Don't Set your Calendar by Cracking the Cryptic

[@welcometogeektown]

This is the first puzzle on the channel I've done so far completely on my own. Very happy with myself on this one.

[@b.k.7573]

i believe this is my 3rd puzzle i did on my own. i saw Mark take 21 minutes so thats an indication i can do it within an hour or so lol took me 48 minutes plus but did it without help, i feel proud :D

[@akashdoulani3230]

Thanks Mark. You solved it really fast. You are amazing at mathematical variants. By the way, the cake on the thumbnail looks amazing.

[@emilywilliams3237]

I gave this one a go and had a great time with it - thanks for the puzzle, and I hope that your wife had a wonderful birthday (I know, very late to the party on this one - scrolling back through old videos...)

[@akashdoulani3230]

@@emilywilliams3237 Thanks Emily. Yeah, the birthday was great.

[@ruwisc_]

Was excited to see this as Saturday was also my birthday! And I very nearly finished it in exactly 17:07 (but I was a few seconds slower, dang) Happy belated birthday to Akash's wife!

[@akashdoulani3230]

Thanks Zach. Belated happy birthday to you as well.

[@samus88]

Unironically finished it in 17 minutes and change! Lovely puzzle.

[@akashdoulani3230]

Thank you

[@RominaVargas13]

It took me 135 minutes, I know it's very long time, but I'm proud because I'm fairly new to this type of sudoku. Just happy I did it and didn't give up I really love this videos

[@Coyotek4]

16:44 ... and Happy Birthday, Mrs. D! Nice puzzle!

[@akashdoulani3230]

Thank you

[@markp7262]

21:12 finish. I sorted out the 1-2 pair in box 1 using box 3. In the 17 diagonal clue, the minimum total for r1c6, r2c7, and r3c8 is 13 (I had previously identified r2c7 as an 8-9 pair). This means that r4c9 is a maximum of 4. Since it sees 2 (2-5 pair in row), 3, 4, then it must be a 1. Now r1c6 can't be a 4 (no way to total 17 on diagonal). So the three possibilities left are 6-8-2-1, 7-8-1-1, and 6-9-1-1. If it were 7-8-1-1, that would place 6s in r3c6 AND r3c7. So now r1c6 must be a 6. The 7 cage in row 1 is now a 2-5 pair, sorting out the 1-2 pair in box 1.

[@emilywilliams3237]

I really enjoyed this puzzle, solved it without help from Mark - but then enjoyed watching the video to see a better way through. (yes, this was posted a long time ago - I have been whiling away some time watching older videos. All enjoyable.)

[@emilioherrera6345]

At 12:15, r2c7 was very restricted because of the cuadruple in the box (1,2,5,6) and the 4,3,7 in the column. It only could be 8 or 9. That way I broke into the puzzle.

[@VeritasUnae]

Somehow I made some weird logic problem with 2s and 5s in the bottom 3 rows, but I managed to fix it up with some help from Mark's solve. Really enjoyed how the little killers interacted!

[@Pwecko]

37:59 (I don't round up when doing these puzzles). It went well early on, got harder for a while, then suddenly everything fell into place. Nice puzzle. I don't even try the ones that take Mark and Simon over 45 minutes. They would take me several hours (possibly days) or, more likely, I wouldn't be able to finish them at all.

[@samplename5159]

Done in less than twice the video length, i count that as a win! One word for the puzzle: cute.

[@fluffyplayery3017]

Finally managed to do one of the puzzles! I needed some help from the video in the first half and it took me 105:45 but I got there in the end.

[@TheMadrory]

59:52 .... Just glad I made it through without any mistakes 😂

[@jasmine2519]

did this one in 41 minutes! First one I've been able to do for a while lol

[@lizbrooker4635]

Most enjoyable 👏😄

32 minutes for me, I'm pretty happy with that

[@stephenbeck7222]

The big diagonal in bottom left was a little easier for me I think by focusing on the 4 permutations of the 25 pair in r5c1 and the 27 pair in r8c4, namely that 5 could not go in r5c1 with either option in r8c4, so the deadly pattern Mark mentions early on is erased and most of the rest is pretty smooth. He made a lot easier work of the 17 diagonal in box 9 than I did by getting to the 79 pair in the box first.

[@CMLachky]

Great Puzzle!!

[@Gonzalo_Garcia_]

16:05 for me. Maths were not on my side today, but I still managed to get there.

[@sampathkumar-ej7xl]

Akash Doulani nice puzzle. Not difficult but had enough to make it enjoyable. Thanks

[@akashdoulani3230]

Thanks Sampath

[@KalenCarslaw]

Thanks for providing so many fantastic puzzles! Hope you both (along with other UKers) have N95+ quality masks and/or respirators at the ready. Good luck staying safe during the "grand re-opening".

[@AussieJohnny]

At 9:33 For the 17 little killer clue from r5c1 to r9c5. r5c1 couldn't be a 5 because there was no way to make 9 (17 - 5 - 3) from 147/2457/27.

[@siorac1147]

Oh for heaven's sake. I got stuck for over 20 minutes because I failed to realise that 9+7 doesn't equal 17.

[@gobsvensen]

At 13 min in, you can avoid the fiendish logic of the 17 diagonal on the left and instead look at r2c7, it sees 1-7 in its box and column, so it is 8-9 minimum, making 13 min in the 17 diagonal, since r4c9 sees 3-4 in the box and the 2-5 x-wing, it has to be a 1 since 6 is too high, and then some maths in that diagonal can get rid of the 5 in r3c8 and the 4 in r1c6. That will start bouncing around giving digits throughout the grid.

[@miraculix666]

That 17-clue was solvable @9:22

[@dwarfigplays9806]

Nice one! But I was slow and finished only in 38:54.

[@nady2296]

29:36 I had a hard time figuring out a move (how to crack the 17 on the top right corner) and I got stuck here 10-15 minutes. But otherwise it was pretty fluid!

[@ocaly]

Its funny how today is my birthday and my IRL name starts with a D. I know the video is talking about 2 days ago, but I got this recommended just now and the odds of that happening are slim so I thought would share! :)

[@longwaytotipperary]

Happy birthday Mrs. Akash

[@akashdoulani3230]

Thanks

[@glennmelven3414]

Great puzzle, managed it in 46 minutes. I am definitely not the mathematician Mark is.

[@maxxiong]

28:18 very cool

[@michaelhoffman2011]

Clever puzzle. took me 34 minutes.

[@jamesreilly1054]

Hbd!

[@akashdoulani3230]

Thanks

[@benjaminrealy5661]

39:52. Had to use more if then logic than I wanted to though

[@glum_hippo]

More killer little killer birthday tributes! Nice. More if these would not be amiss.

[@elmerdeleeuw1569]

"Only CTC-Troopers are that precise!" -- Obi-1, probably.... ;)

[@davidh.4944]

Hah, I thought I was doing great-then I hit the 17 diagonal and could only make it add to 18. 😢 I tried backtracking a ways, but it still doesn't resolve, so my screw up came somewhere earlier on. I'll have to give it another try later, when I have more time. Edit: I finally got back to it, and it took me 56:41 to complete it correctly this time. Figuring out the totals on the LKs (or rather, what combos couldn't go there) was the hard part for me.

[@samuelcarter7694]

I got very stuck at 13:19

[@Clocksmith-s9w]

At 5:16, Mark enters a three into r6c6. Did I miss some important bit of logic here?

[@RichSmith77]

Just before (@15:00), he entered a 1,6 pair in box 5, which took away the option of 1 in r6c6.

[@Clocksmith-s9w]

@@RichSmith77 Ah, thank you. I was focusing on the column, or something at the bottom of the grid to prevent a 3 from where he places the 1.

[@theunwelcome]

happy birthday to the setter's wife

[@akashdoulani3230]

Thank you

[@Edos512]

I'm kinda disappointed that R2C9 was not a 7...

[@wanderlustwarrior]

25:00 for my solve... but I somehow solved differently from the intended solution, which is technically wrong, since my solution doesn't fit the diagonal 17 on the left (instead summing to 20).

[@MBSPUHR842]

did the same and then went back to see what I had done wrong. the key seems to be choosing a value for r7c3 immediately rather than working on other parts of the puzzle, though I'm not sure how that works. my break-in was concluding that r1c6 (on the 17 diagonal) couldn't be a 4 which forced the 4 in box 2 into r2c6 and that opened up everything else.

[@moneyraymondottv]

Yeah I got the same ay. Diagonal sums to 20.

[@srwapo]

24:45, flailed a little bit figuring out Box 3.

[@wade_23]

hey we share a birthday. (July 17)

[@puppetsock]

At 11:06 you take 9 out of r2c4, leaving 35 in r2c4 and r3c4, and don't see that it puts a 9 in r1c4. You remark on the 35-35 in r2 c3c4, but don't see the other one right there. You and Simon will not look at your pencil marks.

[@RADZIO895]

26:43 for me

[@tomtheultimatepro]

13:14 for me

[@matthewmayton1845]

24:37 to solve. Forgot about one little killer clue for a couple of moments.

[@timmccaskey]

Good puzzle, but ugh - 40 minutes for me. Haven't seen Mark's better efficiencies yet. Normally I love using the little killer clues, but I was slow tonight.

[@theoryjoe1451]

I spent about a half hour and realized I made a mistake. Rage quit. Let's see how he does it.

[@victorfinberg8595]

Never fear, you WILL get better. Basically, what's going to happen is, at some point, your neural pathways will simply accommodate to the demands. Magic!

[@_-_-Sipita-_-_]

26:17, got somehow extremely confusing while solving this

[@juicedsky688]

That tiny little white hand is invisible. I can’t see what you’re talking about until after you’ve clicked it and moved onto the next box. So, if you don’t click on something, then you might move your hand around to 17 different places before you do click.

[@tmmlis002]

I love these puzzles, but can't lie; mulling this one over for ages and then learning the obscure logic required to disambiguate the 12 pair in box one made me lose all desire to finish the rest of it. I grumbled the whole rest of the way.

[@RichSmith77]

Probably no less obscure, but at that point (12:00) there's only one possible way to fill the lefthand 17 little killer clue. I noticed that three of the four combinations for the bi-value cells (2,5 and 2,7) left totals that couldn't be made from the possibilities for the other two cells. I thought it was really clever when I spotted that, and made the rest of the puzzle easy to complete. Did take me awhile to spot though.

[@tmmlis002]

@@RichSmith77 that IS really clever. Thanks for sharing!