Beyond Diabolical... Sudoku Madness!
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- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 4 ก.พ. 2025
- You can try Derek Neal's brutal classic sudoku here:
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Hi! We're Simon Anthony and Mark Goodliffe, two of the UK's most enthusiastic puzzle solvers. We have both represented the UK at the World Sudoku Championships and the World Puzzle Championships. We're also "cryptic crossword" aficionados. Mark is the twelve-time winner of The Times championship and Simon is the former record holder for most consecutive correct solutions to The Listener crossword. We hope we can help your puzzle solving while also introducing you to some of the world's best puzzles.
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Simon and Mark
"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
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.
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
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
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!
video: 39 minutes
me: that's alright, I'll let you handle this one
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
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.
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.
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.
32:26 "There is a trick". How on earth do you see something like that?! Amazing! I still have much to learn.
“Whoa....I am not unhappy with that”...What an awesome line to close it out! You made my day with that!
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.
I need a 30 minute video on you giving up on puzzles
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.
Thought with this many givens, this would not be that tough. It did not give up its secrets easily. Great solve.
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?
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???
This puzzle was a crash course in so many advanced techniques. Wow
19:20 BOTHERATION! That's a new one. lol
Simon: PLEASE upload your blooper reel!
Watching you unravelling that at the end was so satisfying, and I was holding my breath with you there. Keep it up!
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
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
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
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!
I really enjoyed watching this solve, Simon felt like I feel solving any decently difficult Sudoku. 😅
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.
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!
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!
One of the most satisfying videos from this channel. It's really cool to see you tackle puzzles that are very hard.
That puzzle looks brutal. And that logic you used is on some kind of other cosmic plane.
I gave up after 4 times trying, just sat down and enjoyed watching Simon! Wonderful!
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
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!
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!
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
It's not frustrating to watch m8. It's comforting to see you also struggling. :P
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.
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.
Simon: Explains Crank Handle
Also Simon: forgets about the crank handle after solving one part of it.
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!
Bring back more of these please Simon and Mark.
I spent 80mins to solve this puzzle by my own. so many fun. Love to see more video with difficult at this level
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.
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
This is a master class no less! Must be a required watch for everyone who is evenly remotely interested in solving expert puzzles
I learned a lot from these very hard ones!
That was a good solve. And yes - you overlooked some digits, but your logic was consistent, Nice video.
Wow! Thanks Simon! I learned about x-wings, y-wings, and the swordfish! Wow!
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?
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 terrific effort simon. Thanks. So many roadblocks and yet you found your way.
A lot of times during the video i had to check the time was still running because of your pauses. Great video
Never seen Simon so relieved after finishing a Sudoku
Great Job! I gave myself a forty minute head-start ... you still first finished before i.
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...
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.
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.
It took me an hour and I still couldn't figure it out. You are an absolute genius 😎
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 🥰
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.
34:23 - I can see it, Simon! I can't believe it, but I can see it. Top right hand square. In four squares, you know it's (1,4), (1,3,4), (5,6) and (3,5,6) sort of going clockwise, but NONE of those squares can hold a Budgerigar. So there's a Budgerigar in the square above the nine, and yes, I'm being silly. (It's clearly a crocodile).
"But NONE of those squares can hold a Budgerigar." Which would explain the lack of bird sounds in this video...
@@nicoleleboeuf-little1048 Which explains why you didn't tweet this comment.
(YES! I've been waiting to do this!)
@@leefisher6366 WELL PLAYED, FRIEND. WELL PLAYED.
Amazing, thank you for sharing. You, sir, are brilliant ! I will repeatedly enjoy this puzzle and your insights.
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.
I did it! It only took me 1:46:11! 😂
What solved it for me was truly insane, never happened before. After an hour and a half, I noticed a FINNED JELLYFISH! And then a naked quad, which led to ANOTHER finned jellyfish! And that FINALLY solved it. I started having a headache immediately afterwards. Craziest puzzle I've done in a while
And yeah I put in a little too many notes, but it still worked.
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).
This is crazy good, how could someone dislike this?
Thank you for posting this video! I was able to pick up a lot from hearing you work through all of the complicated bits
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.
Thank you for this video, you are an excellent teacher those techniques were very well explained. Also I think your mind was quite sharp in this video, I've been watching you everyday and you seemed extra focused on this one. Very entertaining also.
Fantastic to watch this come together. BTW the 'crank handle' is commonly called a w-wing in many of the solving guides.
Nice to see you struggle with a puzzle from time to time :) makes us peons feel a little better.
I learned a lot. Working it myself. The watching you. Then working it some more, etc.
This one destroyed me. 🤣 Those bent triples though! 😵
You scared me off of trying this one, saying how diabolical it was. XD Agreed with the folks who would love to see a blooper compilation sometime!
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
28:26. The most heart-wrenching moment of Cracking the Cryptic I've seen...
I love watching him get stuck! He always makes it look so easy, its good to challenge him for a change :)
I thought for sure this would be a variant when I saw 40 minutes... but dang. Classic? Looking forward to it
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.
That blooper reel must be a real treat to fans of this channel. We need to see some of it! Maybe somebody should at least edit some interesting bits!
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!
Stared a while, filled in a few numbers stared some more, tried to remember the slot machine, gave up watched a manful struggle, well done a dogged solve
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!
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.
Lol, that was genuine relief at the end there! Well done😆
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.
You did perfectly perfect Simon! The time doesn't matter!
Terrific solving, I learnt some new tricks, thank you.
It astounds me just how STILL he can sit. It's amazing.
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!)
You are a genius. Thanks for all the new techniques. I think you're incredibly cool. 😀
45:38! Whoa! It was the swordfish gave it away. I just KNEW that had to be it.