When you first crack open a new sudoku puzzle, do you look at the rows or columns first? Or do you work in blocks? What’s your strategy?

  • sotolf
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    31 year ago

    What I usually do is going through the puzzle doing snydernotation first (marking when a number can only be in 2 places in a box)

    Most easy puzzles can be done with only that, then when it stops being fruitful I fully mark the puzzle up and start looking for things in roughly this order:

    • triples
    • x-wings
    • simple-fishes (skyscraper, 2-wing kites)
    • xy-wings
    • xyz-wings
    • swordfishes
    • chaining techniques

    That’s at least my basic rough order of going through solving a puzzle.

    • @[email protected]
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      11 year ago

      That’s… a lot. I’m assuming those are techniques for efficiently solving sudoku puzzles? I never thought about it, but it makes sense that there would be defined methodologies for tackling this kind of puzzle.