A Sudoku With Only One Given Digit (and it's a 4!)

[@DArtagnonW]

They're called pentominos, but they can't have a 5 in them. Cruel fate.

[@corsiKa]

You can in 0-8 sudoku

[@enax6763]

True Romeo and Juliet story

[@KL005]

POOTOOMOONOO

[@failurenotsorry6600]

probably why the 'pento' is there.

[@ffets-SEP]

Because they're made out of 5 cells.

[@borisgrozev2289]

THE THREE IN THE CAGE My hobby: spending 1h30m on a puzzle, so that I can watch the video and shout at the screen when Simon takes too long to notice something easy in his 30 minute solution.

[@crystalgehrt8861]

YAS!

[@teresagg9809]

Same. My time 199:10. Trying to not rely on the video. started over twice . watched the video a bit. stopped the video saying ok so I was right. @ 20:19 him mentioning the triple made a lightbulb go off. I was much farther along with a pair and a placed digit and was stuck.

[@epicmoofish3726]

why even solve it, the best strat is to shout at the screen even though you know damn well you couldnt solve it

[@sotirissoyvleris6966]

exacly what i did 87 min with litle help by simon and then WOW HOW CANT U SEE THIS haha i like him a lot tho

[@coconoisette]

Did it in 4h38 minutes without help. Will still watch the video, i used almost NO logic just struggled with placing pairs and seeing what clicks or not 😭

[@Bruno-xi3jm]

At this point it's rare to see any given digits at all

[@williamoberg-lofstedt130]

😂

[@nickj7332]

@@williamoberg-lofstedt130 KZbin offered to translate your comment to English. Makes me wonder which language it was in. XD

[@bhoooowhooo7943]

We don't talk about brunooo

[@emdivine]

@@nickj7332 Did you press the translate button? When I used it last it told me what the original language was

[@nickj7332]

@@emdivine I'm mostly teasing because it was an emoji, which is universal. But, maybe they mean different things in different languages? Like how certain hand gestures mean very different things between different peoples.

[@dkamm65]

Interesting that if the given 4 was a 6 instead, the solve path would have been exactly the same, but with the polarity flipped. All the 1s would become 9s, the 2s become 8s, 3s map to 7s, and of course, 4s to 6s.

[@aaronfuzion]

My brain hurts

[@joethornton5321]

2's would become 8's, no?

[@dkamm65]

@@joethornton5321You're right, my bad. Fixed it.

[@fulltimeslackerii8229]

probably because 6 has a similar issue of having only 1 possible neighbor

[@Lollymen27]

Isn't that valid for every sudoku? If you flip every given digit it solves the same way... here its just cool because its junst one digit. (Of corse not killer, arrow, ect.)

[@TiramisuSPD]

The cherry on top is that the pentominoes are in alphabetical order! What an elegant puzzle, as always from Aard.

[@Tahgtahv]

I guess I've noticed it before, but it's still amazing that they are so biased towards the end of the alphabet. (7 of the 12 in the full set are the last 7 letters of the alphabet.) The other amazing thing is that the letters in the puzzle all have as close to a proper orientation as possible. V, W, and X, are rotated CCW 45 degrees to align with the grid.

[@darreljones8645]

The central box has no pentomino because the four remaining shapes (I, L, N, and Y) can't fit in a 3-by-3 square.

[@abj136]

FPTUVWXZ

[@olivier2553]

@@Tahgtahv I'd argue that the X is rotated clock wise, but that is just to feed the algorithm.

[@pacattack2586]

Deleted previous comment - I forgot that L was four then a turn... That pentomino in box 6 was a V u_u

[@jefffrank177]

Find someone who talks about you the way Simon talks about Aad.

[@rewolff2]

Aad has a website where he lists people who've solved the puzzles on that page. Under ten solves for most of the puzzles that have been on that page for over a decade!

[@uigrad]

Simon frequently asks whether people like the ridiculously hard puzzles or easy puzzles more. For me, this hits the sweet spot. It's somewhat challenging the whole way through, but never so hard that you get stuck. The types of deductions you make are constantly engaging. It's just a great puzzle!

[@inspiringsand123]

Rules: 04:31 Let's Get Cracking: 05:01 Simon's time: 32m09s Puzzle Solved: 37:10 What about this video's Top Tier Simarkisms?! The Secret: 8x (05:13, 06:53, 07:20, 07:24, 11:16, 37:45, 37:45, 37:48) Maverick: 2x (11:33, 16:09) Bobbins: 1x (10:30) And how about this video's Simarkisms?! By Sudoku: 8x (06:15, 25:47, 26:05, 29:09, 30:12, 31:51, 32:30, 35:10) Ah: 8x (07:12, 16:01, 16:01, 16:05, 23:19, 24:31, 25:42, 28:26) Good Grief: 7x (03:10, 16:09, 25:24, 25:26, 27:05, 28:52, 30:16) Beautiful: 5x (01:33, 17:58, 18:40, 18:49, 28:04) Lovely: 4x (03:56, 25:45, 26:09, 29:58) Brilliant: 4x (03:31, 03:43, 04:04, 37:12) In Fact: 4x (05:11, 06:00, 20:07, 29:43) Wow: 4x (26:03, 27:12, 27:12, 32:49) Pencil Mark/mark: 4x (24:00, 33:15, 35:24, 36:15) The Answer is: 3x (05:32, 06:13, 20:22) Obviously: 3x (12:08, 21:42, 26:24) Clever: 2x (19:05, 28:52) Incredible: 2x (02:47, 03:22) Corollary: 2x (09:40, 11:29) We Can Do Better Than That: 2x (11:52, 17:17) Cake!: 2x (03:45, 04:04) Sorry: 1x (29:49) Naked Single: 1x (36:04) Out of Nowhere: 1x (30:40) Break the Puzzle: 1x (05:35) Fascinating: 1x (01:35) Extraordinary: 1x (01:02) Gorgeous: 1x (28:08) Off and Running: 1x (25:26) Take a Bow: 1x (38:10) Shouting: 1x (03:38) Hang On: 1x (08:48) Masterpiece: 1x (01:02) Disappointing: 1x (32:03) Full stop: 1x (13:18) Progress: 1x (33:12) Almost Interesting: 1x (12:16) On the Cusp: 1x (31:29) Nature: 1x (07:37) Most popular digit this video: One, Six (63 mentions) Antithesis Battles: Low (17) - High (14) Odd (2) - Even (2) Row (12) - Column (12) FAQ: Q1: You missed something! A1: That could very well be the case! Human speech can be hard to understand for computers like me! Point out the ones that I missed and maybe I'll learn! Q2: Can you do this for another channel? A2: I've been thinking about that and wrote some code to make that possible. Let me know which channel you think would be a good fit!

[@Kevin-ht8hr]

The "wow" at 26:03 is a false positive

[@mauritsgeerligs8596]

This is awesome

[@nick_the_xiv8721]

i love you sm

[@totto5765]

I always listen to your videos at night when I'm trying to sleep because your voice is nice calming, but I'll end up watching them to the end most of the time. I love how you explain your thinking process, it's so easy and fun to follow!

[@th.nd.r]

The miraculous nature of the puzzle and all the bouncing back and forth in the bottom three boxes, what a beauty! Great setting and solving yet again, loved this one!!

[@emilywilliams3237]

I did it! I did it, I solved this puzzle by the great Aad Van de Wetering. I am very pleased with this. Thanks so much for this great video, Simon, and your wonderful solve of this great puzzle. I so enjoyed it, as always.

[@ruzicabibin4701]

Otvorite za igru

[@emilymiller4349]

Good for you! I know the feeling, but alas not with this puzzle. I kept getting stuck and needing Simon's help. Congratulations to you! (And yes, you may have solved it two months ago, but let's keep celebrating.)

[@kayleawilson]

Aad and Simon, excellent job. I love this channel and I love these puzzles. A strangely viral video of a man solving a strange sudoku got me hooked on a not-so-strange community of puzzle lovers.

[@steelee300]

After discovering this channel a few months ago and being a very casual sudoku player(I know the very basics and learned when I was young) this channel makes my brain tingle in best ways of puzzles and logic and I wanted to thank everyone involved with it. Hey thanks!

[@markp7262]

32:23 finish. Another amazing puzzle which looks impossible at the start, but unfolds brilliantly. There are even places where you can fit the remaining four pentomino shapes (overlapping each other, but not overlapping the cages) and still have them follow the German whisper rules! You use r4c3 through r4c7 for the I, and then branch off from it for the L/N/Y. Excellent!

[@azpcox]

I love the fact that all of the pentominoes are all unique as well. Aad always has beautiful settings with lovely logic that makes a day better!

[@emdivine]

saw somebody else call this out, further blowing my mind: the pentominoes are also in alphabetical order, and all of them "upright" as much as that's possible wrt the letter they look like

[@addisonbaker9811]

@@emdivine sorry if this is obvious, but what letter is in the top left?

[@emdivine]

@@addisonbaker9811 No worries, it's not the most obvious thing. That's an F

[@DarrenNakamura]

Got stuck, came back to the video long enough to get Simon's insight about the 4 and 6 in row six. With that I was able to finish the puzzle in 1:42:43. Edit: I'm sure somebody else has also pointed it out, but another beautiful thing about this puzzle is that the pentominoes are alphabetized! He used all eight pentominoes that would fit in a 3x3 box and put them in order, and still found a way to have it solve nicely using just one given digit.

[@davidalderson]

The return of Aad van de Wetering who hasn't been seen on the channel since Mark's video yesterday. Not that, that is a bad thing as the logic in his puzzles is always fantastic.

[@corsiKa]

Mark had a submission recently and he mentioned to aspiring setters to please only email one puzzle to be fair to their testers. I fully agree with his philosophy but I feel like there are some people who could email them puzzles all day long and mark and Simon would just look at it and go well I guess we're doing a few bonus puzzles today.

[@chocolateboy300]

I finished in 38 minutes. What a joy this puzzle was to solve! The geometry was so nice how it played with the 5s, 4s, and 6s, which then led to the 3s in cages breaking 7s. Absolutely brilliant. One of my favorites. Great Puzzle!

[@zanzaboonda]

I've actually been watching since pre-"Miracle", but you all are just as charming as ever. And I've gotten better at solving, too. The way you explain things is very accessible, though I wouldn't make all of the logic leaps yet on my own. However, I didn't do too badly with this one! I think playing your Miracles app helps because it forces you to think about things in a different way. The last couple of years have been rough for everyone, of course. Thank you for being such a calm, consistent place to turn to for escape. Your channel not only brings joy, it soothes. And it teaches. I play and watch puzzles to help with anxiety, and you guys have done so much for so many people. I doubt you even realize to what extent. (I had brain surgery last year, and your channel was one of the few things that kept me sane leading up to it.) Thank you. Hope you're on the mend!!

[@bristolrovers27]

Great to see another Aard puzzle, the man is brilliant Generally out of my league but I've completed a couple of his relatively easy puzzles

[@listey]

Aad*

[@acebee46]

I dont fully understand all the strategies for sudoku but I love watching you solve them and how positive you are

[@nickneal3955]

I can almost never follow your math because you're so very fast at doing math in your head but I enjoy watching because it's amazing watching everything fall together and you have such a calming voice. You're so good at these,

[@HunterJE]

21:49 You can also narrow r6c8 to 37 at this step - whichever of 28 r8c8 is, it will be surrounded by both the opposite-polarity digits and therefore put the other like-polarity digit above...

[@aaronfuzion]

I noticed that. Not sure if it would have helped tho

[@btestware]

Yes, I did that too and it led to a very weird cross-linkage between the 28 pairs in the middles of boxes 1 and 9. I do my puzzles on pencil and paper and I make heavy use of "ordered pairs" which you might call bifurcation but it is really not much different that what Simon does with colors. Anyhow, following the logic, I proved (or at least convince myself) that those 28 cells had opposite polarity, which meant neither 2 nor 8 could be the center cell of box 7. Which was huge. And I went back to the video to see if Simon did it the same way. And of course, his solution with the 789 triple in row 8 was much more...elegant? is the word I suppose. And simpler of course.

[@majestic07]

I would never have attempted this puzzle a few months ago and I have this channel and the Discord to thank for my improvement. Thanks to Mark and Simon and all the amazing setters and testers!

[@mirjanbouma]

I finally got around to watching this and it was beautiful, a great last video before bed. I'll go and watch more of your work tomorrow. 😊

[@jamesdreyer602]

31:16 I always love when Simon calls out his DISDAIN for using Sudoku....... in the Sudoku puzzles 🙂 And again at 33:55!!!!

[@Xiuhtec]

145 minutes for this one. Every cell was like pulling teeth, even near the end. No idea how Simon does it so quickly.

[@SenselessUsername]

No idea either. If only we could, like, watch him solve it real time and maybe even have an idea what he's considering...

[@jameswinters5495]

What a lovely puzzle, and also the first I've ever been able to solve on my own. It's keeping me sane as I lie here recovering from COVID myself, keep up the great videos.

[@sampathkumar-ej7xl]

Superb puzzle construction and a super solve by Simon with no signs of any Covid effects with him doing his best as usual to avoid classic sudoku rules.

[@Paolo_De_Leva]

What a stratospherically elegant construction‼Different shapes producing different restrictions, and so many breathtakingly beautiful geometric interactions between them... Thank you for inserting this cosmic-class sudoku in volume 2 of *CTC Greatest Hits.* Only 5.8K views on planet *Earth?* Incredible. In my galaxy, it was viewed *900 trillion* times, notwithstanding the sloppy automatic translation into Standard Telepathic Language, and notwithstanding algorithm bias against extragalactic species. By the way, we love Terrestrial whispers.

[@danidracogal]

I havent watched these guys in years, but I was thinking about them the other day, an this popped up in my fyp, so here I am

[@alexandrecolautoneto7374]

Yeah, I came from the two digits video and felt in love with the channel, keep doing the great work!

[@davidrattner9]

Have you been feeling Simon? Hope you getting on the mend and slowly your taste and smell come back sooner rather than later. Thank you for another beautiful solve from the man himself AAD

[@CrackingTheCryptic]

I don't feel too bad, thanks for asking. Just a sore throat now and no sense of taste. Still testing positive though :(

[@longwaytotipperary]

@@CrackingTheCryptic Good to hear you are continuing to improve!!! Thank you for keeping up the daily puzzles!! Hope your taste comes back soon (you can celebrate with cake!!)

[@stephenbeck7222]

Cracking The Cryptic I think you may still test positive for weeks depending on your variant and how long its viral load persists, regardless of your symptoms.

[@Anne_Mahoney]

@@longwaytotipperary I agree: Simon should definitely celebrate his recovery with cake. Lots of cake. An immense cake with 7 inches of icing orthogonally adjacent to the top. And may that day come soon.

[@longwaytotipperary]

@@Anne_Mahoney Yes!!!! 😊

[@PauxloE]

My first observation was "this 4 is in the most unhelpful place for the right three boxes, as it almost not restrict the placements of 4s in box 3 + 9 at all". (But then it actually forced the 6 in box 3, which was nice.) I got the break-in quite easy (almost the same way as Simon - watched (and solved) enough German Whispers puzzles recently that I even still had a graph with the digits lying on my desk). Nowadays I often manage to solve the puzzles, but when I watch the video afterwards, it feels like so much brute-force was needed compared to what Simon found. I had to pencilmark half of the grid, and color six of the pentominoes with green-yellow (i.e. unknown whether high or low, but known to be different from each other) before finally a yellow cell could just be 3, and thus the polarities became known for them (and I could change them to orange-blue, as the other three already were).

[@TenToTu]

The title says the only given digit is a 24

[@Mx.Morris]

I spent hours on this puzzle, only to watch you complete it in a much more efficient way. I'm sitting here laughing at the amount of time I wasted on this sudoku solving it in the most convoluted way possible simply because I forgot to eliminate a pencil mark early on. Amazing!

[@VonBlade]

"We now know the whole polarity of the F Pentomino". Not a sentence I expected to hear in my life, much less bring me such giddy joy.

[@Coyotek4]

27:31 ... this was an absolute JOY to solve!!! Wonderful puzzle!

[@ericpraline1302]

Very nice - always satisfying to finish one of Aad’s.

[@damadclown]

Managed to solve it by myself in around 45 minutes. Very entertaining for sure

[@aaronfuzion]

Aesthetically my favorite puzzle yet!

[@Jake-hd7lt]

I dont know how or why but i have bcome addicted to this channel

[@redmist6131]

Love watching you Crack these puzzles even though it sometimes makes I brain hurt

[@praematura]

28:48 for me, and this was a really cool puzzle! I honestly didn't think I was going to make it through, but I persevered. 🙂

[@MAUD_IFY]

remarkable that everytime i got stuck it was on a whisper trick i had missed. so much of the solve from beginning to end relies on those pentominos

[@shaunyman42]

For once I saw something Simon missed. Column 7 had 7 digits in gages and a given 4 not in a cage. Thus the cages must contain 3 low and 4 high digits, so the polarity of the cages in boxes 4,6 & 9 was clear right at the start. Unfortunately this quick start still did not result in me beating Simon's overall time. Well done Simon. When I started watching this channel I could not solve these puzzles, now I can, but I am still slow, and still make too many logical errors, but it's getting better thanks Mark & Simon.

[@lucyfarrer4401]

I never understand it, but I love it every time.

[@danielepicone1480]

I took way longer than Simon to solve with 41:56 as my time, but I am absolutely surprised this even has an unique solution. It feels more like an astral combination of factors coming together by chance to properly align.

[@piarittersporn]

After the first steps I had to experiment a little until I realized how the order of the high and low digits in boxes 4 and 6 should be. After that, everything built up very well, especially since there were basically only two options for r8c5 in box 8. A beautiful and exciting puzzle that I really enjoyed.

[@MyriamTT]

This puzzle works like magic !

[@J3ff_K1ng]

Wow and it's a four?! Amazing

[@crystalgehrt8861]

Aad made me fall in love with sudoku and ctc, and he makes me fall in love with them all over again each time he gifts us with another puzzle. ❤

[@ekw555]

I was amazed I located the 4 in Box 1 right after you established 4 in the top row of Box 3. now I have to wait & see if I am right.

[@rachelrose7027]

Simon's biggest complaint: making him do sudoku in a sudoku puzzle

[@DevilishlyDutch]

Shout out to 6, who was neglected for this puzzle despite being able to do the exact same thing as the 4. May you get your chance to shine one day!

[@Infantry12345]

Hey, at 6:02, why were you able to put a 5 at column 2 row 5? I get that row 4 was taken out by the 5 at column 8, but couldn't column 2 also have the 5 at row 7? I can follow what comes after but this c2r5 cell in particular puzzles me EDIT: I was focusing on columns and rows, forgot about the box somehow. with the U shaped cage, and the 5 on row 4 taken out, box 4 can only have a 5 in the middle, my b

[@brianarsuaga5008]

Only took me about three times as long as Simon, and I only occasionally needed his help spotting a dang whisper that I missed. 😅

[@MythicalSquidInk.]

Beautiful solve

[@triplea657aaa]

That was a fun solve. Thanks for posting this.

[@mansursamsuradov2780]

At first I wasnt sure if I wanted to see this video, since it a 4 and not a 3 and not even in the corner. But turned out to be a worthy puzzle and brilliant video.

[@cameronpotts2386]

Took me forever! 04:20:46 was my time. I'm so proud of myself

[@4thright]

Fascinating puzzle! Interesting to note that the eight pentominoes are arranged in alphabetical order using standard nomenclature: FPTUVWXZ.

[@Becky-99]

My favourite line was “Sudoku laughed in my face” 😂

[@sakkikoyumikishi]

Ah, the times when one given digit seemed like *few*, before it became the norm to just have *no* given digits 😂

[@glum_hippo]

Fascinating Pentominoes, Terrifically UnraVelled With Xtraodinary Zeal

[@alexandracristina9591]

Me just casually yelling that there is a 3 in column 9 row 3 at minute 31:45 🥲 was the only thing I saw before him, I am proud of myself 😂

[@LittleBallOfPurr]

Huge congrats to the winners!!!

[@alexanderallison7131]

Loved this one. Just under an hour for me.

[@lisan9517]

Personally, "desperate levels of pencil marking" is my favorite way to solve a tricky sudoku puzzle

[@LyuboRyuk]

I find this puzzle very beautiful 😍

[@GeorgeFoot]

I found this to be quite an Aad puzzle, it took me over two hours

[@DKforever24]

Its funny how back when this video came out, Sudoku Puzzles with minimal given digits was a major selling point, but now it seems like every puzzle starts off completely blank with 15 extra rules to help find your initial digits. Does that mean Sudoku has power creep?

[@AaronRausch91998]

Took me about 45 minutes. Normally I find tougher sudokus a slog, but this was fun the whole way!

[@65Superhawk]

My first Aad completed. 1 hr 40 but glad to have done it

[@jakeharrison7840]

what about what about I don't know its a 3 in box 1 effecting box 3 at about 31:40

[@Ardalambdion]

I am glad your voice is better.

[@ha_lber1517]

11:32 amazing puzzle solver and comedian wow

[@MartinEB72]

I kept running into an unsolvable puzzle.

[@nikkisweezea2388]

You sound so much better! Glad you came out the other side of the plague!!

[@RossReedstrom]

Who else was yelling at 31 min: "just put the dang 3 in box three already! There's nothing wrong with using Sudoku!"

[@squirrelwood8008]

A given digit? What a luxury :)

[@santisis]

73:20 for me, with a lot more of hot/cold colors than the Simon's solve.

[@ricardodiaz8799]

The given digit was not 24, clickbait

[@marcusmason967]

When I’m solving hard sudokus, and I get a break through, I think I if your voice going “ah that’s brilliant! Now this goes there…” etc.

[@glrider100]

I have observed that the extra rules make sodoku's more difficult in the beginning, but conversely less difficult at the end. The same extra rules that are a challenge to apply early on, become a benefit later. If you map on an X/Y grid, X being time, and Y being difficulty, I find these extra constraint puzzles start out higher at the beginning, but the fall off extremely sharply later.. Just my observation.

[@opstall]

Didn't do the featured puzzle, since I was tempted by the classic in the description instead. Managed it in about 20 minutes with no special trick (but two difficult techniques). It was a satisfying puzzle, but I guess I missed out on the fun of it. I got it with (spoiler) x-wing leading to finned x-wing. later: xy-chain. I think that last technique might be banned on the channel, especially since this one was somewhat long.

[@roccov3614]

The way I worked out the second "rule" was: 5 can't have any neighbors in the cage., 4 and 6 can have only 1. 3 and 7 can have 2. 2 and 8 can have 3 and 1 and 9 can have 4.

[@lemlem35]

22:47 Bazinga

[@Tobinicus]

How is it possible that I got to a solution that was able to have 2 different solves, none of which was the same as Simons yet there’s no errors

[@carolinewallis9997]

Yes! I was coming to type the same, there is absolutely more than one solution!

[@galacticmechanic1]

watching these I am starting to get a bit better at sudoku

[@roccov3614]

That took me way too long to complete. I had to restart it a few times too. I really like the high/low aspect of the puzzle though. I think this is the second puzzle I've done that had that type of mechanic.

[@DArtagnonW]

The pentominos spell out FPTUVWTZ... what could it mean?

[@Escviitash]

*FPTUVWXZ

[@n484l3iehugtil]

I managed to solve it by myself in 3 hours, but I had to make a very lucky guess along the way (the number on the bottom row, 3rd from the left)

[@MattYDdraig]

65:07 Beautiful flow, interrupted only by my own number-blindness

[@TheBlondiesNr1]

What does it mean when he says 'by sudoku'?

[@mrspacely603]

I remember doing a sudoku awhile back with 4 squares and like 3 boxes given yet i still turned the cereal box over for the answers after i finished about 3 bowls lol

[@amysteele2488]

It's only in watching this again I realised the pentominos in this puzzle, when read from top left to bottom right are in alphabetical order!

[@isaknilsson6541]

I'm proud I found the 7 8 pair solution before you

[@Gonzalo_Garcia_]

15:33 for me. Great puzzle!! I love this ruleset, it takes GW to a whole new level. Super fun to solve.

[@francoisduez601]

German cages for a Dutch Master? 🤔 Great puzzle as usual with Aad 🙃