How CRACKING THE CRYPTIC Uncovered Rare But Proven Strategy – Sudoku Analysis 48

In How CRACKING THE CRYPTIC Uncovered Rare But Proven Strategy – Sudoku Analysis 48 by Smart Hobbies, I analyze a solve by Mark Goodliffe of Cracking The Cryptic from the original video A Classic Sudoku To Start The Year, 1 Jan 2024. The puzzle is a X Marks the Spot by Travis. I show you how to play Sudoku better and what rare but proven strategy Mark finds that will help you solve Sudoku faster. I analyze this puzzle logically and explain all the expert Sudoku tricks, Sudoku techniques, and Sudoku strategies as they are applied to the Sudoku game. I analyze that solve plus add Pause The Video and What If? moments.

The original video can be found here:

A Classic Sudoku To Start The Year, 1 Jan 2024

This video is part of my Sudoku Analysis series on my YouTube channel, Smart Hobbies. The goal of this series is to analyze Sudoku puzzles completed by some of the world’s best solvers.
#learn #sudoku #youareawesome

Strategies demonstrated in this video:

Naked Single
Hidden Single
Naked Pair
Pointing Pair
Hidden Pair
Naked Triple
Naked Quad
W-Wing

Time Stamps
0:00 Intro
00:21 It’s Solving Time
01:45 Hidden and Naked Pairs
04:15 Pause The Video #1 Solve Last 3 In Puzzle
06:36 Pause The Video #2 Why Can We Remove 6s?
07:42 Rare Strategy That Mark Found
10:56 Pause The Video #3 Complete Block 9
12:36 Neat Naked Triple Trick
13:40 Pause The Video #4 Solve Naked Single in Block 1

Check out Smart Hobbies page on Harold Nolte’s Sudoku Primer website here:

Contact me here:
CTC Fan Server (Discord): Timberlake#1905

Let me know what you think and how you did in the comments below. Thank you so much for watching.

Timberlake
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[SmartHobbies]

Time Stamps
0:00 Intro
00:21 It’s Solving Time
01:45 Hidden and Naked Pairs
04:15 Pause The Video #1 Solve Last 3 In Puzzle
06:36 Pause The Video #2 Why Can We Remove 6s?
07:42 Rare Strategy That Mark Found
10:56 Pause The Video #3 Complete Block 9
12:36 Neat Naked Triple Trick
13:40 Pause The Video #4 Solve Naked Single in Block 1

[dczzzz]

I think its simpler after choosing 1 for r3c5
r7c5 is 9 in same column
also r2c7 is only place for 1 in box 3 so r6c7 is 9 in same column
With 9's looking along row 7 and down column 7 that leaves no place for a 9 in box 9

[Ramakrishnagm]

It's took long time to find W wing, I'm searching 46 only, 19s not easy to find, and decided to watch vedio, then saw the green cell, checked again, and now I got W wing 19s.
After solved the puzzle saw the video, it's very nice analysing the way of explaining is very good. The trick also nice trick.
I tried some other ways to solve, but, shame notable to get.
Really very good puzzle, the clues W wing, and green cell helped otherwise might be stuck.
Thanks for good puzzle and nice to see two way of solving.

[JohnRandomness]

I solved the puzzle, and I found it easier than expected, primarily because of a lucky break-in. BTW, the green cell wasn't the key cell to solve, but was rather one of the 19 cells that attacked the key cell -- R3C8. I managed the break-in before populating the entire grid with centermarks. I noticed 19 pairs, 46 cells along with 146 and 469 cells, and a couple 28 pairs. I wanted to connect apparently unrelated 19 cells, R7C5 and R4C8, and I did. They were the same digit. If R7C5 was 9, I got a 46 pair in block 9 column 8, forcing 9 into R4C8. If R7C5 was 1, I got a 46 pair in block 7 row 7 forcing 1 into R4C8.

So R4C8 and R7C5 were the same 19. The green cell, R3C5 was opposite. R3C8 saw both, and couldn't be 1 -- it formed a 45 pair with R1C8. This gave me a landslide of digits (including the green cell). It wasn't quite smooth sailing afterwards, but some cornermarking and centermarking got me through.

1:50 Mark apparently didn't place the final 3. This led to a Markov chain of thought, and I recalled (and backtracked to) two times where I needed a quad to do the work of a pointing pair (one case) and seeing a pair from the cornermarks (the other case).
3:00 I only got that 28 pair from a 1469 quad. Even though it was cornermarked.
3:50 I see from the grid that the 246 triple fully in block 6 removes 2 from R3C9 and places 2 in R1C7. Does Mark see that?
4:20 The 3 is in block 6, R6C8.
5:20 Hah! That quad is how I placed the 2. Not from the 246 triples.
6:20 A pointing pair in 6s in block 9 disallows 6 in R1C8 and R3C8. I got that pointing pair earlier when I placed block 9's 8, and I used it to cornermark 6s in block 3. So the centermarks were 45 and 145, without the 6s. That was critical for me.
6:40 The PtV moment: I just answered that. (BTW: I got that pointing pair from placing the 8 only because I had cornermarked three 6s earlier. Not-quite-Snyder notation triumphs again.)
7:50 I see the chain, and I think I remember it from Mark's solve. 1 in R3C5 ==> column 8: 45-pair, 6, 9, and 1 in R7C5 -- crash!
11:00 R7C8 = 9, R8C7 = 4, R9C8 = 6.
13:40 4 in R3C2. I have trouble with many naked singles. It was easier in my solve because I'd centermarked a 12 pair in block 2 row 3.

Hours later: I saw that the original video was less than a week ago, and visited my original solve. Like this time, I'd matched the two sets of 19 pairs. Unlike this time, I didn't notice that the 145 in R3C8 saw both blue and yellow. Okay, Mark recently said that we all miss things, even if we don't realize it.

[jonbrowne]

Awesome. Saw this solve on CtC but didn’t remember the w-wing! Thanks for spotting Timberlake and sharing the technique.

[brucewayne]

Fun puzzle and interesting pattern in Box 5 to open things up. Sliced & diced=solved puzzle. Was there really a requirement for 'rare proven strategies' to solve? 🤔

[kennethmiu]

Hi, I enjoyed this video and the discovery of 9 in Box 2. I learned the various techniques such as X Wing, XY Wing, Skyscraper, etc. but it is difficult to spot these patterns when the empty cells are filled with possible candidates. May I ask if there is any proven procedures one can follow to identify where such techniques can be applied? Or is it simply a matter of experience? Thank you! Happy New Year!

[kaylynnebingham]

Could you help me? I recently bought a new "extreme" sudoku book by Masaki Hoshiko. I'm pretty good at the hardest of puzzles but not one of these puzzles has an obvious or clear pair anywhere. Every number has 3 to 5 possibilities and of course, you can only get two of the three or 4 of the five. I have never tried anything so frustrating. Do you have any videos where there are no answers you can find right off the bat. I watch your videos and every puzzle has those 2 or 3 numbers you can get just by looking. These do help