Simon: Uses the ‘crank handle’ trick using five squares to get a digit in an extremely obscure way Also Simon: has a square pencilled in as either 7 or 8 despite the fact there’s a 7 in its row, column AND box
The penciled "3" in the top left box also got to me... but I've worked on puzzles where the brain just goes and I have nothing but sympathy for the act of solving this fabulous monstrosity.
How, at 25:00, has he still not penciled in 9's in the top right and middle right squares of the top left box?? Should have been in the first "basic" pass. That ain't rocket science. Those two are ruled in as the only candidates by the other two columns in that column of boxes.
This contains basically every Sudoku technique you need to solve hard Sudokus! 5:58 Swordfish 14:50 Hidden triple 17:11 Empty rectangle 22:18 X-Wing 24:50 Y-Wing/Bent triple 28:35 Another hidden triple 30:38 Another Y-Wing 32:26 "The crank handle" 34:40 One last empty rectangle
We need to see a blooper real of the times you've had to give up on puzzles! We all experience it and I would love to see the times it happens to two such fantastic solvers like you both
I was just thinking about this very thing. Where he's filming and he's about 45 minutes in and gives up. This must have happened. Some of these puzzles are extremely difficult
To be honest, they are all fairly simple. At least the classic ones. But I think commentating while solving is where these two guys really shine. But unfortunately having to commentate rules out anything harder then this difficulty.
I also watch mechanical puzzle solvers, one posted two different times he had to give up at solving "Excalibur". It just made it more epic months later when he did finally get it. Nothing wrong in having to take a break and start over.
16:52 "This must be very frustrating to watch" Lol, oh no my good sir. Quite the contrary. It's comforting to know that even an incredible mind like yours can get stuck on difficult puzzles. Make ME feel not so bad when I get stuck too.
Reminds me of my days as a student pilot following along on the controls whilst the instructor is demonstrating a difficult manuever. I can follow along, but am in no way capable of doing this on my own.
Something which happens to me in every Simon video: Me: Is glued to the screen. Completely into what is happening. Simon: "I realize this must be very frustrating to watch."
I love these long video's and absolutely don't mind any pauses while you stare at it or a moment. This one was especially fun to watch you pull one magic trick after another out of the sudoku hat and the puzzle kept resisting anyway.
I have to say: this puzzle was fantastic. My capabilities are far from yours but i had such fun learning new stuff and contemplating such marvellus sudoku.
After struggling and only completing half of most of the puzzles on this channel in about an hour, just to watch you complete them in 10-15 min, its oddly satisfying watching you struggle through this one :)
I found this one via googling cracking the cryptic classic sudoku... and I gave up after a certain point. I am GLAD that I gave up, because it took an expert as long as it takes me to solve a regular not all that hard sudoku.
A time of 53:05 for me! I had to pencil mark the whole grid but I did find the X-Wing on 7's, the jellyfish on 3's, the subsequent hidden 29-pair in column 6, the yet again subsequent hidden 167-triple in box 5, which lead me to discovering a 1456-quadruple in column 3, and then I found the Y-Wing in R2C34+R3C4 which FINALLY unraveled the X-Wing on 7's and then from that point and on, it was smooth sailing. Derek Neil's puzzles in the Classic Sudoku app really did prepare me for this one!
I've no idea what you are talking about. The swordfish, X-wing etc are far too complex to wrap my head around hence why I steer clear of the extreme sudokus. Something that infuriating loses it's fun.
TWO BLOODY HOURS. That's how long this took to solve. Derek Neal, please know that your name inspires fear in my mind. I had to bifurcate (or I guess, follow a long chain, technically). I found the swordfish. I found the X Wing. I found the Skyscraper. I found the finned X Wings. I found the triples and the pairs. I found the Y Wings. I STILL had to bifurcate. Good god this was hard.
If it makes you feel any better, the subject of my email to Simon when I sent him this puzzle was, "I apologize." :) I hope spending 2 hours on this helped take your mind off of current events for a while.
The puzzled wrapped up for me with the xwing 7 as that cleared up most the 5, 6, 7, 8's. Simon missed 2x 7's after the 7 xwing. Don't get me wrong. It took me an hour to get to that point but then i facepalmed. Great puzzle for these long days!
It took me an hour, on my 4th attempt. I got through it with a single bifurcation. I bifurcated the 7's as they interacted heavily with the 3's and 9's.
Took me about 40 minutes. Swordfish? No, didn't even know what that was till this video. Even missed the Xwing. So, what did I do? Bifurcate, and click undo like a monkey; bifurcate again. Repeat. About 5 bifurcations did do the trick. This works ok on-line, cannot do it this way with a pencil+paper sudoku. Not sure I would even want to deploy a swordfish after seeing this, but the bent triples were cool.
21:50 - 36:50 It only took 15 minutes for him to realize he pencil-marked a 3 in a box already containing a 3. I would've been stuck on everything else, though. Great video.
Then try the following ;-) ..68..925 .2....1.. 1....6... 6....5... ....3.... ..14...57 .3....2.. 2....4.1. 4....7..6 Created this a while ago, but did not publish it, because it's just too extreme. There are lots of extreme sudoku possibilities out there, but they wouldn't be fun as you would just have to plough through endless logical chains (or simply resort to trial and error). Derek's puzzle is much better, as it is solvable with techniques relying on recognising typical pattern, and not just endless variants until you can rule out single digits.
Playing this along with you is teaching how to recognise certain techniques and use them. Not that it matters but there was two seven X-wings interacting with each other. A brilliant puzzle that forces one to use the different techniques and a brilliant teacher to go along with it.
tried doing this on my own and came to the video for tips when i was truly stuck. i learned a lot! that "bent triple" technique is very useful, but i just don't spot them
The struggle was real. The puzzle in the opening stages posed no threat to begin with but later getting the 5 th digit was a devil 's advocate... Well done sir, you showed the world what a human mind is capable of achieving and showed your dedication towards the puzzles and the urge to get better. Thanks a lot sir. What a fantastic display. It took me 2 hr 7min to solve.
This one took an X-wing, multiple Finned X-wings, a Swordfish, an XY-wing, two type 3 unique rectangles, and a Sashimi X-wing to break. This was pretty brutal...took about 45 minutes and that was with an eventual hint given. Short of using alternate forcing chains or exotic strategies like Sue De Coq, aligned pair exclusion, or ALS-XZ, this is about as complex as you can get. Bravo Derek!
That's it, it's decided, after this video I'll finally start the project that I though a few weeks ago. I'm gonna code a general sudoku solver where you can describe those unorthodox sudokus and see a solution! Or at least I'll try
An X-wing, a Swordfish, several empty rectangles, 2 bent triples, an unnamed trick you called a crank? and a NYTimes Hidden triple and you *still* struggled. Talk about a brutal puzzle! I'd never be able to solve that one. My hats off to you, good sir!
Hadn't done any sudoku in ages before I discovered your channel a couple days back, and all the more constrained ones seemed a bit too much for me to keep track of, so when I saw this one was a classic sudoku I had to try for myself before watching. Proud to announce a time of 43:59 for a completion. Quite surprised myself honestly. Thanks for getting me back into sudoku, gonna actually watch the vid now!
After doing all the simple standard tricks, I went straight to following Ariadne's thread over and over, like I usually do. There were very few times where I found a breakthrough that afforded me several digits. Most times it only resulted in being able to erase one pencil mark, and then right back to following threads again. It was like that all the way to the end. Nothing ever really "broke the puzzle open". It took me 3 hours, not using any advanced techniques. It was like death by a thousand cuts, but it sure felt good when I finally finished. That was my kind of FUN!
I thought we were up something with that triple, but we just aren't are we? Exactly my sentiment during this entire puzzle. Great one. I couldn't spot that 3-4-5 relation and 1-3-4
OMG. This one is so difficult, so far beyond my capabilities that in fact by putting random numbers in random locations I would solve it sooner than by thinking.
It took me 4 hours 44 minutes, and I took a few hints from the comments to be aware of what to look out for, but I'm proud that i was able to finish it. It was very extremely hard going, but unusually not particularly frustrating this time. Maybe it's because I knew it would be a devil before I went in. I think it's been a good one for teaching me how to spot patterns, especially the y-wing.
41:30 solve time! To be honest I'm really glad to see a challenging classic sudoku on the channel for the first time in quite a while. For this puzzle, after seeing the length of the video, I went into full-candidate notation mode pretty early on... saw the x-wing on 7's but missed the swordfish on 3's, which was costly. After some complicated chaining eventually managed to get to the end. Hope to see more great classic sudokus!
I think 32:30 is a Cell Forcing Chain from E1/E7. Given all candidates in a cell, you can prove for each of them (using Grouped X Cycles or Alternating Inference Chains) that a certain candidate in a different cell can't occur and can therefore be eliminated.
Managed to get to the exact same point as you until I got stuck at 25mins ish. Watched to see how you solved it and kicked myself for missing something so tricky. I knew there was something to do with the 8s but just couldn’t work it out. Fantastic solve.
unreal... I started watching your channel after I saw the first miracle sudoku... that was ridiculous... I honestly don't think I can still solve it but I continue to learn new methods and techniques ... keep it going!
Is it just me or does anyone else also enjoy watching Simon struggle? Ngl I'm kinda attached to these "long" videos and starting to belittle those "easier" puzzles, even though it still takes me hours to solve them.
So all we needed to do was spot a swordfish, an X-wing, two bent triples and a... crank?? Yeah, this is beyond diabolical and so is Simon. Now if I could watch Mark bifurcate the heck out of this, that would complete my belittling.
Swordfish!! How to spot then an zwingen am then a bent triple! Coulda anybody of u do this diabolical one!!!!! Without the help of Simon Anthony!!! Let me know / I love toughies!!
@@blobblub9424 Mark sometimes does this thing where he plugs a number in somewhere and follows the ramifications of that placement to see if it causes problems elsewhere so that he may eliminate that possibility. It is incredibly hard to follow and even harder to do yourself. What it allows Mark to do, however, is get to a solution faster without having to figure out the logical path to the solution which may be fairly narrow and hard to figure out. My comment was an allusion to the fact that I can neither figure out the logic like Simon nor bifurcate like Mark. Especially not on a beastly puzzle like this.
That was a challenging puzzle... my head hurts. The naked 9 could have been placed in row 1, col 3 somewhat earlier after placing the 7 in row 2 but not surprising to miss on such a diabolical puzzle. Thank you for showing us a crank handle and the bent Y. Those are delightful techniques.
What I like the most about puzzles this hard is how they mess your head so bad, you start thinking about all the 5D Chess patterns you've had available in your head but completely forget the easiest way to solve some of these numbers - by Classic Sudoku rules (liek the 689 in the top left box at the end).
I started in column one, eliminating the 4 from grid 4, then tried to put a 6 where the 3 ended up. Took me a while to see that was wrong, but once it did the rest of the puzzle was relatively easy. He still did it faster than I did, though.
You will get a near identical puzzle if you replace the upper right box 8 into a 4. I messed up and got everything right expect that one box messing me up! So that wrong 8 was effecting two boxes. And nothing else. Fascinating
You mentioned watching this might be frustrating, in fact your progress is always very interesting, I think it adds some excitement,a curiosity about how that will be finally resolved. Thank you for the video, every second of it worth watching.
Started watching this channel a few days ago and I solved it in ~32 minutes just now after having to backtrack a mistake near the end. No bifurcation. Not bad.
He put a 346 triple in box 1 that had a 3. Spent almost 15 minutes with that. Felt bad that his mental focus was deteriorating the longer he stared at the puzzle
1:30 Simon admits basically that there are Sudokus that he could not solve. This already makes me feel so much better. Edit: Without watching the video, I actually managed to solve this Sudoku in under 25 minutes. A Swordfish, several X-Wings and finned X-Wings were the solution to the puzzle.
i got it in about 2 hours :d i recognized number patterns to help me with some numbers, though it also set me back when i thought i saw one pattern that was just a trap, i thought i'd finish in 20minutes and it stretched me out for another hour before i realized it great video
4 ปีที่แล้ว
I entered the puzzle in "heart sudoku", a sudoku app for macos, which can highlight the pencilmarks for a selected number. This helped me to spot some patterns... so the solve was successful, but a little bit cheated because of the highlighting. Without that - no chance for me... Good job Simon!
Pretty late to this but I think the "crank handle" at 32:26 is a really short XY-chain. Basically, the ends of the chain are at the two 45 pairs he pointed out, and he proved that the 5 is either at one end of the chain or the other, so anything that intersected those two cells couldn't be a 5, which he eliminated. The way he pointed it out was a bit different, since he used a cell in the middle of the chain instead of the ends, but it still works out the same.
I got it! The first time I tried (at 1:30 last night), I messed up so I had to start over. I decided I was too tired, so I saved it for today. And once he got to 36:23, I finally was able to solve it in about 45 min (I'm not sure exactly how long as my partner called me away to help him with something while I was working on it and there's no pause time feature on the web app).
2 hours 40 min. After putting those first easy numbers, I started highlighting the board for all possibilities and found the jellyfish on threes (instead of the swordfish, haha) and X-Wing on the sevens but didn't know what to do from there. eventually, I filled the entire grid with all possibilities until slowly but surely found all the doubles, triples, and y-wings. However, I did not use the trick with the 3-4 and 4-5 that placed the five. I need to remember that technique. I solved the whole thing with either empty rectangles or skyscrapers
i love this so much... so nice to see the thinking and hard work that goes into solving, even for champions. makes me feel better for spending 45 minutes on a puzzle last night 🥰
21:12 after penciling the 1-8 into r3c5, consider the consequences of having an 8 in r3c4, specifically on the 289 triple in the central box. It would you give you two 2s in the central box. Thus the 8 must be in either r1c5 or r3c5. This disambiguates the 8 in the central box, which disambiguates the 289 triple.
it's definitely not as weird as me doing a Scottish accent and dictating the pencil marks and digits that i place... i have no idea why i do it, but i do
At 33:00, you used the “Crank” to find the triple to get the 5 (at the end of the crank), which you could have used to backfill all the digits along the crank and solve the triple since they were all related. (Although, to be honest, I’m not sure I could have even reached that point without guessing!)
This took me an hour and I needed you to point to that 56 cell in order to get my brain working enough to spot whatever you saw and make more progress. (I actually didn't find the 789 triple directly, but I knew one of the 5 or 6 in box 7 had to be paired with the 3 or else they would screw over the 56 cell that was pointed out, and that led me to the same triple.) I also liked your "crank" find better than what I came up with, which was kind of like an empty rectangle with an extra step of going through a 45 pair in row 6.
![Classic Sudoku: Bonus Puzzle 4: [This is STUNNING]](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/O0uASyvv554/mqdefault.jpg)
"This Sudoku is monstrous so I will employ all techniques" is one of the nerdiest things I've ever heard.
You're a sudoku fan?
Name every technique.
Botheration!
@@phs125i actually know the names of most of them! Including the ones from Sudoku's variations
Simon: Uses the ‘crank handle’ trick using five squares to get a digit in an extremely obscure way
Also Simon: has a square pencilled in as either 7 or 8 despite the fact there’s a 7 in its row, column AND box
The penciled "3" in the top left box also got to me... but I've worked on puzzles where the brain just goes and I have nothing but sympathy for the act of solving this fabulous monstrosity.
How, at 25:00, has he still not penciled in 9's in the top right and middle right squares of the top left box?? Should have been in the first "basic" pass. That ain't rocket science. Those two are ruled in as the only candidates by the other two columns in that column of boxes.
@@MGmirkin I stared at those nines the entire solve and it was literally the last digit he got....
Not very obscure. It's called a w-wing. He just didn't know the official name.
This contains basically every Sudoku technique you need to solve hard Sudokus!
5:58 Swordfish
14:50 Hidden triple
17:11 Empty rectangle
22:18 X-Wing
24:50 Y-Wing/Bent triple
28:35 Another hidden triple
30:38 Another Y-Wing
32:26 "The crank handle"
34:40 One last empty rectangle
Didn't even know strategies like this existed, its just crazy, now i want to learn all of them
@@pedro_mts I've learned a crazy amount watching this channel over the last three months or so hahaha
Literally watched the video thinking "now I just have to re-watch it 100 times until I have all those techniques he showed down"
No Octopus ? Disappointing ! :D :D
Why does the swordfish not work for the columns as well? I’m bad at logicking those
We need to see a blooper real of the times you've had to give up on puzzles! We all experience it and I would love to see the times it happens to two such fantastic solvers like you both
I was just thinking about this very thing. Where he's filming and he's about 45 minutes in and gives up. This must have happened. Some of these puzzles are extremely difficult
To be honest, they are all fairly simple. At least the classic ones. But I think commentating while solving is where these two guys really shine. But unfortunately having to commentate rules out anything harder then this difficulty.
Not even a schadenfreude, I would like to see this at least once as a surprise. Shame we just had april fools.
I love blooper reels. One from this channel would be great.
I also watch mechanical puzzle solvers, one posted two different times he had to give up at solving "Excalibur". It just made it more epic months later when he did finally get it. Nothing wrong in having to take a break and start over.
The madman actually did it!
Derek Neal this puzzle is crazy. Well done.
I didn't check for any slot machines whilst doing my solve, did you hide any in there?
@@RandomBurfness I checked for slot machines as soon as I saw it was one of Derek's puzzles and didn't find any.
@@dougmelven2597 There is one for nines in box 2.
" I'm running out of colours"
*Has used 2 out of the 9 available*
This is called Diabolical Confusion, my friends, caused by the puzzle
16:52 "This must be very frustrating to watch"
Lol, oh no my good sir. Quite the contrary. It's comforting to know that even an incredible mind like yours can get stuck on difficult puzzles. Make ME feel not so bad when I get stuck too.
Reminds me of my days as a student pilot following along on the controls whilst the instructor is demonstrating a difficult manuever. I can follow along, but am in no way capable of doing this on my own.
This is remarkably relatable!
This puzzle was a crash course in so many advanced techniques. Wow
video: 39 minutes
me: that's alright, I'll let you handle this one
LOL
Love your name lol
@@calvinvondracek1418 heh, thanks, especially appropriate here with all those diabolical puzzles huh? 😂
I really like the long ones!
Lol I did it in less than 29 minutes
32:26 "There is a trick". How on earth do you see something like that?! Amazing! I still have much to learn.
Something which happens to me in every Simon video:
Me: Is glued to the screen. Completely into what is happening.
Simon: "I realize this must be very frustrating to watch."
He said that exactly as I was reading this comment
Yeah, this mere mortal is trying to follow Simon's logic so hard.
I love these long video's and absolutely don't mind any pauses while you stare at it or a moment. This one was especially fun to watch you pull one magic trick after another out of the sudoku hat and the puzzle kept resisting anyway.
I have to say: this puzzle was fantastic. My capabilities are far from yours but i had such fun learning new stuff and contemplating such marvellus sudoku.
After struggling and only completing half of most of the puzzles on this channel in about an hour, just to watch you complete them in 10-15 min, its oddly satisfying watching you struggle through this one :)
i feel you
I found this one via googling cracking the cryptic classic sudoku... and I gave up after a certain point.
I am GLAD that I gave up, because it took an expert as long as it takes me to solve a regular not all that hard sudoku.
A time of 53:05 for me! I had to pencil mark the whole grid but I did find the X-Wing on 7's, the jellyfish on 3's, the subsequent hidden 29-pair in column 6, the yet again subsequent hidden 167-triple in box 5, which lead me to discovering a 1456-quadruple in column 3, and then I found the Y-Wing in R2C34+R3C4 which FINALLY unraveled the X-Wing on 7's and then from that point and on, it was smooth sailing. Derek Neil's puzzles in the Classic Sudoku app really did prepare me for this one!
I've no idea what you are talking about. The swordfish, X-wing etc are far too complex to wrap my head around hence why I steer clear of the extreme sudokus. Something that infuriating loses it's fun.
Thought with this many givens, this would not be that tough. It did not give up its secrets easily. Great solve.
TWO BLOODY HOURS. That's how long this took to solve. Derek Neal, please know that your name inspires fear in my mind. I had to bifurcate (or I guess, follow a long chain, technically). I found the swordfish. I found the X Wing. I found the Skyscraper. I found the finned X Wings. I found the triples and the pairs. I found the Y Wings. I STILL had to bifurcate. Good god this was hard.
If it makes you feel any better, the subject of my email to Simon when I sent him this puzzle was, "I apologize." :)
I hope spending 2 hours on this helped take your mind off of current events for a while.
Did the long 'chain' you found involve a whole ton of implications on 5's and 6's? I think we followed a similar solve path if so haha
The puzzled wrapped up for me with the xwing 7 as that cleared up most the 5, 6, 7, 8's. Simon missed 2x 7's after the 7 xwing. Don't get me wrong. It took me an hour to get to that point but then i facepalmed. Great puzzle for these long days!
It took me an hour, on my 4th attempt. I got through it with a single bifurcation. I bifurcated the 7's as they interacted heavily with the 3's and 9's.
Took me about 40 minutes. Swordfish? No, didn't even know what that was till this video. Even missed the Xwing. So, what did I do? Bifurcate, and click undo like a monkey; bifurcate again. Repeat. About 5 bifurcations did do the trick. This works ok on-line, cannot do it this way with a pencil+paper sudoku. Not sure I would even want to deploy a swordfish after seeing this, but the bent triples were cool.
21:50 - 36:50 It only took 15 minutes for him to realize he pencil-marked a 3 in a box already containing a 3. I would've been stuck on everything else, though. Great video.
he still wouldnt have been able to place a digit in until right before he noticed it when he ruled out the 4. That solve gave me anxiety lol
And right after, "now why did I have a 7 here when that can't be a 7?"
Yes that 3 was there for a long time but there was a 3 in the box itself already
Are u heavy solders??!!
I meant: heavy solvers??? Diabolical ones???
I need a 30 minute video on you giving up on puzzles
“Whoa....I am not unhappy with that”...What an awesome line to close it out! You made my day with that!
19:20 BOTHERATION! That's a new one. lol
That’s the most outrageously difficult classic sudoku I’ve ever seen. Every digit took about 3 different advanced techniques to get, I’m stunned
Then try the following ;-)
..68..925
.2....1..
1....6...
6....5...
....3....
..14...57
.3....2..
2....4.1.
4....7..6
Created this a while ago, but did not publish it, because it's just too extreme.
There are lots of extreme sudoku possibilities out there, but they wouldn't be fun as you would just have to plough through endless logical chains (or simply resort to trial and error). Derek's puzzle is much better, as it is solvable with techniques relying on recognising typical pattern, and not just endless variants until you can rule out single digits.
@@ThomasHDBass @ Solved it in almost 2 hours its an extreme puzzle with hidden triples and all sorts of wings ! The 5th row is 5 7 2 6 3 8 4 9 1
@@m0s12 Thanks for the feedback - but I'm curious - was it worth the time? And did you enjoy solving such a fiendishly difficult puzzle?
Simon: PLEASE upload your blooper reel!
I just watched this for the first time and being used to Simon solves I feel like he's really improved during the year that's passed
Watching you unravelling that at the end was so satisfying, and I was holding my breath with you there. Keep it up!
Playing this along with you is teaching how to recognise certain techniques and use them. Not that it matters but there was two seven X-wings interacting with each other. A brilliant puzzle that forces one to use the different techniques and a brilliant teacher to go along with it.
There was also a finned x-wing that can be used instead of empty rectangle to eliminate 2 from R1C8
tried doing this on my own and came to the video for tips when i was truly stuck. i learned a lot! that "bent triple" technique is very useful, but i just don't spot them
Coming back to sudoku after a decade since my last puzzle. After watching you, I felt pretty proud of myself for finishing this one in 47:40
This was a great puzzle for repeated explanations of your techniques. Very helpful for struggling novices like me. Thank you.
The struggle was real. The puzzle in the opening stages posed no threat to begin with but later getting the 5 th digit was a devil 's advocate... Well done sir, you showed the world what a human mind is capable of achieving and showed your dedication towards the puzzles and the urge to get better. Thanks a lot sir. What a fantastic display.
It took me 2 hr 7min to solve.
This one took an X-wing, multiple Finned X-wings, a Swordfish, an XY-wing, two type 3 unique rectangles, and a Sashimi X-wing to break. This was pretty brutal...took about 45 minutes and that was with an eventual hint given. Short of using alternate forcing chains or exotic strategies like Sue De Coq, aligned pair exclusion, or ALS-XZ, this is about as complex as you can get. Bravo Derek!
I learned a lot from these very hard ones!
That's it, it's decided, after this video I'll finally start the project that I though a few weeks ago. I'm gonna code a general sudoku solver where you can describe those unorthodox sudokus and see a solution!
Or at least I'll try
How is it going?
I really enjoyed watching this solve, Simon felt like I feel solving any decently difficult Sudoku. 😅
Bring back more of these please Simon and Mark.
An X-wing, a Swordfish, several empty rectangles, 2 bent triples, an unnamed trick you called a crank? and a NYTimes Hidden triple and you *still* struggled. Talk about a brutal puzzle! I'd never be able to solve that one. My hats off to you, good sir!
Hadn't done any sudoku in ages before I discovered your channel a couple days back, and all the more constrained ones seemed a bit too much for me to keep track of, so when I saw this one was a classic sudoku I had to try for myself before watching. Proud to announce a time of 43:59 for a completion. Quite surprised myself honestly. Thanks for getting me back into sudoku, gonna actually watch the vid now!
After doing all the simple standard tricks, I went straight to following Ariadne's thread over and over, like I usually do. There were very few times where I found a breakthrough that afforded me several digits. Most times it only resulted in being able to erase one pencil mark, and then right back to following threads again. It was like that all the way to the end. Nothing ever really "broke the puzzle open". It took me 3 hours, not using any advanced techniques. It was like death by a thousand cuts, but it sure felt good when I finally finished. That was my kind of FUN!
I thought we were up something with that triple, but we just aren't are we?
Exactly my sentiment during this entire puzzle.
Great one. I couldn't spot that 3-4-5 relation and 1-3-4
I gave up after 4 times trying, just sat down and enjoyed watching Simon! Wonderful!
OMG. This one is so difficult, so far beyond my capabilities that in fact by putting random numbers in random locations I would solve it sooner than by thinking.
It took me 4 hours 44 minutes, and I took a few hints from the comments to be aware of what to look out for, but I'm proud that i was able to finish it.
It was very extremely hard going, but unusually not particularly frustrating this time. Maybe it's because I knew it would be a devil before I went in. I think it's been a good one for teaching me how to spot patterns, especially the y-wing.
Usually i can at least follow the explanations, but with this one.....man!
6:15 swordfish
5:58 Swordfish
14:50 Hidden triple
17:11 Empty rectangle
22:18 X-Wing
24:50 Y-Wing/Bent triple
28:35 Another hidden triple
30:38 Another Y-Wing
32:26 "The crank handle"
34:40 One last empty rectangle
41:30 solve time! To be honest I'm really glad to see a challenging classic sudoku on the channel for the first time in quite a while.
For this puzzle, after seeing the length of the video, I went into full-candidate notation mode pretty early on... saw the x-wing on 7's but missed the swordfish on 3's, which was costly. After some complicated chaining eventually managed to get to the end. Hope to see more great classic sudokus!
I think 32:30 is a Cell Forcing Chain from E1/E7. Given all candidates in a cell, you can prove for each of them (using Grouped X Cycles or Alternating Inference Chains) that a certain candidate in a different cell can't occur and can therefore be eliminated.
One of the most satisfying videos from this channel. It's really cool to see you tackle puzzles that are very hard.
I spent 80mins to solve this puzzle by my own. so many fun. Love to see more video with difficult at this level
That puzzle looks brutal. And that logic you used is on some kind of other cosmic plane.
This is a master class no less! Must be a required watch for everyone who is evenly remotely interested in solving expert puzzles
33:00 is called W wing.
Wow! Thanks Simon! I learned about x-wings, y-wings, and the swordfish! Wow!
This is crazy good, how could someone dislike this?
Managed to get to the exact same point as you until I got stuck at 25mins ish. Watched to see how you solved it and kicked myself for missing something so tricky. I knew there was something to do with the 8s but just couldn’t work it out. Fantastic solve.
28:26. The most heart-wrenching moment of Cracking the Cryptic I've seen...
unreal... I started watching your channel after I saw the first miracle sudoku... that was ridiculous... I honestly don't think I can still solve it but I continue to learn new methods and techniques ... keep it going!
Is it just me or does anyone else also enjoy watching Simon struggle? Ngl I'm kinda attached to these "long" videos and starting to belittle those "easier" puzzles, even though it still takes me hours to solve them.
It's not frustrating to watch m8. It's comforting to see you also struggling. :P
So all we needed to do was spot a swordfish, an X-wing, two bent triples and a... crank?? Yeah, this is beyond diabolical and so is Simon. Now if I could watch Mark bifurcate the heck out of this, that would complete my belittling.
Swordfish!! How to spot then an zwingen am then a bent triple! Coulda anybody of u do this diabolical one!!!!! Without the help of Simon Anthony!!! Let me know / I love toughies!!
What is bifurcate?
@@blobblub9424 Mark sometimes does this thing where he plugs a number in somewhere and follows the ramifications of that placement to see if it causes problems elsewhere so that he may eliminate that possibility. It is incredibly hard to follow and even harder to do yourself. What it allows Mark to do, however, is get to a solution faster without having to figure out the logical path to the solution which may be fairly narrow and hard to figure out. My comment was an allusion to the fact that I can neither figure out the logic like Simon nor bifurcate like Mark. Especially not on a beastly puzzle like this.
@@alltradejack ah thank you very much! You explained it nicely, but yeah, I love to watch and be amazed, but I could never do this myself!
I never noticed the w wing("crank") even though I looked really hard for it. What I did spot though were two finned jellyfish and that solved it
A lot of times during the video i had to check the time was still running because of your pauses. Great video
That was a challenging puzzle... my head hurts. The naked 9 could have been placed in row 1, col 3 somewhat earlier after placing the 7 in row 2 but not surprising to miss on such a diabolical puzzle. Thank you for showing us a crank handle and the bent Y. Those are delightful techniques.
Solved by finding the possibilities for each square and using deductive reasoning base on pairs created
That was a good solve. And yes - you overlooked some digits, but your logic was consistent, Nice video.
What I like the most about puzzles this hard is how they mess your head so bad, you start thinking about all the 5D Chess patterns you've had available in your head but completely forget the easiest way to solve some of these numbers - by Classic Sudoku rules (liek the 689 in the top left box at the end).
It's a puzzle looks easy as it gives you quite a lot numbers, but will find so tricky when you actually fill it.
Fantastic to watch this come together. BTW the 'crank handle' is commonly called a w-wing in many of the solving guides.
Great Job! I gave myself a forty minute head-start ... you still first finished before i.
I started in column one, eliminating the 4 from grid 4, then tried to put a 6 where the 3 ended up. Took me a while to see that was wrong, but once it did the rest of the puzzle was relatively easy. He still did it faster than I did, though.
I learned a lot. Working it myself. The watching you. Then working it some more, etc.
You will get a near identical puzzle if you replace the upper right box 8 into a 4. I messed up and got everything right expect that one box messing me up! So that wrong 8 was effecting two boxes. And nothing else. Fascinating
A terrific effort simon. Thanks. So many roadblocks and yet you found your way.
You mentioned watching this might be frustrating, in fact your progress is always very interesting, I think it adds some excitement,a curiosity about how that will be finally resolved. Thank you for the video, every second of it worth watching.
Started watching this channel a few days ago and I solved it in ~32 minutes just now after having to backtrack a mistake near the end. No bifurcation. Not bad.
Never seen Simon so relieved after finishing a Sudoku
Thank you for the master class! I start to understand a bit better the bend triples. I learned a lot, but so much left to get. Wow!
The 78 that had a 7 in its row, column, and box for at least 5 minutes though.
He put a 346 triple in box 1 that had a 3. Spent almost 15 minutes with that. Felt bad that his mental focus was deteriorating the longer he stared at the puzzle
I screamed at the screen after the xwing got solved because of that....
Although it would not have changed anything.
1:30 Simon admits basically that there are Sudokus that he could not solve. This already makes me feel so much better.
Edit: Without watching the video, I actually managed to solve this Sudoku in under 25 minutes. A Swordfish, several X-Wings and finned X-Wings were the solution to the puzzle.
You did perfectly perfect Simon! The time doesn't matter!
i got it in about 2 hours :d
i recognized number patterns to help me with some numbers, though it also set me back when i thought i saw one pattern that was just a trap, i thought i'd finish in 20minutes and it stretched me out for another hour before i realized it
great video
I entered the puzzle in "heart sudoku", a sudoku app for macos, which can highlight the pencilmarks for a selected number. This helped me to spot some patterns... so the solve was successful, but a little bit cheated because of the highlighting. Without that - no chance for me... Good job Simon!
Pretty late to this but I think the "crank handle" at 32:26 is a really short XY-chain. Basically, the ends of the chain are at the two 45 pairs he pointed out, and he proved that the 5 is either at one end of the chain or the other, so anything that intersected those two cells couldn't be a 5, which he eliminated. The way he pointed it out was a bit different, since he used a cell in the middle of the chain instead of the ends, but it still works out the same.
My favorite saying is "Do Do". It does not work with spell check, because of the duplicated "Do Do", but in some circumstances it is correct.
I got it! The first time I tried (at 1:30 last night), I messed up so I had to start over. I decided I was too tired, so I saved it for today. And once he got to 36:23, I finally was able to solve it in about 45 min (I'm not sure exactly how long as my partner called me away to help him with something while I was working on it and there's no pause time feature on the web app).
45:38! Whoa! It was the swordfish gave it away. I just KNEW that had to be it.
Amazing, thank you for sharing. You, sir, are brilliant ! I will repeatedly enjoy this puzzle and your insights.
2 hours 40 min. After putting those first easy numbers, I started highlighting the board for all possibilities and found the jellyfish on threes (instead of the swordfish, haha) and X-Wing on the sevens but didn't know what to do from there. eventually, I filled the entire grid with all possibilities until slowly but surely found all the doubles, triples, and y-wings. However, I did not use the trick with the 3-4 and 4-5 that placed the five. I need to remember that technique. I solved the whole thing with either empty rectangles or skyscrapers
Thank you for posting this video! I was able to pick up a lot from hearing you work through all of the complicated bits
I thought for sure this would be a variant when I saw 40 minutes... but dang. Classic? Looking forward to it
unreal puzzle and I was only watching. saw that video length and Simon saying it was a beast and gave it a big ole 'nope' lol.
It astounds me just how STILL he can sit. It's amazing.
i love this so much... so nice to see the thinking and hard work that goes into solving, even for champions. makes me feel better for spending 45 minutes on a puzzle last night 🥰
21:12 after penciling the 1-8 into r3c5, consider the consequences of having an 8 in r3c4, specifically on the 289 triple in the central box. It would you give you two 2s in the central box. Thus the 8 must be in either r1c5 or r3c5. This disambiguates the 8 in the central box, which disambiguates the 289 triple.
Is it strange that I keep repeating "now we're cooking with gas" while I solve sudokus?
No
it's definitely not as weird as me doing a Scottish accent and dictating the pencil marks and digits that i place... i have no idea why i do it, but i do
Unless you're cooking with wood and you didn't even find a way to make fire at that point...
Simon: Explains Crank Handle
Also Simon: forgets about the crank handle after solving one part of it.
At 33:00, you used the “Crank” to find the triple to get the 5 (at the end of the crank), which you could have used to backfill all the digits along the crank and solve the triple since they were all related. (Although, to be honest, I’m not sure I could have even reached that point without guessing!)
It took me an hour and I still couldn't figure it out. You are an absolute genius 😎
21:07 You witness the soul leaving the body
I spotted a different x-wing on 7s: r2 c3 and c6, and r6 c3 and c6. It eliminated the same 7s as the one Simon found (r2c4 and r6c2)
This took me an hour and I needed you to point to that 56 cell in order to get my brain working enough to spot whatever you saw and make more progress. (I actually didn't find the 789 triple directly, but I knew one of the 5 or 6 in box 7 had to be paired with the 3 or else they would screw over the 56 cell that was pointed out, and that led me to the same triple.) I also liked your "crank" find better than what I came up with, which was kind of like an empty rectangle with an extra step of going through a 45 pair in row 6.