Sudoku Brain Booster

[Shelli]

Soduko Brain Booster with Fast Nutrition Facts (http://www.webmd.com/content/article/128/117135.htm)

:vegcook: :cucumber: :pepper: :carrot: :potato: :broccolo: :turnip: :tomatod: :unbroc:

[livius drusus]

I don't know if my brain is being boosted, but I'm enjoying the factoids. :brains:

[Shelli]

hehe.. :gooduse:

For those who like Soduko, after the first game you have the option of playing a more challenging game. :teacher:

[livius drusus]

Okay, I totally sucked at the challenging game. :blush:

[TomJoe]

I just recently bothered to learn how to play sudoku, and it's pretty neat. I like the images better than I like the numbers.

[Shelli]

I bought an inexpensive soduko game for my pc which has various levels and images to choose from. Pretty cool game, IMO.

[livius drusus]

I like it, despite the fact that I suck at it.

[Crumb]

:yeahthat:

[Shelli]

I'm not particularly great at it myself so I was pretty happy to have just finished a challenging game of it on that site. :irwinnar:

[quiet bear]

I was hooked on these the first time I tried one. Now, I carry around a book of them with me. Unfortunately, I just tore out the last 30 or so from a book of 300. They'll be done by tomorrow. Then I will go through sudoku withdrawals until I can get another book.

[Shelli]

MSN has a version of the game that you can print out, qb. :optimist:

[quiet bear]

Oh, there's a daily one in the paper, right under the crossword. I can do those to hold me over. They start off easy, and get gradually harder through the week. By Sunday, it's a solid 15 minutes to get it done.

[livius drusus]

You do them in pen, I presume. ;)

[quiet bear]

Natch.

[livius drusus]

Seriously though, how can you do a puzzle like that on paper? I mean, do you just fill in the blanks then erase it all when you fug up, or do you do it on scratch paper first, or...?

[quiet bear]

You think it out. Then you write it in.

the harder ones, you have to think ahead 3-4 moves before being able to put a number in.

the only really bad thing about that is, you can make a mistake 25 numbers ago, and it won't show up until you have 4 spaces left, and discover you already have a 3 in that row. GGRRRRRR...

Unlike crosswords, you can't go back and retrace your steps.

I see people in the lunchroom doing them, but they're writing all around the puzzle what numbers could possibly go in each square.

Amateurs.

[slimshady2357]

Seriously though, how can you do a puzzle like that on paper? I mean, do you just fill in the blanks then erase it all when you fug up, or do you do it on scratch paper first, or...?

Unless you make an obvious mistake (like putting a 3 in a row where there already is a 3, because you totally missed that first three!), you shouldn't need to do any correcting.

So far, even on the most devious Soduko, I've been able to eventually get the next number. Unlike a crossword, where you might fill in a word that fits correctly at the time and find out it's wrong later, in Soduko you can choose to only fill in numbers you know are correct through various and varied lines of reasoning.

[IRON MAN]

That's pretty far out. The first time I'd ever seen one of these was approximately 2 hours ago when I happened to be sitting behind an old dude doing a book of them with numbers 1-9.

Looking over his shoulder I figured the rules to the game pretty quickly. I said, "Hey that's a pretty cool game, I never saw that before". He showed me the front of the book - that said, "Soduko", and we had a conversation about it.

He said there's one of these puzzles regularly in, "The Age", (an Australian broadsheet newspaper particularly well known for political news). I'd never noticed it before. Go figure ...

Seriously though, how can you do a puzzle like that on paper? I mean, do you just fill in the blanks then erase it all when you fug up, or do you do it on scratch paper first, or...?

This dude said he uses a pencil and eraser on the harder ones.

[SharonDee]

It's Number Place.
:deadhorse:

[livius drusus]

the only really bad thing about that is, you can make a mistake 25 numbers ago, and it won't show up until you have 4 spaces left, and discover you already have a 3 in that row. GGRRRRRR...

Right! If you've got a page full of numbers by then, how can you fix it?
Unless you make an obvious mistake (like putting a 3 in a row where there already is a 3, because you totally missed that first three!), you shouldn't need to do any correcting.

See above. You might box yourself in without realizing it until you've only got a few slots left which can't be used for the numbers you have.

[quiet bear]

Oh, I don't fix them. Since I do them in pen, I just move on to the next puzzle.

The price of my big ego where puzzles are concerned, I suppose. I view using pencil and being able to erase, cheating. Once I made a mistake, I lost.

[livius drusus]

That makes sense. It wouldn't be much of a game if you won every time.

[Shake]

I like this site (http://www.websudoku.com).

[Crumb]

It's Sudoku not Soduko, right?

They are great little puzzles. I haven't done them too much so the harder ones still stump me. It is definitely something one gets better at with practice.

[Shelli]

It's Sudoku not Soduko, right?ooops... yes, you're right, Crumb. :doh:

liv, if you see this and you have a moment, could you please correct my title so that I don't look :dopey: ? :biggrin:

[quiet bear]

It is definitely something one gets better at with practice.


this is a true statement. At least for me anyway. I don't 'work' the easier ones, inasmuch as I fill them out. I need to find a book of all tough ones.

[Chris Porter]

How to solve Sudoku without thinking. Don't go here (http://www.instructables.com/id/EJLUBKN48JEPD7QXGR/?ALLSTEPS) if you like playing Sudoku a lot. But this shows a method to solving the puzzle with very little thinking involved.

[quiet bear]

I clicked on it. I got as far as 'you'll need a pencil and an eraser' and closed it.

[Shelli]

:giggle:

[quiet bear]

Seriously...where is the challenge if you can go back and erase and change it and whatnot? You win every single time. There's no fun in that.

[livius drusus]

Maybe retracing your missteps is a brain booster, if not a fun booster.

[ceptimus]

I've been playing Sudoku for a while.

I have some books, a Sudoku app on my iPaq organiser, and a dedicated electronic version.

Most recently, I've bought a Nintendo NDS Lite, and the Dr Kawashima's Brain Training, 'How old is your brain' application includes Sudoku puzzles.

I also play Kakuro (http://www.kakuro.net/), which is similar in some ways to Sudoku, but you have to add the rows and columns of numbers to make specified totals, rather than merely make sure that each number is present.

[SharonDee]

I also play Kakuro ... That's Cross Sums! Dern Japanese, takin' American games, renaming 'em, and giving 'em back under exotic-sounding new names.
:oldman:

[Shelli]

I like the health tips this one gives you with each placement. :professor:

[Shake]

How to solve Sudoku without thinking. Don't go here (http://www.instructables.com/id/EJLUBKN48JEPD7QXGR/?ALLSTEPS) if you like playing Sudoku a lot. But this shows a method to solving the puzzle with very little thinking involved.
Also don't go to that site if you want to complete the puzzle quickly. All I saw there was: get a pencil and eraser, then follow these overly tedious and time consuming steps, during which time someone using minimal brainpower will be 10 steps ahead of you and have half the puzzle done before you even get going. :yawn:

[seebs]

The site claiming to solve all sudoku puzzles easily is, of course, subtly incorrect; it is quite common for harder puzzles to be insoluble without more advanced techniques.

That said, I have an innovation of my own I've been pursuing. Rather than marking the candidates for a cell, I mark the things that have been proven not to go there. It seems to be dramatically faster.