Tips And Tricks For Killer Sudoku

[@yiotatort]

I'm so jealous of Simon's ability to do the math in his head. He does it so much faster than I do with a calculator. I'm stuck with calculators and killer Sudoku tables and he just zooms through.

[@akickboxralph1]

OMG!, I'm glad I'm not the only one. I'm 71 years old, math was my best subject, aced all my regents in high school,, but could never do math in my head. I think that if practiced just doing it in my head I could do it but never gave it the time. A lot like typing, practice practice pratice.

[@yiotatort]

​@@akickboxralph1 cell phones with calculators are the most amazing things ever, right! No longer having to have those stupid little tip cards in your wallet which just meant you still were sitting there trying to figure out 23+48.

[@zevo9314]

i'm fast and good at math, and he blazes right past me. he just looks at it and knows what it is lol

[@cv507]

5:20 1444 us lamers -:-

[@duduraphael]

Stop using calculators! Do it in your head, even if it takes a long time. You'll get better at it very fast

[@mattBLiTZ]

Really love the "tips and tricks" style videos where you go over some of the logic you can start to use in these special variants - I've only tackled one or two killers and definitely would have taken quite a good think to spot that early logic you laid out so simply at the beginning, thanks for that

[@gordonglenn2089]

Serendipity indeed! Thanks so much for the quick response.

[@TheErusPrime]

I like these tutorial style videos. Even if I know something it's nice seeing the logic really laid out reinforcing my own logical intuitions. I'm glad I found your channel when I was randomly searching for explanations of advanced Sudoku logic.

[@jerryfitzgerald1705]

Very enjoyable! I love hearing him think out loud and his deductive reasoning skills are so sharp! How you scanned this puzzle and immediately picked out which squares to start with was amazing! I would have been totally stumped, but now with the law of 45 in my tool belt I feel like I might have a better chance of even getting started on the right foot !Thanks Simon for all the tips and tricks ! I have learned so much from your videos and have grown to like Killer Sudoku more and more. I do get stumped a lot more on the regular puzzles however. Your brilliance at solving those specialty puzzles is nothing short of amazing! Thanks again !

[@gordonglenn2089]

Just a tip for Killer Sudoku beginners: If you don't catch the reasoning for a certain step, pause the video and check the crossing rows and columns. You will usually see where the same number is appearing, even if Simon does not explicitly point them out.

[@Zerger7]

I definitely needed an intro like this for killer sudoku, normally I don't bother trying them at all but was able to get through this one without much issue after the introductory tips. Thank you Simon!

[@DavidThomasPilot]

This was the first killer Sudoku I completed! A real sense of achievement at the end of it.

[@RhogerAnacleto]

I just started to do killer sudokus, and I am trying to solve the expert failing so hard. I came up to your videos and you taught me really good tricks I have never realized. Thank you I'm going to try that and see if I can solve one without any hint 😬

[@RealAlexLambert]

15:35 "see if we can see anything easy"..... Me - The 8! The 8!!!

[@oNtuobAwoH]

40-ish minutes. As long as I'm somewhere in the "double Simon's time" ballpark, I'm happy.

[@viggob4816]

Thank you for showing this brilliant solution. I started doing the Killer Sudokus 3 weeks ago, and I find them quite entertaining. I did solve this before seeing your solution, but it had to use 1 hour... I used one other trick as part of my solution by finding a difference of two cells. When you look at the four columns to the left you got r4c5 sticking out to the right and r5c4 sticking in to the left of the vertical line. Adding up the sums you get 186, so r4c5 must be 6 higher than r5c4. It limits the possibilities of the two cells to 789 and 123.

[@davidgould9431]

My mental arithmetic isn't great, so if I'm looking for just a single cell by adding cages, I just ignore the 10s: add just the last digits, discarding any carries along the way. An even number of rows, etc will have a total ending in 0 and an odd number's sum will end in 5. If I'm looking for a total bigger than x0, the answer is my modulo-10 sum; if smaller, it's 10 minus my sum. For x5, subtract 5 from my mod-10 sum (first add 10 for sums less than 5) for an extra cell, or subtract my sum from 15 for one that's short of a full row. This greatly helped me when I realised I could save some effort like this.

[@gordonglenn2089]

My mental arithmetic is great (if I do say so myself) but I still use this technique as a time saver.

[@dhanaazm7897]

Truly intrigued by your simple logical conclusions. This is pure fun. Thank you.

[@modularcarpet]

My wife and I were trying a Killer Sudoku for the first time and got very stuck, until we learnt the rule of 45! Never thought of that - helped us a lot. Love your videos! You have a very relaxing voice and you are very sharp.

[@Matilda_the_Hun]

Ah yes! I love your killer sudoku videos the most, I'd love more of them! Such a common varient but with deeper and deeper and deeper strategies

[@Plinky432]

29:41 Today I enjoyed this one is was nice, took no time to get going but got stuck later near the end but I got it all sorted out and it sorted out really nicely. This was a fantastic puzzle for learning Killer Sudoku.

[@petzkuh]

38:59. I like these hand-set puzzles much more than the automatically generated ones, the process of finding the digits is always much more organic here.

[@skullbleeding]

Thanks for making this video. Now I know how to solve a killer sudoku. The most important thing which I was unaware of was the rule of 45. It was fun to pause the video in between to check if I got it correct and solve the puzzle together 😀

[@vicsammata6277]

Dude, I was trying so hard to make a killer sudoku for the last 4 days and I couldn't Watching this video had me so much fun, I really enjoyed it, I'm now on my way to see if I can make it now Thank you a lot, man

[@danielkaniowski5694]

My dad got me into this and the channel (shoutout dad if you’re reading this) and I can really see what the fuss is about - so satisfying working this all out and watching the numbers fall into place!!

[@happyhedgehog6450]

You guys are the best. I absolutely love your channel and I have 60 hours gameplay on your pc cracking the cryptic classic sudoku app.

[@linainverse5008]

Lovely puzzle I chose a different approach after placing the obvious numbers/pairs (10:43). 8 in the bottom left box can't be in column 1 due to the 26 pair and 8 in row 9, so it has to be in between the 3 and 7 of the central left box. This also gives you a 2 and 1 for the 18 clue.

[@LeRiukk]

First Killer Sudoku I try to resolve on my own, 2:07:34... Totally worth, now I feel complete

[@SandeepK1982]

You have got a brilliant brain. Very nicely done.. 👏

[@Deuxice]

Did it in 55 minutes! Pretty satisfied with the time.

[@billyoung8118]

Found your channel a couple of days ago, and have THOROUGHLY enjoyed improving my sudoku skills. Your web app doesn't correctly check for the sum of cages. I accidentally switched the 5 and 9 in row 9, and the 5 and 9 in row 6, and the check passes fine even though the cage sums involving those cells do not work. Not finding fault, your app is magnificent! Just wanted to let you know that it does not check cage sums.

[@glennmelven3414]

They have been working on getting a checker for these variants. But this one only checks for regular sudokuu. Every row column and box is checked for numbers 1-9

[@thomaswinnard5943]

Great tip and technic especially the times table by 3X and definitely will have a go

[@md.arshadulislam8275]

Began solving easy killers fews days ago. Now moving on to moderate difficulty ones. Started this to improve my mental math capacity and lot of folks on reddit suggestes killer sudoku.

[@Fun4GA]

Years ago I used to solve one of these every day, but given a long break I'd forgotten the row, column, and box sum has to be 45. Thanks for the wonderful re-tutoring... I'm back!

[@nightmouse94]

I just successfully completed my first killer sudoku with an empty grid to start with thanks to you!!Took me 50 min, but I got there!! :)

[@Spamhard]

Total killer sudoku newb here, didn't even know about the rule of 45, d'oh! That's going to be a big help moving forward. I was a bit stuck at the logic at 6:30 but then I think I worked it out. 3+24 is 27. the last chunk being +23 makes the 50, but minus the 45 for the row makes the final square 5? I'm sooooooooo bad at maths but I love logic puzzles.

[@shaynesparkes8740]

Thank you for this great vid, I've played Sudoku for years but never really got my head around killer version... it's actually straightforward. Thanks once again for the content and knowledge I'll get cracking on this I can't wait!

[@nobodycares___]

I accidentally stumbled across your channel. The Killer Sudoku concept caught my interest (I normally don't solve Sudokus, eek...) and it took me ages to solve now I've watched your quick solution afterwards. I guess I need some practise. Gimme more!

[@ewelinamatuszak9956]

I have been agressivelly doing killer sudokus for a week, haven't done that in a while. Sadly I got notoriusly stuck at some point with harder ones. So I go up here to destuck watching this amazing ytuber, turns out I forgot that rule when number can't repeat in a box ... I mean thanks, whole week, how did it even happen XD

[@55ATA3]

Great puzzle, enjoyed watching you walk through to get the puzzle started. I have not done many of them before, your information on getting going helped a lot.....Thank you

[@akwwnm7177]

You are incredible.

[@johnla3092]

Great tips. really upped my game. And I still take 40 or so min's to get this lvl done.

[@VictorCastillon1]

21:55, It's not the best time possible but definetly an improvement since I started watching your channel. Thanks :)

[@Blindpig14]

More of these please! I love the explanations now...it makes it so much easier for people like me!

[@mikecordingley3293]

Lovely - I can usually solve the Times Easy/Moderate killers, but realise I've been making far harder work of them than needed. I now need to tackle 'hard' and 'tough'.

[@ariel_haymarket]

Finally got around to doing this and 22:18 was what I sprinted towards once the math issue I had was clarified in 14:59

[@magicalspire]

Thanks for some help on figuring out killers. I have always just passed on those and it would saddens me. Now I need to practice them

[@luizfernandoareas25]

Well done, congratulations! Very nice video and tips!

[@MrGotnochannel]

Thank you for the video. It was helpful for me, since I’m a beginner

[@minatsukidw6473]

it did take me a while 01:17:51 to be exact, but honestly I'm just happy that I managed to solve one without help

[@glennmelven3414]

Spent a long time on this one, after about an hour I couldn't see a way forward so I decided to watch the video. And Simon places that 8 in R9 and I mistakenly put a 9 there making a total of 13. Fixed that and then I managed to finish with ease. I am just thankful I didn't make any deductions based on that faulty 9.

[@micheltordoir7734]

I like the Killer Sudoku. This one was not too difficult, and had a lovely start.

[@ASh-lt3rr]

Man thank you, you’re amazing 👍🏻

[@qriffis]

im learning so much from watching your videos, thank you so much! did this in 50:00 with your help

[@BarrieEasterbrook]

Amazing, learnt sooooo much

[@mikolajpodbielski]

This is the first puzzle fron the channel that I could actually solve...

[@TheMS991]

So I decided to give this a go...3 tries, many mistakes and a time of 4:43:31 hours (in one sitting) I finally can sit and peacefully watch you do it

[@sh3lton]

This solving was brilliant

[@Laserstormelpies]

I know this would be a different task for you but I wish that at some point you would cover Killer Sudokus with your apps. Great video

[@amulyar7]

Thank you so much for the tips.

[@89roddy]

That's a nice killer. I could solve it without help from the video. With killer sudokus this is unusual to me. I coloured the cages which helped me a lot. It took me 1:22:07 which is not so bad for me with this type.

[@purkku]

Finally did one of these without "cheating" by looking up sums tables. 33:33.

[@ocaly]

lmao my time is exactly 10 minutes later

[@lucy1498]

Thank you for saving my life, I owe ya.

[@twarnken]

Usually I have a lot of trouble with these but got this one in 36:04

[@brianmead5102]

wow that was awesome learned a lote

[@ecoslyrics7204]

This man is more than genius

[@Escviitash]

You got the three top boxes resolved by finding the number in r7c6, but you could have done it the other way around. If 1c6 was a 1 you would end up with 3 ambiguous pairs in the top boxes, so it has to be 5 in r1c6 which bring the 1 down to r7r6

[@lisatrout2115]

After the first 10 numbers were in, I got stuck. I listened to your logic about the 1357 grouping in columns 5 and 6 at the top. I had the ah-ha moment and was able to finish the rest of the puzzle. Sometimes it's the easy steps I forget to do. Thanks.

[@skybertronic]

This video was of great help :)

[@deleetiusproductions3497]

I’m excited to see this one

[@piotrciesielski2154]

At 10:30 I've realised You have 7,2,6 in column 1. In this case where can we put 7,2,6 in cage 1 ;) They have to be in column 2 because column 3 is already filled with digits. that means 9 in cage 1 have to be in column 1. Maybe I'm wrong :D

[@ComicNerd592]

This helped so much. Thank you!

[@CCHdennis1]

45:31 spent a quite lot of time to spot on the 38 pair in box 1. Always forgot the cage rule.

[@Troz918]

Don't feel too bad. I missed the same thing and ended up taking an hour and a half.

[@BlueCyann]

Really good puzzle choice for a "tips and tricks" sort of video. About 40 minutes, not super hard, but I'm very slow at addition.

[@rodrigoaguirre40]

Excelente video! Gracias fue de mucha ayuda para mi 👍🏼👍🏼

[@Samusin.]

oh boy this took me 1:23:16.... when i thought i was ready i apparently had switched a number somewhere along the solve so i had to spend a bit over half n hour to figure out where i went wrong ^^ probably would have been faster to start over but oh well it happens

[@Griffsterometer]

Slow solvers unite! 55:05 for me. We'll get there eventually

[@jon540]

33:53 for me. The mental arithmetic calculating the outies in the geometry took me far too long having become lazy due to daily killer sudoku's calculation feature. I'm also rubbish at remembering the cage combinations. However I passed the test without using any cheat sheets or calculators so I'm fairly pleased.

[@harmonyheal683]

I almost understand all the quick moves, made me feel so smart!! Lol

[@vengateshrishb5]

Thank you for the great video

[@mwickholm]

I often find killers very difficult, this was not an exception. It took me 47:29, I don't know why I'm so slow on this variant. I can count, that's not the problem. Maybe it's the irregular cages that do it, because I usually struggle with jigsaw sudoku too.

[@edensaquaponics1941]

44:54 it seems that I’m a little slower at spotting the necessary logic.

[@jardozouille1677]

Thank you for the 45 trick !

[@mikes_.5_cent]

thank you for the turtorial

[@UofMFan628]

35:47 very fun start to the puzzle getting that cascade of 8 digits.

[@tuftyk67]

You can repeat a number in a cage. If it's in a different row and in a different 9 square section

[@andrewjanssen8663]

My first try at this puzzle, I got 40 minutes in before I realized I'd mistakenly penciled 7-9 in the 17-cage in box 3. My second try, I had most of box 4 worked out before I cracked box 2, 42 minutes or so.

[@johnnyreggae969]

Really enjoyed

[@iosifoulis]

26.21 ty for the puzzle

[@BlackTyeChi]

I'm going to have to try watching a video while trying to solve the puzzles. I feel like I notice things while you are figuring them out that should be obvious. Of course, I'm not certain if at that point I would need to follow your logic. I guess when you go off in a direction and I see a different one, I'll pause the video and start timing and go until I get stuck again, then start playing the video again.

[@erickehr4475]

12:50 for me. I thought that was rather straightforward. There was a lot of geometry at the beginning placing digits, and after that it flowed very easily.

[@D-ave]

Awesome . Thanks

[@tbrennan100]

What about the when most of the boxes have more than 1 square outside the row, column or 9x9 square?

[@Frie_Jemi]

I enjoy killer puzzles, and like trying ones with your videos. I just find my vision is the biggest problem. The cage separation lines are not distinct with my astigmatism, I am forced to screen shot and magnify, then color the dotted lines in a color and print the puzzles. if there is ANYway you could enhance the cages, it would be amazingly helpful.

[@conorbellew1]

you can probably zoom in on the webpage (Theres options in the 3 dots in the top right hand corner of google chrome for example). Also colour adjacent cages in different colours using the colour function on the cracking the cryptic page itself.

[@cawleym]

Thanks for the great puzzle.

[@ewoudjan]

at first glance the puzzle did not seem easy. but using the column and rows strategy it was doable

[@chaotix37]

19:19... Messed up a bit. But finally cracked it.

[@harrisons62]

I have an app which gives all combinations and allows you to check them off as well as having a calculator on it. Makes solving these without it so hard

[@57thorns]

Why start with 135 when you can start with 90? Starting with the 8 is less counting and a prettier flow in the slow. Also the two top left cages as well as the cages in the lines all add to 47, so we go 1, 3, 5,7,9 adding two in each step. That is some beautiful construction.

[@isaklindstrom6830]

Took me 01:50 but I’m really happy I solved it myself

[@Barney29508]

Where do you get that software that allows you to "pencil in" as you are doing. I'm sure I could learn quicker if I had the use of this program.

[@facilvenir]

About 35 minutes. Very good puzzle.

[@idunnowhoiam601]

16:01 for me! Great puzzle!

[@randybartlett3042]

Excellent job!

[@RandomBurfness]

I've already solved this one! It took me about 15 minutes whilst I was on the verge of collapsing into bed at 3 AM. An impressive time given the circumstances! EDIT: Was my answer to the Overdone puzzle hunt correct? I haven't received confirmation it was! EDIT 2: What about featuring a puzzle from Daily Killer Sudoku once in a while? Those puzzles feature so much hidden logic that I still can't reliably solve every single 10/10 difficulty puzzle on there!

[@coffeedude]

It seems like they're computer generated puzzles so I don't think Simon or Mark would feature them here

[@RandomBurfness]

@@coffeedude Simon has praised the puzzles on Daily Killer Sudoku before!