Test Your Killer Sudoku

A viewer asked about this puzzle and wondered why it had taken them so long. We try to show some of the ways to make quicker progress.

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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 eleven-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.

Thank you for watching!
Simon and Mark

[kevgermany]

Most of these puzzles are symmetrical, the axis isn't always easy to see. But always worth looking for as soon as you spot an easy number from a cage group.

Nice watching you do this. You're a touch quicker than me;-)

[derrickquan]

Really enjoyed this episode. Thanks for doing some easy puzzles. I find that doing the puzzle first and then watching this helps me improve and learn, especially for the easier puzzles.

[Flames]

"subtle difference"
The pink was #FF9BFF
The purple was #CD9AFF
That's 0% to 20% cyan for CMYK printers (for pink to purple)
Or in RGB, 80% to 100% red (for the purple to pink)

You may be colorblind OR your monitor may be not correctly calibrated. No worries though! Still great content.

[nicokuhne]

Oh i think noone was triggered about your colorblindness. Its fine, i was just making a joke ^^
these videos are great, im waiting every day for a new one :)

[cz]

This took me forever to solve it the first time. I've been checking dailykillersudoku daily after finding this channel. I really enjoy it. Anyways, I tried it again before the video, and it took me around 21 minutes. I found that once I knew the number in column 1, row 3 (the 1), I could add up the values of the cages in rows 1 and 2, as well as the 18 cage in row 3-4, to find the sum of the two numbers in row 4. Since I knew one of the numbers was a 4 and they summed to 5, it was really easy to make the other number a 1. It also told me that the top two numbers in the 18 cage summed to 13. Since I knew that one of them had to be a 6 or a 7, I knew they were a 6, 7 pair. I used this to restrict the 16 cage in row 3. This logic can also apply to the 17 cage in rows 6 and 7 (although I didn't as I had already solved it another way).


I just thought I'd share my reasoning, as I'd solved it differently than the video.

[xXstealseekerXx]

Im so happy that youtube sugested your channel to me. Its amazing to watch you solve puzzles.

[notnotandrew]

Today's puzzle 18186 is pretty beautiful. Interesting logic with some odd hook-shaped cells. Give it a go.

[Kinkajou]

I decided to try this one before watching you, took just a hair under 40 minutes and I never felt stuck for an extended period of time. A few things I did differently:


The Z shaped 17 cage in rows 6 and 7, I figured out how much the segments (the two cells in row 6, and the two in row 7) were worth separately and used that later to figure out the nubbin cell at Row 7, Column 8 by adding up everything in the row. I didn't even notice that I could have grabbed the top two rows and the nubbin (or the bottom two and nubbin), and that's normally what I do. If I had noticed that I would have had both sooner. I did the same with the one at Row 3, Column 2, but I had more stuff filled in up there at the time and didn't feel like it was a personal wow moment
Also because I mentally split up the 17 cage into a 9 and 8 cage I used that knowledge by selecting the lower left and lower middle boxes and adjoining cells to figure out the prongs going into the lower right box were 1 and 8 in some order.


Overall I felt this was pretty easy and it never gave me too many problems.

[tremkl]

Took me 45 minutes. 3/10 difficulty seems brutal. I used largely the same logic as you did, though you got to every thought faster. In particular, disentangling that 4 cage was really useful and took me a while to get.

[moshehim]

10:54 why did you decide it was a 6 and an 8 and not a 4 and a 9? And what does it have to do with the 6 in r5c2 or r5c3?

[thorns]

*lol* at "subtle differences" :-)

[voiceoftheguns]

I did not attempt this before watching as this is still new to me. However, at 14:22 I noticed the 1 in box seven helped resolve the 18 pair in box four. Great job as always.

[johnenock]

Hello, Simon. I could make virtually no progress with today's SuperFiendish Sudoku in The Times today (23 April). I would be very interested to know your thoughts on the puzzle - is there any chance of taking us through it? I can nearly always solve The Times puzzles but this one stumped me completely!
Thanks in advance . . . . here's hoping. Apologies for not commenting on the puzzle under discussion, by the way.

[topilinkala]

Is it sure that people are not solving these offline and then just write in the answer to get good time?

[Tinybabyfishy]

I remember this one taking me a decent bit longer than the average time - I, like other commenters, have been checking dailykillersudoku since you recommended it. (I also looked at nikoli but it's no longer accessible to me - if anyone knows a similar replacement, I'd love to hear about it!)

[tydesson]

THERE IS A MISTAKE in the link: the second top cage has the value 19, not 18 like in the video.

[seyedmohammadmiraei]

Hello Can you help me in solving the puzzle no 47 of daily killer sudoku .com .... Or give a tip to move forward... I have found the 6 in the top middle Block in its last row... Eagerly waiting for reply.. Thanks.

[carstenkruse]

difficulty 3? Isn't that too easy :D

[westernbrumby]

Didn’t bother me and I have diagnosed OCD:)

[TheThomasites]

No appologies necessary. Just want to help.