SudoCue Users

Just curious, what is the highest level technique needed to solve this puzzle? Is a technique higher than x-wing required?

Naked and hidden pairs is all you need for this puzzle.

Other clueless rankings:

tough > triples
hard > X-Wing
very hard > quads or multiple X-Wings

Enjoy,

Ruud

Hi Ruud,

Thanks for your reply. I presume the rankings apply to both Clueless and Clueless Explosion. I notice in a message you had under Clueless on Mar 7th, that every trick in the book is needed to solve the puzzle. So perhaps you have changed your rating methodology.

From what your answer indicated, a very hard puzzle has techniques of quads and/or x-wing as the highest level technique to solve the puzzle.

Regards,
George

nj3h wrote:I notice in a message you had under Clueless on Mar 7th, that every trick in the book is needed to solve the puzzle. So perhaps you have changed your rating methodology.

Indeed.

I manually created the first Clueless Specials. I could check for a unique solution, but not for required techniques. The March 7th turned out to be a very nasty one.

#5 and later were all verified by my solftware and do not require anything more complicated than X-Wing. The Clueless Explosion is verified with the same software.

cheers,
Ruud

Hi Ruud,

I liked this new clueless variant. I had to get used to the new layout, but after I found a colur pen to mark the "special" cells it got easier.

The rating: well, your rating is "moderate", and I would say so too, maybe with a tendency to "easy". Why? I solved the sudokus column by column, from the left to the right, with constant "interacting check", meaning that the new informations gained for the tenth sudoku were constantly checked and reused in the other sudokus. After solving the first two columns of sudokus the tenth sudoku was almost complete, and some simple checking in the remaining sudokus did the rest. In the usual clueless variant it is much much harder to get a clue for the tenth sudoku, so that's where the "easy"-part of the rating is coming from.

Dou you plan to publish more clueless explosions? I would appreciate that. Could you please make them easy printable, like you did with the "old" clueless? That would be great.

Thanks a lot for this new variant.

Regards,
Peter Herrigel

Hello Peter/ Nasenbaer
I just heard from Ruud that we can find you here.
I have noticed your name 3 times now in the short list of clueless solvers.
One of them is me . My English is not so well today but my German would be almost perfect when they would use it here.
Also wenn sie wollen können sie jeder Zeit Fragen oder Probleme zur Clueless puzzels vorlegen. Wo ich kann werde ich ihnen helfen.
Schöne Grüsse und hoffentlich auf noch viele Clueless puzzels

Marlie (Netherlands)

Hallo Marlie,

vielen Dank für Dein Angebot. Ich komme gerne darauf zurück, wenn ich Fragen und Probleme habe.

Und was denkst Du über die neue clueless-Variante?

Deutsch oder Englisch, die Sprache ist mir egal. Hoffentlich verstehen es auch die anderen...

And now in english (for all the others):
many thanks for your offer. I will get to you if I have questions or problems.

And what do you think about this new clueless variant?

Greetings,
Nasenbaer

Hi Peter,

welcome to the forum.

Nasenbaer wrote:Do you plan to publish more clueless explosions? I would appreciate that. Could you please make them easy printable, like you did with the "old" clueless? That would be great.

When you check the website, you will see that both your wishes have been granted.

You now have one wish left

cheers,
Ruud.

Hi Ruud,

many thanks for this fast wish-delivery! I have to think very hard on that third wish...

Oh well, after about 4 hours the new clueless explosion is already solved (I was a little distracted by the Tour de France ). So no more excuses, I have to go to that birthday party.

Is it just my impression that the clueless explosions are much easier than the normal clueless, despite the hard ranking? What do the others think about that?

After solving 5 of the sudokus it was not very diffult to complete the tenth sudoku. There are always a lot of interacting hints in the sudokus. By constantly working with them you get results very fast. That's important to me, because if the frustration level rises too high you might get one of those "ups. the dog eat it"...

Can't wait for more!

Greetings,
Peter (Nasenbaer)

Hallo Peter
Cowgirl und ich sind wircklich verrückt nach die clueless puzzels. Wir haben alle gelöst bis jetzt.
Wir spielen nicht zusammen aber haben oft contact über MSN.
Wir helfen einander wenn nötig aber geben nie die Lösung her.
Die explosions habe ich noch nicht fertig. Explosion 1 ist biss auf die helfte fertig. Wir lösen meistens in Excell und die letzten zwei Wochen war es immer zu warm an den Kasten (pc) hier.
Meistens mache ich erst eine kopie auf Papier und suche so fiel ich kann.
Danach brauche ich in Excell nicht mehr so viel ein zu geben und ist doe Lösung auch nicht mehr so schwer.
Wie machen sie dass?
Schöne Grüsse
Marlie

Hello Peter
Cowgirl and I are very fond of clueless puzzels. We have all solved up to now. We do not play together however we have often contact over MSN. We help each other if necessary but never give the solution away. I did not finishe Explosion1 yet. Explosion 1 is half completely now. We mostly solve in Excell but the last two weeks it was to warm (PC) here. I firstmake a copy on paper and search for so much possible as I can. Afterwards in Excell.
How do you solve them?
Greetz Marlie

Hallo Marlie,

ja, die clueless puzzles sind richtig toll. Nur noch 2 1/2 Stunden, dann gibt es das nächste!

Ich arbeite fast ausschließlich auf dem Papier. Ausdrucken, leeres Sudoku aufmalen und bei den explosions die Felder farbig markieren (ich habe nur einen schwarz-weiß Drucker), und los get es. Dann schaue ich mir alle Sudokus kurz an, um offensichtliche Kandidaten zu finden. Dann fange ich in dem Sudoku an, in dem die meisten Zahlen sind. Dort trage ich dann alle Möglichkeiten in die Zellen ein. Einfache Regeln wie Single in Box/Row/Column und Naked Pair/Tripple werden dabei gleich angewendet. Dann schaue ich mir die Sudokus in der selben Reihe und Spalte an und versuche dabei zusätzliche Informationen zu erlangen (z.B. in den zwei Sudokus in der selben Reihe ist jeweils in der Reihe 5 keine 7 möglich, also muß die 7 in meinem Sudoku in Reihe 5 sein). Diese werden so gut wie möglich benutzt. Dann trage ich alle Möglichkeiten aus den besonderen Feldern in das 10. Sudoku ein. Wenn nichts mehr geht arbeite ich an einem benachbarten Sudoku weiter. Weitere Informationen werden dann im 1. Sudoku eingearbeitet. Und so weiter... Es hilft auch, wenn Du immer wieder das 10. Sudoku anschaust, denn auch daraus läßt sich manches schließen.

Dann versuche ich in allen Sudokus die komplizierteren Regeln anzuwenden. Das wird dann bei mir schon etwas schwieriger, denn ich sehe die Hinweise manchmal nicht (9 Sudokus auf einem Blatt Papier helfen auch nicht). Das versuche ich dann meistens 2 mal. Dann bin ich so frustriert, daß ich mich doch an den PC setze und versuche mit einem Hilfsprogramm (Sudoku Solver) einen neuen Hinweis zu finden. Dabei entdecke ich meistens auch, daß ich einen ganz einfachen Hinweis übersehen habe. Normalerweise reicht das, um zur Lösung zu kommen.

Viele Grüß,
Peter

Hello Marlie,

yes, the clueless puzzles are realy great. Only 2 1/2 hours more to wait, then there will be a new one.

I work alomst exclusivly on paper. Print it, draw an empty sudoku and mark all the special cells in the explosions (I only have a black and white printer), and off we go. Then I have a quick look at all the sudokus to find obvious candidates. Then I start with the sudoku with the most numbers. All the cells will be filled with pecilmarks for the possibilities. Simple Rules like Single in Box/Row/Column and Naked Pair/Tripple are used immediately. Then I have a look at the sudokus in the same row an same column and try to get additional informations (i.e. in the two sudokus in the same row there is no possible 7 in each row 5, so there has to be a 7 in my row 5). I try to use these informations as good as possible. Then I copy the special cells to the 10th sudoku. If there is no more possible step I move on to a neighboring sudoku. More informations gained will be worked into the first sudoku. And so on... It helps to have an occasional look at the 10th sudoku, you might find some hints.

Then I try to use the more complicated rules in all the sudokus. That is the part that gets more difficult for me because I sometimes don't see the hints (9 sudokus on one sheet of paper doesn't help). I usually try this twice. Then I get so frustrated that I go back to the PC to find additional hints with the help of a sudo solver. Mostly I find out that I missed an obvious hint. And normally that is enough to find the final solution.

Greetings,
Peter

Wonderful, thank you, number 3 was really nice.

Keep going with these great explosions!

Argh! Must have been too tired yesterday. 3 hours solving time have to get kicked out. That mistake must have sneaked in pretty early.

The good thing is I now know how my time is filled until the next clueless shows up...

Hello There
I cannot believe that someone can solve a clueless in only 13 minutes.
The one who did must have used a solving programm.
That's not the way to solve.

the solving program I used is borland delphi
...
but i spent several months coding the program to get it to solve sudokus
when the clueless came out I solved 2 using the program and notepad to collect the blue squares
then I spent and entire week of evenings and most of the weekend making the program handle all 10 sudokus and swaping the blue squares in and out.

so it was 13 minutes and about a month really

so after I do 20 more ill average about 4 hours

Pencil and paper is actually easier and faster and not as prone to really stupid mistakes that throw the entire day before out of whack.