I so enjoy it when you guys clearly enjoy the solve. Thanks for your channel and enthusiasm.
The logic to begin this puzzle is incredible. Really great puzzle!
Really impressive break-in to the puzzle!!!!
I was very amused by Mark's outburst in the Puzzle Hunt solve video, but I felt very guilty at potentially laughing at something that caused Mark so much anguish. I am relieved it is only as serious as frustration over a Sudoku puzzle!
"we can actually work out the value of these 4 3x3 boxes by adding the cages and then adding 20 on at the end, now is that in anyway useful?
the answer is of course no its not."
You guys have trained me to be a -Jedi- Puzzle Master. I actually managed to solve this puzzle.
nice!!!!!!!!
for the 9 and 7 restrictions when you found the square pattern, looking at the 24 reveals the highest that digit can be is a 6. inputting the maximum digits in the other places shows that with that 6 it adds to 62, making the solving process much easier
I tried this but I got it down to 64 still.
*Spoiler alert* 789 958 896.
How to get it down to 62?
@@Flowerxhorn if you input the numbers and find out where the 9's can go, you find you can only have two 9's, three 8's, two 7's, and one 6
Is there ever any videos, where you and mark interact? *aside when one of you calls the other during a video and get ignored* 😂
good shout
There’s only one that I remember where Mark is solving a renban line sudoku (or something similar, I might be wrong) and Simon appears behind him and helps him out with a step and then leaves.
@@ericfox7021 Which one is that? Also, there's the video where Simon interviews Mark, if that counts.
@@KusaneHexaku
This one,
ruclips.net/video/qGG8cw-1Ea0/видео.html
I would absolutely love to hear that conversation with Mark. Great video.
I generally don't enjoy watching the ones with magic squares in the middle, but this was just amazing. Great puzzle, great solve!
Love the name: A killer sudoku with a magic square. Magic Killer. Avada Kedavra 👍
I'm actually fairly surprised Simon took so long to notice the "yellow squares", considering the only reason I found them so quickly (or indeed, at all) is specifically watching your videos and seeing you find and unravel tricks like these. The moment I ran out of easy steps I started counting up the boxes. As such I got that step done remarkably quickly, but ultimately I was slower at cleaning up the rest of the puzzle, putting our times just about dead-even. I think Simon even still beat me by like ten seconds, given the brief talk and musical fade-out at the end of the video.
Very enjoyable puzzle and solve, thankyou Simon and Philipp.
He's a mad man! An absolute madman! I swear sometimes it is so enjoyable to watch someone else succeed at games you like on another level. I'm still not even sure I follow the starter logic with the 9 digits. Well done sir :)
Stunningly amazing that anyone can solve this! Nicely done.
That was a bit frustrating for me, as I came to same conclusion of the 8-digits sum being 62, but I didn't know what to do with that information, as there were still a few degrees of freedom. That reasoning allowing only two 7s and two 9s in the sum was the bit that was missing and after that I could solve it by myself. Thanks again for a great puzzle and a great solve!
I got the 9 in box 5 by considering that if I used a 7 instead of a 9 that it would break box 5 because I would need another 7 to make 15 on whichever row had the 2. Inevitably, I took much longer than Simon to solve the puzzle. This was very fun! Thank you!!
A clever use of a magic square, I liked it
@22:00 I could never have begun that chain of logic myself, but once you narrowed it down to 62 in 8 cells, I was able to see that due to the magic square's mandatory 7+9 somewhere in those three rows+columns, that one of those rows+columns must contain a 6+8 as the final 2 digits because that's the maximum you could put in and adds up to exactly 62. I look forward to seeing the magic you work with that information!
@25:30 Though you did take a more scenic route to the same destination than I did, on this piece of logic. I was just going on sudoku logic. You could only contain a maximum of two lots of 789 without seeing the all of the magic square's odd digit cells. At that point, a 3rd 7 and 3rd 9 are impossible, the highest digits left are 6+8. We can call it a... uh... H-Wing on 7s and 9s. ;p
And since 789+789+68 = 62, that forces the maximum values for all 8 cells. As expected, you took that info and spun gold.
Ah, right! I've solved this before, and it's the first clever implementation of a magic square in a 9x9 Sudoku since Aad's original puzzle!
One day i hope to get as much joy out of something as you do solving good puzzles.
I solved it a similar way, but I considered the four corner squares and the 4 pairs of "inner" squares not in cages. For me the key thing was noticing the smallest numbers I could place in those inner squares (1, 2, 3, 4 & 6). This made it slightly easier to reach the arithmetical restriction on the corner squares, which had to be 6,7,8 & 9.
I did it the same way! Although it took me well over an hour to get there.
Also the fact that whichever way round the magic square went, either the central row or central column had to have a 3 in the magic square, so the minimum sums for those inner dominoes became 1+2+4+6 and 2+3+4+6, making a combined minimum of 28.
tried the puzzle before starting the video, saw tha magic square saw the killer boxes , and thought hey a magic killer sudoku, and now watching the video i see avada kedavra, killing magic!!! hahaha
Every time you apologise for being slow I wonder how you make these incredible logical leaps.
I broke into this puzzle by using column 6 and seeing that three groups of 7 or Domino's existed. Slowly figured out that the seven had to be c5r9. But I never found Simon's logic to the puzzle, thus I took 2:34.17 but I did solve it.
Wait, I managed to solve this without watching any of the video so far. How did Mark manage to be defeated by it? Solved in 51:39. I almost immediately struck on the idea to sum the possible values in the rows and columns where the dotted regions were, add these sums to the dotted regions and the magic square, and subtract them from 405. This gives us 62. I subtracted two 24 totals from this, and got 14. This means you have two 789 totals, and then additionally either a 6 and an 8 or a 5 and a 9. A 5 and a 9 cannot be doable, mind you, because either the middle row or the middle column of a magic square must contain both a 5 and a 9. This solved the combination of numbers not included in my sum. Now, the 24 gives me the position of the 6, and then further clues gave me the way to victory.
I found a whole bunch of fascinating cell interactions and sums in my solve attempt, all of which were, as you'd say, absolutely useless.
I also did. None were as useful as the one Simon finds, but I wouldn't say they were absolutely useless. E.g. looking at rows 6,7,8 and subtracting the cages and magic triple gives you a very low total (22) for the remaining 8 cells. Also looking at row 6 alone, I found that by going through combinations in the top half of the 22 cage, lots leave no possible pair in the bottom half and are thus ruled out.
Yes, mirror cells, triples, quintuples, pairs, even an X-wing on 1s at one point if I recall correctly. I especially used the 89s and later the 6s locked into rows 7 and 8.
when i first read the title i got the ambition to be better than one of them. Now, it's two hours later and i just cracked 8 numbers out of 81. Time to go to bed, tomorrow is a new day.
ok, now the next day is over and i can proudly say that i got the only solution. I spent another two hours or so with it but i finally got it and i didn't make any mistakes! Yay! Now i can watch the video to see how Simon can do this in half an hour.
well, i watched it now. at first i was happy because i think i found the first few numbers faster, but then he found that pattern counting to 202 what i didn't do. i think that way is the most elegant solution to this puzzle (like Philipp Huber wrote it was the intended solution) and seeing the fast way of solving it from that point on was kind of depressing for me. I did it with dirtier workarounds but i still can say that i'm better in this as Mark. ;P
Never would have solved this without Simon's coloring logic. Once I had the set of 8 numbers he found it all clicked into place.
Your Sudoku-fu is amazing!
12:51 wouldn't manage to spot that out by myself, good logic there
That wasn’t a mistake, you left that in as payback ;)
This puzzle seems tricky until you notice a very important loophole: he never said that normal sudoku rules apply!
Actually, Simon does say that at 4:05
I thought for sure the purple squares would turn out to be hidden magic squares and that the nine cells you singled out in the edges would be another magic square! Great solve!!
You failed to spot (early) that 789 was unavailable in the corner of box 9. You had 3 degrees of freedom in your total, and that reduces it completely.
3 degrees of freedom would only reduce a 9 to the 6. If you went forward with the 789s and the middle 14, you could just as easily lower a 7 to a 4 in that corner (789/489/589). The geometry would break it of course, but degrees of freedom isn't sufficient to disprove it.
I just wanted to say that i clicked on this video, but i saw it continued off past the intro, and i was like "Why did i leave this video in the middle of the solution?"
The FIRST words out of Simon's mouth was "Now let's do some arithmetic..."
Still 39:41 on my second attempt (without watching the video). I got the intended solve path in my first pass before messing up one of the digits - which is discovered much later. So, I restarted, and obviously did it much faster - probably a total of 1 hour and 20 minutes on this!
Absolutely loved this puzzle, managed it in one hour 35 minutes once I had your help on the outside cells. Would not have had a cat in hell's chance of completing it otherwise. It is so wonderful to be aware of my improvement practically on a daily basis, which probably says more about the amount of time I am spending on solving totally guilt free as we are living in such strange times. Thank you so much for continually exercising my little grey cells - unfortunately my body is growing in direct proportion to my neural pathways.
26'36" -- me -- "Finally! He remembered the 789 triple!"
When I saw the layout I thought for sure the Phistomephel ring theorem was going to come into play.
Why? Neither of the two important shapes for that trick are present...
The inner ring is too big for that.
This honestly reminds me of some mystery show like house of Sherlock Holmes. 1 hour long at times, maybe more, and little clues and banter along the way.
Took just over two hours, half of it just to find the break-in, and half of the rest to apply it correctly. (Made a careless incorrect assumption when first placing the 789s, and it bit me. Checked the end of the video to confirm the screw-up, erased everything, figured it out properly.) Still got stuck one more time after that. If this is easy, I am very, very dumb.
Edit: I conceived of the break-in a little differently, though it's the same geometry involved. I was looking at the "leftovers" from the addable cells in rows 6 through 8, which is 22. Couldn't do anything with that. Then also looked at the "leftovers" from rows 2 through 4, which is 36. Couldn't do anything with that either. But mark it all up and add the 15 down the middle and you have 73 -- a very small number considering it sums all but 8 cells in columns 1, 5 and 9. Subtract 73 from 135 and you get 62 as the sum of those 8 cells. Possibly this is one of the setter's "dirty workarounds".
Edit edit: Though I'm happy I stuck with the puzzle enough to find it, I'm usually not super satisfied when a puzzle is as front-loaded in difficulty as this one is. The real elegance in the puzzle's construction I think was the following step, when the "find the critical geometry" part intersected with the magic square to yield just one possible set of numbers for those 8 cells. (You could not, for instance, have set that 6 in the lower right to be a 4 or 5 and still had it work out.) Even with my carelessness that made me do it twice, I really liked that part.
Thought I would try it despite the 37 minute video time. Sometimes Simon can take a long time to explain a magic square.
Managed to get the 5 in R5 C5. Then after 20 minutes of not getting another digit I gave up.
Simon, if you're reading this: the sum of the 9 cells (start/middle/end of each green row/column) is also influenced by the fact that you had 789 triple in box 9, and 5 in the center of the grid, so the sum for the remaining 7 cells was only 56, giving you an average of exactly 8. Since you can't fill 7 cells with 8s, you need 7s and 9s. How many? Equal number of 7s and 9s, otherwise the average would get lower/higher than 8. So you can have one 8 and three 7s and 9s or three 8s and two 7s and 9s, which is decided by the magic square.
I somehow got the 8 boxes in the corners summing to 62 (came at it from a different direction), but failed to see the center box ruling out three 9's or three 7's in that sum. Pretty straight forward after that.
3:04
That excitement, it's like you came.
Was there really a time when "cages" were called "dotted boxes"? I'm watching the evolution of sudoku happening. Just wow!
Even watching him do this and explaining how he does it I still don't have a clue how he works these things out
The mistake probably _was_ silly, but was left unnoticed for too long, so it was nearly impossible to fix without starting over completely.
maybe he made a mistake that made it easier but didn't work out
By now, why won't puzzle setters place the 5 in the magic squares?
They do, by telling you it’s a magic square
My guess is if there are already no other digits in the grid, it makes for a "cleaner" looking puzzle
Reduces the elegance, I presume. Elegance isn't the only factor in setting a puzzle, of course - if it were we wouldn't get puzzles shaped like elephants on occasion - but it is definitely a factor.
If they fill the central square in, then there's no other numbers I can fill-in!!
Because it would take away a NAKED SINGLE!!!
Oh wow I did not expect you to pronounce Joke van Veenendaal's name the way you did, you almost got it too! It's more of a Vay-nen-Dahl then Vee-nen-Dahl. :)
I remember this one from the discord server. Was a brilliant and very original use of a magic square!
So for an average person what is considered good solve time? 20-24h?
There are weird flickering artifacts in the grid that made this hard to watch until I reduced the resolution - so if anyone is distracted/put off by that, try it at 480p
Little over an 1:45 time, definitely did not see the trick Simon finds, but went about it by discovering a 7/9 pair in column 4.
At 30:00, how did you determine R4C4 was a 4? I missed the logic there.
I spent over 5 hours on it and couldn't figure out that solution. Great job 👍
Wow. Crazy solve.
Most impressive!
I loved it when last time you referred to Mark as "the fiend".
I was hoping to see both of you trying to solve the same puzzle
If stuck, take a step back and write in the naked singles.
The windows were dirty when I did the puzzle, so I bifurcated found the 95 for the 14 cage was a bust, bifurcated again on the 10 cage when I got stuck and got lucky as the 6 looked like the best choice for R2C8 as it forced the other to be a 13 pair. From there it worked out, but I feel just plain dirty. Sorry I didn't see the beautiful clean sparkling window version you saw. Great solve!
I did use some math to get a few squares and other than those two spots I did use logic for the rest of the solve.
When he was working the 13,14 box in the bottom left I wanted to go crazy when he left it without removing 6 from his magic square on the left side.
Watched carefully. Still baffled.
There should be a playlist with all the pranking or suspected pranking videos.
Insane breakthrough but very nice logic 🙃
I messed up 3 times on this puzzle and had to restart. I was really trying to do the row and column math, but it only succeeded in telling me I'd messed up somewhere.
The title of this video is what I think about a lot of the puzzles in this channel... Between me and Simon, one of us fails to solve a lot of puzzles. 🤔
I got a lot of numbers in the grid much faster than Simon. Of course at 37 minutes in I also had 2 6's in col 7. And I couldn't figure out how to fix it. So there's that.
Bryan, ikr: I hate when that happens!
Madness! Just madness. My head hurts.
WOW! what a puzzle!!!
Well, after two hours of being stuck, I had to diverge for this one, so, I guess that's a loss!
99% of the time I am amazed how he does all this and barely understandig it. 1% of the time I sit here frustrated because he overlooks things easily solved by simple sudoku.
I’m in Mark’s corner here in that I needed a couple of goes to get the completed solution (Was struggling to do the maths in head)
bottom right could only be a 6, I would have thought of doing the right 3 adding to 135, with the restrictions of the 10, 20 and 7,8,9 cage, could that have been useful?
If I could actually add properly I could have solved this. I put 95 into the 15 cage instead of 96. That made sudokuing lead to a big mess. I quit after 3 hours. I had already restarted an hour before that. Didnt do what Simon did tho. He is amazing.
I used to think the magic squares (once you knew how they worked) made for easy sudoku.