An article by 
Sep
7
2005
7
2005
A new addiction
For the past two or three weeks Michelle has been obsessed with something on the computer. Some little puzzle thing.
I didn’t get.
It’s a box with a bunch of number’s with a crazy Asian name.
What’s the trill in that?
So this weekend since I was feeling under the weather I made Michelle send me the link and explain to me what this crazy thing was all about.
Turns out I totally love it!
It’s called Sudoku (or more properly Web Sudoku since you do it online).
Each box is a 9 x9 grid divided into 9 boxes.
Your goal is place numbers into all the little boxes. Each row must contain the digits 1 – 9, each column must contain the numbers 1 – 9 and each 3 x 3 box must contain the numbers 1 – 9. Each puzzle (depending on its level of difficulty) contains a few already placed numbers. Your task is to use logic to deduce where the rest of the numbers go so that you can accomplish the stated objectives above.
It’s really a lot of fun.
The more you do it, and once you figure out the logic, you’ll be amazed at how clever it really is (and how stinking tough it can be). So far I haven’t had any problems figuring these things out, but yesterday while playing I stumbled about a hard one. After 4 minutes I had only managed to place 1 number (a single 7).
Now granted you can click the “How am I doing…” button and it will tell you if you are right, so in theory you could guess your way to a few other starting points, but what’s the fun in that? A real man (or woman) places all their numbers first before seeing if they are right or not.
We had a great time (spent hours in fact) doing working on the same puzzles to see who could solve them faster.
Oh, if you’re up for a challenge, choose the Hard level puzzle and choose your own – pick number # 5,211,652,312 and see how you do. I am going to give it another go today and I’ll post my time and you can compare. Until then, have fun!
UPDATE: That puzzle took me 59 minutes 36 seconds to solve. My hardest one to date.
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About the Author: Bob Soulliere
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Ah – Sudoku. These arrived in the UK early this year – and are now huge! In the bookshop where I work, there are about 15 different books of the puzzles, which are easily outselling Dan Brown and (now the fuss has died down) Mr Potter.
The Independent publishes a Sudoku with 16 squares (from 0 to f – hexadecimal Sudoku?) and the Times does one with no numbers in already, just certain areas which have to add up to certain numbers. Absolutely solid!
That is addictive. I solved # 5,211,652,312 in about a half an hour–granted I had phone calls and stuff in the office (and I had to create a blank grid so I could write down the possible numbers and stuff for each square. I don’t know if that is cheating or not. . .sorry if it is).
Well Wally you were always more man than I was
– the first 7 I got within like 10 seconds, but I got hung up after a while… Writing them down is totally cool, I always just try to do it in my head, but this one broke me.
But alas, I didn’t give up and got it in. Even the Evil ones (which my average is about 22 minutes on) never gave me this much trouble.