SudoCue Users

It is impossible to please everyone, but I've read some comments on other forums that my Daily Nightmares have grown too difficult, lately. Starting next year, I could change the selection criteria for the Nightmares, but it is up to you, the players, to decide what will be the best choice.

I would say that it might be better to have a spread of difficulty. Your gentle could be your original Nightmare and your diabolical could include chains and ALS's

I've decided to go for a spread of difficulty, combined with themed schedule.

Here is the current schedule (may be changed without notice):

Monday & Tuesday

Focus on single-digit techniques. (finned) fish, coloring, ER, skyscraper, 2-string-kite and an occasional Nishio step.

Wednesday & Thursday

SudoCue would require Uniqueness-based moves.

Friday & Saturday

Look for APE, ALS, XY-Chain and 3D-Medusa coloring. Should not need more than 2 or 3 such steps.

Sunday

Anything is possible, even the occasional forcing net. Creative solutions for the Sunday puzzles are most welcome in this forum.


Keep voting if you want me to change my mind again

Ruud

I think this is a great idea. First of all, the grids earlier in the week will be good for practice in recognizing patterns and second, it's nice to have fairly difficult Sudokus that don't necessarily require the most 'extreme' solving methods- leave that to Sunday when we will be ready for the worst!

One other option or slight modification might be to have Saturday's puzzle be almost as difficult as Sunday's.....but not quite.

Hi Ruud

I just completed Jan 4th in under 5 minutes.

I'm hoping to continue on your nightmare page, but would like to know if there is a 'definition' site where I can find definitions & examples of the terminology that you used in this post (quoted below - definitions & examples needed/wanted in bold)

quote
[Monday & Tuesday

Focus on single-digit techniques. [b](finned) fish, coloring, ER, skyscraper, 2-string-kite and an occasional Nishio step.[/b]

Wednesday & Thursday

SudoCue would require Uniqueness-based moves.

Friday & Saturday

Look for [b]APE, ALS, XY-Chain and 3D-Medusa coloring[/b]. Should not need more than 2 or 3 such steps.

Sunday

Anything is possible, even the occasional [b]forcing net[/b]. ] unquote

Thanks!

In Sudopedia, you will find definitions of [[fish]], [[coloring]], [[ER]], [[skyscraper]], [[2-String_Kite|2-String kite]], [[Nishio]], [[APE]], [[ALS]], [[XY-Chain]] and several other techniques.

Many of the techniques are also explained in the solving guide on this website.

Ruud

I would like no chains (except xy-chains), infrequent ALS's (of the Sue De Coq variety), more Medusa wrap/trap, infrequent Medusa cluster/bridge.
In general, I would like to see the puzzles harder. For instance, today's puzzle (1/25/07) is solved with 1 UR deduction and 2 naked pairs. This is a huge difference from Sunday's puzzle that had me scrounging the bottom of my barrel of techniques.

Rudd, I am embarrassed to admit, but I had not been to your site in a few months due to my inabilities to keep up with your puzzles. When I read on The Daily Sudoku that you were including different degrees of difficulty, I immediately came back to try them out. I am happy to be a part again; & will try hard to improve my skills past Thursdays. One note: your site does not get much discussion on solving puzzles & that was another thing that frustrated me. I frequent the Brainbasher (Super Hard puzzles) site quite often when I need to brush up on my X, XY, & XYZ Wings because it provides detailed steps for the solution (versus you just provide the answer); & I learn from that at my own pace.

Thanks for the change...Dave Smith

Ruud wrote:It is impossible to please everyone, but I've read some comments on other forums that my Daily Nightmares have grown too difficult, lately. Starting next year, I could change the selection criteria for the Nightmares, but it is up to you, the players, to decide what will be the best choice.

Ruud,

I had practically given up on your daily nightmare sudoku puzzles. However, today I thought that I would give one a try again. I don't know if today's (Thursday) puzzle was significantly easier than previous puzzles or not. I can say that this is the FIRST daily nightmare that I have solved without outright bifurcative guessing or asking SudoCue for a hint. Maybe it was just a fluke - time will tell.

Thanks for giving me some hope,

Steve