In response to your question about my next move after exhausting Sneider notation - I scratched my head, tried to make sense of the world, and then pressed play on your video to figure out what I was supposed to do lol.

10:15 for me. I didn't give up and had a beautiful finish! Thanks 🤗

A good puzzle. I first did it with a UR, but here's a path without it (94 = row 9 column 4): 94 (hidden pair in box 9), 12, 13, 31, 85 (pairs in box 1), 76, 82, 36 (restriction in box 8, plus pairs in box 1), 52, 62, 88 (hidden pairs in box 8, owing to hidden DCE down the central stack), 73 (using the hidden pairs in box 8), 71, 23, 21, 91, 93, 78 (pair and triple in box; hidden UR now available), 56 (naked pair, found by counting; aargh!), 95, 96, 54 (hidden single), 15, 15, 65, 46, 64, 34, 28, 14, 25, 39, 32, 22, 16, 26, 37, 98, 97, 48, 63, 43, 55, 45, 49, 19, 17, 58, 61, 51, 41, 59, 47, 89, 79, 87, 74, 84, 67, 69.

Very enjoyable puzzle, thanks. Answering your query at 5m55s regarding the pairs in block 1 : I started the puzzle noticing what was pointing towards block 1 from the right and from below, and I enterd the 3, the 1 and then the 5. A further look at the pointing digits, and made mental notes (not using pencil marks) of the 24 and the resulting 78 pairs. So this came within the first minute of the puzzle for me. Thanks again for posting.

Notation free Enjoyed the puzzle.

I saw the naked pair first. Not sure why they are naked, or how I found this channel.

the "mini x-wing" is in fact simply a locked candidate

Since your goal is to make people learn, you should aim to use the right terminology in your videos. Why saying "conjugated pair" instead of strong link ?

Very hard Thank you

This just messes with my head! I never make notes in my Suduko puzzles, as I find it too confusing (I’m autistic). I’ve developed my own ways of solving them and memorise the options in cells. I like to do the hard level of Killer Suduko and the best I’ve achieved is solving it in less than 3 minutes, beating 99% of people, though I’ve only managed that once. My average is about 5 minutes. I cannot do the expert level though, as I don’t make notes. 🤦‍♀️

Colours and a UR made light work of this (13 = row 1 column 3): 13, 15, 25, 34, 55, 36, 95, 85, 74, 76, 54, 64, 44, 66, 46, 56, 23, 93, 73, 98, 42, 71, 89, 82, 52 (easy up to here, but then…), 21 (colours from here; or 2-String Kite), 37 (UR, boxes 3 and 6), 99, 48, 49, 38, 91, 72, 11, 62, 61, 51, 68, 39, 87, 88, 17, 22, 12, 28, 19, 79, 78, 59, 58, 97, 31, 32. Alternatives to the UR were various short chains. For example: 91 instead of 37 (1 or 6 in R1C9 excludes 1 from R9C9), 72, 11, 62, 61, 51, 68, 87, 88, 17, 22, 12, 28, 79, 78, 59, 58, 19, 97, 99, 48, 37, 49, 38, 39, 31, 32. Now to watch how I should have done it.

Seeing is hard for me!

My time was 11:00 great time! 😅 I did this one alone, finally. I pencilmarked everything then what I saw: if R1C1 is a 7, rhen we have a 56 pair in box 1 making R3C7 a 7, and R9C7 a 6, R9C1 a 1 so R1C1 is a 3. Then R5C1 is a 9 and I found a triple in column 9. Before this I find some xy wings. The way you solved was easier and harder at the same time! 😅 Thanks for this! =)

Wouldn't it be easier to say that if there are 2 conjugate pairs in opposite corners of the puzzle for instance r1c9 and r9c1 of the puzzle the opposite corners r1c1 and r9c9 can't be any of the numbers that make up the conjugate pair? Therefore r1c1 could only be 3 since it sees a 1 from either corner, and r9c9 could only be 7 because it sees both 1 and 6 from either corner.

I missed the two-string kite and the W-wing. Once I had half (a third?) the digits placed and the rest of the cells centermarked, I was stuck of course. R1C9 and R9C1 both had 16, and I wanted to see how they compared. Easy: showing that if R9C1 = 6, then R1C9 = 6. What happens when R9C1 = 1 was altogether different. I couldn't keep track in my mind, so I cornermarked digits with this assumption -- my standard first stage in bifurcation. I went through almost the entire grid to get if R9C1 = 1 then R1C9 = 6. That got me R1C9 = 6 and R9C9 = 7. (Focused on those cells, I didn't place R1C1 = 3, but it didn't matter.) The rest of the grid unraveled. 1:50 With many five-digit houses, I began (after placing the 2) centermarking those houses. Progressively more developed. 7:30 At this point, with the same digits placed, I finished centermarking the grid. 9:30 Of course, the one time when I skip going through every digit to see how they are distributed, I miss a *productive* finned X-wing. The corner 1s and R1C2 remove 1 and place 7 in the green cell. 13:50 There's your chain, and there's my chain. Alternatively, R9C1 = 6 leads to R9C7 = 7, leading to R9C9 = 1 and R1C7 = 6, emptying R1C9. (I guess this would be called a hidden void.)

That 1-6 W-wing not only prevents r9c9 but also r1c1 from being a 1. So immediately you can solve r1c1 for a 3. I found another strategy before seeing the 1-6 W-wing. An X-Y Chain that solves r2c8 for an 1 (so r2c2 is an 8). The cells that form the chain are r3c2(56), r6c2(35), r6c8(39), and r8c8(89). If r3c2 is 6, r2c2 is 8 because r7c2 becomes 1. if r3c2 is 5, r6c2 is 3, r6c8 is 9, r8c8 is 8, and r2c8 is 1, so r2c2 is an 8.

That is indeed a two-string kite for 1, so r1c2 can't be a 1. There is another strategy that lets you come to that conclusion too. On c2 and c8 there is a finned X-wing for 1's, so r1c2 can't be a 1.

Great solve! W-wings are one of my favorite techniques.

Nice video for beginners in sudoku! 🤗

I'm afraid the app you're using is not a very good one. That so-called hint, which was actually just an out-of-the-blue step, was not logically derived, as R5C4 could have been 2, 3 or 4 at that point. Proper hints might have been for R2C5, R2C8, R1C7, R4C9, R4C7, R5C2, R6C2 or R4C1, among others. I haven't checked whether my app (Sudoku 4.26.0) is equally faulty. I've never used the hints deliberately, although I have accidentally pressed the button occasionally. By the way, it turned out that the tournaments I've been 'competing in' are utterly fake. I have never been racing against other people, and the number of reported participants has always just been calculated with a small pseudo-randomizing factor. I have discovered that I can play the entire tournament offline, and my rank will always be the same. “Rank 1” just means 360/360 levels completed. The speed doesn't matter. Looking on the bright side, for nearly two years, I was racing through the grids, making me an extremely fast solver of easy and low-end medium puzzles, which, I suppose, is a fair achievement in itself. I've now done over 25,500 grids in 71 completed tournaments, spread out over about 700 hours, of which about a quarter of the time has been spent waiting for ads. Recently, I've been doing the tournaments offline, so that I can avoid them altogether. I wish I'd known that sooner. Ah, well, them's the breaks!

From your link, this game is only available for iPhone and iPad, not Android... Is there another link some where? TIA

The X-wing stands out, and removes 2 from the 127 cell. The 17 pair places 2 in R6C6 -- next to the 6. Oh, I didn't notice my earlier comment from ostensibly a year ago.

I skipped to the "Challenge" puzzle, and finished it in a notch under 6⅔ minutes. If you have a sense of my times, you understand the scare quotes.

📕Get my FREE Solving Guide that will help you solve over 80% of all Sudoku puzzles🧩to include NYT Hard👉👉www.buymeacoffee.com/timberlakeB/e/125822 Timestamps 0:00 Intro 00:20 It’s Solving Time 00:34 Puzzle Story 00:51 Expert Tip/Technique #1 04:01 BONUS Tip #1 04:46 BONUS Tip #2 06:45 Expert Tip/Technique #2 08:15 Expert Tip/Technique #3 11:29 Expert Tip/Technique #4 15:56 BONUS Tip #3 16:41 Expert Tip/Technique #5

This was really challenging, wasn't easy but I got it done three coffees later.☕☕☕👍

Bit late to the party, I didn't see the hidden quad, but I did see the 46 hidden pair in C4 block 2, it all collapsed after that.

It’s … solving … time.

Too lazy to watch the rest of the vid rn. But it is reminding me a lot of something I was thinking about to myself earlier. The one at 4:20 is a near triple with the three in the same row, except for the 1. The bival cell in the same block/house is what makes it nice, since it is either 1, in which case we do get that triple, eliminating those three nums in that row. In the other case for the bival we just get that singular number we chose as the guaranteed elimination. So at the intersection of both of those possibilities we can eliminate that number. Might be more than this but as im seeing it now, it is a near triple with a bival that sees the cell that screws up the triple; it has that value and also another value in the would-be triple, letting you eliminate that in the intersection of the “screw up cell” and the bival. So you don’t eliminate the screw up candidate that exists in the bival and the one it sees but the other candidate in the bival that exists in the would-be triple. So, something like this would work: -------- 1234 123 123 | Not 1 … … Not 1 … …. | -------- | | 14 Or even: -------- 29 123 123 | Not 1 … … Not 1 … …. | -------- | | 19 Where in the case it is not a WXYZ but it ends up in creating a 13 pair in the case of a 9 in the 19 to eliminate a 1 in that house, and eliminates 1 if you directly choose it from the 19. So the intersection of the vertical and that house’s ones can all be eliminated. Man the theory of sudoku is really interesting

Check the link and download the game now! sudokupuzzlegame.onelink.me/Ienc/i8t86f3d Timestamps 0:00 Intro 00:36 Sudoku Rules and Beginner Puzzle 01:28 Tip #1 03:58 Tip #2 06:51 Tip #3 11:29 Daily Challenge Puzzle 12:15 Tip #4 13:15 Tip #5

Check my full video for more details and download the game now! sudokupuzzlegame.onelink.me/Ienc/i8t86f3d

7:18. Good solve! Not hard today, thanks for that ☺

I see it a third x-wing for the fours, rows 4 and 9, columns 2 and 8

This is nonsense, and typical of these soduku videos, when the solver has the finished puzzle Example: he places a 2 with another cell in the block it could go into.

This grid seemed strangely familiar at first sight, probably because another puzzle had similarly placed 2-by-2 squares of ordered givens (21 = row 2 column 1): 21, 89, 35 (hidden pair in box), 34, 28, 12 (partitioning of box 3), 56, 48 (hidden pair in box), 86 (and again), 14 (and again), 33, 13, 36, 24, 96, 76, 81, 71, 95, 54, 74, 43, 22, 23, 82, 72, 85, 75, 73, 92, 77, 49, 18, 25, 15, 29, 67, 98, 97, 59, 38, 37, 39, 47, 45, 61, 51, 65, 55, 62, 63, 52, 53, 58, 57, 88, 87. I've created a few variations, but they're all too easy. Nevertheless, here's a rather pretty one that might have been suitable for an earlier round. It's actually rather good fun to solve: 001 200 070 803 400 000 000 000 068 000 308 057 000 000 000 240 106 000 130 000 000 000 005 601 020 007 800 001200070803400000000000068000308057000000000240106000130000000000005601020007800 HoDoKu rating: Medium 478. Andrew Stuart rating: Tough Grade 81.

Can you do a video some day--explain how the difficulty ratings are derived. That would be a fascinating bit of info. Thanks in advance...

📕Get my FREE Solving Guide that will help you solve over 80% of all Sudoku puzzles🧩to include NYT Hard👉👉www.buymeacoffee.com/timberlakeB/e/125822 Timestamps 0:00 Intro 00:16 It’s Solving Time 00:29 Puzzle Story 01:04 Solving The Middle 02:04 BONUS Tip 05:56 Finding Snyder Restrictions 07:53 Setting Up Advanced Strategies 09:17 Proven Strategy #1 12:19 Proven Strategy #2

Made it part way through the video, got a little help and I was off :) Solved it!

I'd never come close to winning a championship because of time, but this posed only the problem of my noticing things. Nowhere did I get stuck. I finally remembered what's-his-name's term, "crossing". I might have noticed the initial 12 pair in block 2 anyways, without thinking of "crossing".

Please give a little help to a noobie. Are there any hints that let you decide marking cell R8C6? Why is this cell important? Thanks a lot for your tutorials.

My face at 9:10 😲 Again at 13:3p 😲 As a unfair puzzle I tried but I knew I would be stuck. So thanks for the solve! 🤗

Join the Smartie Party now 🥳to get EXCLUSIVE reward puzzle packs, ad free content, discord access, and so much more👉👉www.buymeacoffee.com/timberlakeB/membership Timestamps 0:00 Intro 00:18 It’s Solving Time 00:26 Puzzle Story 01:02 Winning Mindset Tip #1 02:12 BONUS Tip 03:10 Winning Mindset Tip #2 05:48 Winning Mindset Tip #3 08:26 Solving The Green Cell 09:07 Special Announcement 10:15 Best Winning Mindset Tip

Would this work if the blue cell across from the orange one was orange instead?

Counting a couple pairs, I placed all the digits in the blocks except for the corner blocks. Following that, I did what I usually do when I'm stumped: centermark the rest of the grid. That led to a 138 Y-wing in blocks 1 and 3. Then I noticed that if R8C1 (containing 24) were 2, I'd have another Y-wing, this time 568 in blocks 7 and 9. So I bifurcated, using cornermarks to place the digits. That gave me a 48 pair and later, another Y-wing, 348 in blocks 3 and 9. I finally cornermarked all the digits for that assumption. For the alternate possibility, 4 R8C1, I centermarked the digits. This also meant removing digits completely that appeared in neither version. This time was harder, but I noticed a 258 XYZ-wing that placed a 6 (both versions, hence the digit) in R8C2. I got lucky and found an alternate-inference chain that gave me a 34 pair in row 7 block 9 (under the second assumption). A 28 pair gave me a 5 for both versions -- the digit 5 in R1C9. That gave me a few other matching digits. I also started getting centermark voids, indicating that the cornermarked digit was the only possible digit. It also indicated that the original cornermarked choice was the correct one. I probably missed something that would have avoided the bifurcation. 4:40 What did I do at this stage? Centermark the rest of the grid. 6:50 I didn't find any more bi-valued cells, until I caught that Y-wing. It gave one more bi-valued cell (45 in R1C9) although it decimated the 3s. 8:15 I think I see what you're aiming at now. I didn't catch it in my solve until during my bifurcation. Start with R8C1, my bifurcating cell. The chain becomes 2--not2--2 in R3C3 and 4--not4--4 in R3C3, eliminating the 8 there. 13:30 Of course, the XYZ-wing I found was completely different.

This was a good little puzzle. I did it a different way. Once you solved for no.3 in box 9 and followed it up, it was easy to find 1 and 2 in box 3, then 3 and 4 in box 1 all in the first row. It was a good brain exercise.👍

Awesome Timberlake! Hope all is well?

Tried and failed. Oh well :)

I did something wrong because my solve was 4:48. So I went back with the undo button and I found it: R5C8 cell! It is a 69 but I placed a 67, and luckly got the right number there. 🤔 So I tried to solve the right way. And got stuck, of course 😅 I didn't understand, how the 4 logic worked at first. Eg. If R7C8 isn't a 4, why R1C9 need to be a 4 when we can place a 4 at R2C9? So I thinked a little bit and got, the same way, but in a easy version (for me): if R7C1 is a 4, then R2C8 NEEDS to be a 4 (because R7C8 can't). And with this we can't place 4 in box 1. The same thing with the 8. I saw it easier (for me): columns 2 and 8. If R7C2 is a 8, so R2C8 NEEDS to be a 8, and again no 8 in box 1. But the way you found about the 3 and the 6 was genious!! Indeed a "unfair" puzzle! Thanks for the solve and all the explanation! 🤗 Ps: the reason why I could not understand about the 4 and 8's is probably because you are very smarter than me in solving these hard puzzles, and can see things more clear 😅