Is There A "Right" Way To Solve This Sudoku?!

[@jaydyer3999]

Thanks for the solve! I admit I was a bit on the fence about how to rate this one's difficulty on logic-masters. I didn't feel like any of the steps were particularly outlandish; the challenge was just in how much scanning you'd have to do. Using letters was a good call though in my opinion. I wish I'd thought of that while testing it instead of using only colours.

[@longwaytotipperary]

Loved this!

[@antonberg5021]

Thank you for this puzzle, it's really beautiful. I used 9 colours and was just fine :)

[@martinbull-gundersen8878]

Letters seemed like a very good choice to me compared to colours. 'Stand-in' digits would probably have been even easier when it comes to scanning. I'm in the camp that would not have considered this bifurcation at all. The wonder of this puzzle isn't at all diminished by whatever 'symbol' I choose to use as pencil marks. Lovely puzzle and rule set!

[@RohanGifford]

Great puzzle Jay! Very fun to solve and very fun to watch Simon solve!

[@Paolo_De_Leva]

I agree that using *letters* was a good call. However, as suggested by Simon in the description above, the easiest way to solve this puzzle would be by using *digits as placeholders,* (as he explained at playback time 18:12) for three reasons: 🔹It is currently impossible to "pencilmark" colours (i.e. place them in the middle or in the corner of a cell to implement Snyder's notation) 🔹Most of us are typically trained to scan *digits* much faster than *colours* or *letters* 🔹Digits are easier to type (especially if you use the numeric keyboard) We discussed this technique in the comments to several previous CTC videos, and there was wide agreement about its validity and effectiveness, especialy in puzzles where each placeholder has only two possible values (such as *N* and *10-N* when constrained by German whispers). What do you think about it? Of course, *colouring* is a beautiful and elegant technique, but I guess for most people nine colours are _"a bit OTT"._ By the way, this puzzle is awesome and I immensely enjoied your magnificent puzzle hunt on CTC's Patreon Page. 👏👏👏👏 Note for *Sven Neumann:* It would be nice to be able to type *red* or *green* digits when they are used as placeholders.

[@compdude551]

I love that Simon says “what do we do next?” Like we are all there with him, helping him solve the puzzle. This makes the audience feel more engaged with the video and the puzzle. Our puzzle.

[@JoshEnglish]

I think I've spent half an hour yelling at him about the G in 7,7.lt was delightful

[@jasonwuthrich4101]

Now that Sven has expanded his color palette from nine colors to 28, the day will come when Mark or Simon does a puzzle that will require more than nine colors to solve.

[@Barbarinhass]

If you click and hold on the color you can actually change it to whatever you want. Infinite possibilities!

[@SneakyFatKid7]

If you count the letters as colors, then this one did take Simon 12 colors at one point

[@iteragami5078]

@@Barbarinhass I think you can also use a pair of colors instead (red-orange, red-yellow, red-green, ..., green-blue, green-purple, blue-purple, etc.) to get 15 distinct types with just roygbv.

[@barrydavies2977]

Nooooooooooo! It's more than difficult enough already. 🤦‍♂️🙁

[@JS...]

@@Barbarinhass WHOA! This changes everything. I can get rid of pesky pink & purples!

[@Nerdnumberone]

It's astounding how much he danced around that DG cage adjacent to the yellow DE cell.

[@uribove]

This! I was screaming at the screen for at least 25min if not more... He hasn't found it when I'm typing this

[@auberry8613]

Yeah that really bothered me haha

[@stevenfox4813]

I have never yelled at my screen so hard :)

[@andrewhouchin5812]

The EF pair in box 6 also works similar magic on r7c7 as the DE pair did to r3c3 Edit: I thought he was going to spot it at 45:00 but sadly he did not

[@joelsifilis]

43:23 😂😂😂😂

[@adammolski]

Simon: When solving the sudoku, make sure you can see it! Also Simon: This fog of war sudoku has only one cell visible and it's GORGEOUS!

[@jaeusa160]

In this puzzle, we had to C this Sudoku. ;D

[@HunterJE]

Yessss letters are so much better than colors for this kind of "unknown like values" logic than shading, not just for distinguishability but because of the ability to use both center and corner pencil marks

[@HunterJE]

(And bonus, none of the colors really rhyme with "me")

[@miran248]

@@HunterJE Green is the closest, i'd say, but still not as nice as C

[@Nabend1402]

I disagree and my evidence is that I solved it in 44:00 using colours and I don't usually beat Simon's time. He was hampered by the letters.

[@Kyufoxy]

@@Nabend1402 Solve time says nothing about which technique is better. You can speedrun a puzzle, you can explain a puzzle, you can make mistakes, you can do the wrong strats, you can look at the wrong place, you can scan worse and you can simply put the digits in slower. Unless you also missed a ton of scanning like Simon did, there's no comparison to be made and especially no evidence.

[@RockyInSea74]

@@Kyufoxy I'm not sure either is better, but I think the main thing that slowed Simon down in this solve, was starting with all the letters assigned to the middle cage instead of only starting with the 5 squares outside the 6-cell cages. And his repeated forgetting to apply the adjacent to cage rule. The only thing that screamed at me during his solve where color > letters, was that you could tell that R4C1 (FI) is ruled out of R3C4 and is equal to R2C4. But, you could have also added color to show that and used both at that point.

[@dwebb2805]

as much as you struggled with the letters i do believe them to be far superior to colors for this puzzle (and puzzles like it), just something that you don't have practice with and will get better at over time. i can't imagine the cells that had 5 different colors flashed in them, let alone the gray flashes that would've existed early on. i think you did a very good job in this solve, the thing that alluded you was the EF trick in r6c8 which was the same as you did in r3c3 but otherwise this was a good solve of a tricky puzzle

[@HunterJE]

Yeah the fundamental problem with colors (aside from colorblind accessibility, which dgmw is also a big issue when broadcasting solves) is even with multi-coloring/flashes you're ultimately limited to the equivalent of a single flavor of pencil marking; the ability to use center and corner pencil marks makes letters so much better for this kind of work.

[@Some.username.idk.0]

Did it with colors, but didn't notice there is a point where you would need 5 colors in a cell, or was that just an example?

[@eddieharwood7788]

Yes Simon is always expostulating using symmetry so I was amazed when he didn't immediately go to the opposite corner having had such success in the top left.

[@Pulsar77]

I depends on the puzzle. Colours become problematic when a cell has more than three possibilities, but in this case that was never needed. Letters convey more information, but when you have to fill in an entire grid, they are harder to scan than colours. I used colours for this one, and I think it was the right choice. Plus, the finished grid looked really pretty :-)

[@gregind01]

Please setters give us more puzzles that force Simon to use a plethora of letters! It becomes hilarious seeing what word and acronym combinations Simon finds in the puzzle. 🤣

[@longwaytotipperary]

Loved this - laughed a lot! 😁 Simon has such good humor no matter what the circumstances!

[@davidrattner9]

Loved that you used loved this twice in your comments. 😁

[@longwaytotipperary]

@@davidrattner9 thank you x 2

[@cathybryant5119]

@@davidrattner9 ❤❤

[@davidkay6655]

Thank you for finally using letters instead of colours so much easier to follow for me

[@sebastianpina709]

I was so triggered by the D on column 4 not being spotted, that I went on and copied what Simon had up to that point and found out that you could breeze through the puzzle after that. Beautiful puzzle btw, and Simon is always a treat to watch, even when he triggers us like that.. also, give us the SC2 video that you mentioned the other day ♥

[@MrNatetheTeacher]

I had forgotten about the SC2 video until I read this comment. Then I looked up and saw in the suggested videos on the side that he posted the SC2 video on the 23rd. Guess I'd better watch that now.

[@barrydickson6268]

I found this puzzle a lot easier by considering the 3 digits that must be excluded from the 6-cell cages and placing them in the adjacent cells.

[@jRoy7]

I like that!

[@saptneel]

I did exactly the same thing and it worked beautifully!

[@BryanLu0]

Simon eventually got there...

[@jonnybolton4659]

@@BryanLu0 Simon often seems to try everything else before trying arguably the "correct" thing, it's quite a skill

[@nava1348]

Simon, have you ever considered using an eye tracking software? It basically tracks the movement of your eyes and shows the viewers where on the screen you are looking, I think it would be interesting to see how fast your eyes move around the grid and help the viewers get into your headspace

[@DinosaurSuccess]

that would be so cool

[@asktheraccoon]

He took 24 minutes to notice that D in the cage in the middle box giving him the E in r6c3… I don’t think an eye tracking software would do him any favor in the comment section. We still love you Simon :)

[@emilywilliams3237]

This has been suggested numerous times over at least the past two years, and the fact that neither he nor Mark has ever implemented it seems to mean that either it is not within their reach for whatever reason (technological, expense) or they don't want to do it. For myself, I would rather that they not use it, but rely on their use of highlighting, coloring, and verbal explanations to tell us what they are thinking. And I think it might be creepy to watch their eyes wander around the grid ... makes me a bit squeamish just thinking about it.

[@DinosaurSuccess]

@@emilywilliams3237 thank you for your perspective! i hadnt considered how distracting/weird it might be

[@chuckdecker3765]

It'd be amazing to see how often he scans rows 1-8 then forgets about the bottom row. Then watch how he scans columns 1-8 and forgets about 9!

[@cathybryant5119]

I can't believe I managed to solve this. I did full on colouring and also used some letters when I had pairs of the same colour. It was an alpha-chromatic journey! Took me about 90 minutes. What a lovely puzzle. I really enjoyed the rule that precluded a cage digit from touching the cage.

[@rickwoods5274]

This was a fun puzzle! I did use colors rather than letters, and my approach was slightly different. First I noticed that each of the six-cell cages could have at most three unique digits touching it, and that in some places would need at least three unique digits touching it (in a single box/row/column). Used colors to sort out each of them, and determined that they'd need to share exactly one of those digits thanks to there being five digits in the center box that touch the cages. Those colors spread out to a bunch of the rest of the grid, then I started working the insides of those cages with more colors. Eventually I had the whole grid colored. At that point, I noticed that the 14 and 6 cages shared a digit, and since 14 and 6 are 8 apart the unshared digits must be 9 and 1 respectively. Similar deductions followed and it was just a matter of "double-click a color, input a digit" nine times to finish up. Really really great solve path!

[@sarahnash7174]

55 minutes for me. I had no idea how to do it, watched you begin and got the brilliant lettering idea, and then flew by myself thank you! Enjoyed this!

[@th.nd.r]

That’s an incredible puzzle! And Simon, your scanning may have let you down here, but this was quite a challenge and you defeated it, showing all the logic and providing laughs along the way, so I have zero complaints! Thank you for being you💙 Favorite quotes from today’s video: - “Always when solving sudoku, do try to make sure you can see the sudoku. It probably will help you.” - “That’s where we have to put the gees in um, in row 9. We could get some interesting sentences today.” - “… logic is simple, when you spot it.” - “That D sees that cage by the virtue of deeness.” - “That becomes a BI cell - a buy-sell, sounds capitalist, doesn’t it.”

[@savannahfanter1830]

I’ve never commented before, but I’ve been a silent subscriber for a while now. I just wanted to thank you for your videos! I have had a lot of anxiety because i am preparing to take the MCAT soon, but each night your videos help me decompress and relax. Thank you for some great solves :) i always used to play sudoku with my grandmother when I was a child, and after watching your videos I’ve gotten back into solving them. Your videos are always a joy for me! Keep up the great work! Thank you :)

[@emilywilliams3237]

Best of luck on your MCAT!

[@ThedmanEdman]

Thank you Simon for the solve. No yelling here, I missed orthogonal exclusion opportunities a couple times. Gonna need some practice to catch them more often, you will just have to feature more of these. :)

[@stevieinselby]

I don't know about the _right_ way, but *my* way was to go mark each of the cells in the central box with a colour and then go full Elmer 🐘 on the rest of the grid ... completed in 56 minutes. Great puzzle 👍🏻

[@titusadduxas]

I do similar but use numbers instead of colours; so much easier to disambiguate; ignore the cage totals and when finished substitute the numbers for colours. Simples. 😊

[@WhoStoleMyAlias]

Same here, though I initially started with some dummy numbers in the larger cages noticing that you had to group a set of three digits around them and then started colouring, initially with just five colours and towards the end adding the remaining four as the original five did not give me any clue what digit they had to be.

[@LardoCulo]

Ohhhh the EF pairs in box 6 were useful early on to make R7C7 a G. How much I was yelling at the screen when Simon was circling those cells but didn’t spot it a bit later 😅 But what a puzzle… Jay Dyer is from another planet.

[@miran248]

Letters are so much more efficient than colors. No need to worry about the color blindness, aand you can still use them colors after to distinguish the pairs. Beautiful solve, beautiful puzzle.

[@Pulsar77]

When the entire grid has to be labelled, colours stand out more than letters. Plus, you get a really pretty grid :-) I enjoyed solving this one, like all Jay Dyer puzzles.

[@quothacreations]

had to use a combination of letters and colors, but have to agree with Jay that there was nothing outlandish, just some time-consuming scanning (and I always seem to have more difficulty when coloring is involved). but bravo to Jay for such a good puzzle. and thanks to Simon for always being so charming and so good at explaining his logic.

[@andrewgrant6516]

That's Bee in the corner That's Cee in the corner That's Dee in the corner That's Eee in the corner That's Gee in the corner Quick, someone make Simon a frequency based puzzle called Everybody Hertz.

[@mvivian100]

That's I (me) in the corner

[@chitraagarwal8259]

Can i just say a huge Congratulations for you to have persevered through that?! Truly commendable. Usually someone with Simon's IQ who can see at the get go how the puzzle would solve would find resolving the nitty gritties too tiresome to get through and give up. Am a huge fan of using letters (probably coz i find scanning through them much simpler than colors or even digits for that matter) so was relieved when you made the decision to restart the puzzle. There's nothing wrong with your strategy or technique.. just to do with simple scanning - which is actually good coz it gives us something to shout at and not just gape in wonder

[@benmandrews]

The D in row 5, column 4 is proving difficult for Simon to spot

[@Jablicek]

Four of us working on it and done in around an hour. This was great fun, cheers Jay Dyer!

[@black_dragon3378]

I love watching Simon solve these puzzles. It's always interesting to me how, as a viewer, certain things pop out as obvious, but Simon is on an entirely different track and often times both tracks give the same final information, like the 11 killer cage between square 2 and 5 eliminating the c from row 3 column 5 by the adjacency rules.

[@Brekin_Constras]

21:54 for me. Coloring the digits starting with the ones that couldn’t be in the 6-cell cages was fairly straightforward sudoku as long as you could get into the mindset of colors rather than numbers. Once you determine there is a digit in common to the 6 and 14 cages the numbers sorted themselves out easily.

[@Coyotek4]

53:58 ... won't lie, I all but gave up after about 10 minutes, took a break (and later solved the 'Mark' puzzle), came back with a fresh mind, and slowly found my way through (using colors instead of letters), eventually coloring the entire grid and then filling in the digits as Simon did Nice puzzle!

[@inspiringsand123]

Rules: 04:24 Let's Get Cracking: 06:31 Simon's time: 57m30s Puzzle Solved: 1:04:01 What about this video's Top Tier Simarkisms?! Three In the Corner: 2x (1:03:41, 1:03:44) Maverick: 2x (04:56, 04:58) Bobbins: 1x (09:02) Phistomefel: 1x (03:16) Nori Nori: 1x (49:20) And how about this video's Simarkisms?! By Sudoku: 11x (06:16, 09:14, 10:08, 21:13, 26:16, 26:26, 31:44, 39:35, 40:19, 54:44, 1:03:54) Ah: 6x (08:49, 11:15, 22:25, 22:35, 49:15, 55:17) Hang On: 4x (10:48, 26:54, 27:06, 42:54) In Fact: 4x (01:47, 06:12, 38:47, 1:01:08) Pencil Mark/mark: 4x (32:23, 42:07, 53:52, 54:03) Cake!: 4x (02:11, 02:13, 02:30, 55:58) Nonsense: 3x (08:56, 39:43, 48:58) Stuck: 3x (46:19, 46:23, 48:34) Shouting: 3x (01:14, 43:24, 1:04:14) Obviously: 3x (25:51, 34:51, 44:14) Wow: 3x (13:19, 26:32, 35:57) Good Grief: 2x (27:55, 39:54) Sorry: 2x (33:09, 43:20) Naked Single: 2x (52:08, 56:34) Naughty: 2x (18:32, 18:41) Beautiful: 2x (22:52, 27:55) We Can Do Better Than That: 2x (25:06, 39:04) Symmetry: 2x (10:31, 10:34) Useless: 1x (36:13) Apologies: 1x (1:04:38) Recalcitrant: 1x (43:32) Missing Something: 1x (13:24) In the Spotlight: 1x (28:11) Horrible Feeling: 1x (43:20) Brilliant: 1x (00:49) Incredible: 1x (19:05) Going Mad: 1x (27:07) Masterpiece: 1x (03:19) Surely: 1x (54:23) Whoopsie: 1x (27:48) Phone is Buzzing: 1x (31:19) Next Trick: 1x (54:26) Have a Think: 1x (38:32) Most popular number(>9), digit and colour this video: Sixteen (4 mentions) Three, Four (24 mentions) Green (17 mentions) Antithesis Battles: Even (6) - Odd (0) Row (10) - Column (10) 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!

[@congobongoproductions5476]

28:11 is also "C in the corner", a very rare song

[@davidblake6889]

Thank you, Simon and Jay. I did manage to solve it (eventually), but only after watching the break in by Simon. It was a struggle, but worth it.

[@Gonzalo_Garcia_]

14:54 for me. Awesome puzzle!! Really loved this one, the solvepath was fantastic.

[@KrisCadwell]

Will he ever see the simple logic, or will he find a much more complicated way through the puzzle? The suspense is agony!

[@thefishmanisa]

He found the C in box 1 so easy but couldn't use the same logic to find the G in box 9. His brain is amazing!

[@CharlesV148]

I am constantly amazed the ease of wilhich he find these complex relations that made the puzzle impossible for me, and then spends 30 minutes puzzling over some simple piece.

[@markp7262]

39:58 finish. I went the coloring route, starting with the two big cages, and two colors with flashes. Eventually I branched out into the full 9 colors.

[@phillipcarlroberts4640]

Doing this with letters was a smarter move than you give yourself credit for, I understand that it must have been a bit confusing but colours would have posed more of a problem when you had 4 or even 5 options for a cell, also had you used numbers instead of letters you would have had to individually change all of them because you would have had another complete set of those digits already in the grid...great solve.

[@luckass90]

Did a full coloring exercise on this, filling in the letters was straightforward :)

[@Adrian_Grey]

At 28:05, Simon sings "that's C in the corner", completely unaware that that C is in fact, a 3. 😂

[@AndrewHartshorn]

52 minutes for me - I used letters for the 5 outies in the middle box around the two six box cages fully specifying or pencil marking them in all 9 boxes and then used colours for the last 4 squares - that seemed to provide clarity for both the 5 letters and the 4 colour without any one type of identification overwhelming the scanning that was need. Very fun puzzle. Thanks Jay and thanks as always Simon!

[@blakerobinson4198]

I had the toughest time with this puzzle, and decided to watch it for the solve, and the moment Simon started using letters instead of colors, I said, well.... let me try that before giving up, and I was able to solve it! super tough puzzle in my opinion, but really rewarding.

[@jeffreyrosas1784]

at 22:31 you have a DE pair in a cell orthogonally connected to a cage with a D in it. 20 minutes later it's still a DE pair. At 43:23 the horrible feeling you feel about people shouting is the E in r6c3. 47:11 you saw it. Well done.

[@drengskap]

Following Simon's suggestion, I solved this using letters instead of numbers, then did some algebra at the end to work out what the numbers must be - it took a long time, but it worked!

[@yichen6313]

Very nice puzzle! I see Simon used letters -- I had fun with colors. Somehow it feels more fun for me to use colors instead of letters.

[@aarondebard2466]

My time 58:35. Anytime I can solve it within 25% of Simon's time, I feel really good about myself! Another great puzzle! I really love these puzzles where you have to solve them before you can get the values in the cells.

[@SyreenInSapphire]

My first instinct was to color based on digits that were or weren't included in the 6-cell cages, so I decided to make this the first puzzle I attempted on my own. I had to come back when the colors got unwieldy, and was very happy to see that we can use letters. Then I had to come back and get some clues for box 7 from around the 35 minute mark, but other than that I got the whole thing! This was my first non-traditional sudoku. So glad I found your channel a couple weeks ago!

[@titusadduxas]

Try using numbers instead of letters ( ignoring the cafe totals); so much easier to disambiguate. Once filled in swap the numbers for colours and it’s just a few minutes more to finish.

[@SyreenInSapphire]

@@titusadduxas I am a physicist who works with lettered variables a lot, so the letters actually worked really well for me. Got it in an hour and 15 minutes 😃

[@snjyjn]

Beautiful puzzle - I used letters (labelling box 5 with A through I), and then propagating these throughout the grid. I was evenntually left with 7 cells (3 in box1, 2 in box2, and 2 in box3)which were down to 2 options each. At that point, the numbers came in handy, and I was able to solve it! Havent watched the video yet - but from the description I assume that Simon used colors to start with - which I am sure will be incredible to watch!

[@snjyjn]

Now that I have seen the video, I did exactly what Simon did with the letters - except for the last 7 cells. Is there a better way?

[@needhi4560]

I absolutely live for watching you solve these puzzles! Thank you!

[@MadScientist212]

My favorite part of the video, aside from the amazing Sudoku and solve, was the coincidence of Simon putting C in a corner and giving it a little song like he would a 3 while joking about it. Because I then had a little "wait a second" moment as I flipped over to the tab with my completed version of the puzzle to double check and find out the digit was in fact a 3! :D

[@markbennet9058]

I can see someone setting a puzzle for a crossword/Sudoku fiend: fill the grid with nine letters selected from A - Z so that no letter repeats in any row column or box, and such that a snake (to be determined) consists only of English words, reading from head to tail ... plus other constraints and clues - perhaps even crossword clues for the words in the snake. It would take some setting ...

[@longwaytotipperary]

😳

[@codevii9063]

That sounds like utter madness! I love it!!

[@Vanziethel]

33:26! Had a lot of fun with this one, though I'm not sure what took Simon so long... time to watch the video!

[@MichaelGreen831]

@simon 59:55 was when you find the G? You forgot to trust your pencil marks. When you put AGH in r3c1, your pencil marks said G could only go in r1c1 and r2,c1. By your marks, AH were the only possibles for r3c1.

[@Kinada]

Cool puzzle, took me somewhere around two hours. Colored the whole grid before determining digits too.

[@martinCaisse]

Managed to do it with 7 colors (1 and 6 are the ones i didn't color) and without help from the video ! I'm getting good, thanks Simon and Mark

[@AlexanderQ689]

I love your work Simon. I do want to point out that when explaining orthogonal to new people it might be important to distinguish between orthogonally adjacent and orthogonally connected

[@emilywilliams3237]

I'm not sure I understand how the difference would ... make a difference, in a puzzle like this one, for example? Can you explain? (I think I understand the difference in meaning, though for sudoku it is surely very subtle, right?)

[@AlexanderQ689]

@@emilywilliams3237 Orthogonally adjacent is one orthogonal step away (one square North, East, South, or West). Orthogonally connected only applied when you're separating the grid into regions / shading / etc.; orthogonally connected means you can go from one to the other by multiple steps (to orthogonally adjacent cells) while not leaving the region / staying in shaded cells / etc.

[@emilywilliams3237]

@@AlexanderQ689 So, did it make a difference in this puzzle? No snakes, not Yin-yang, etc. I have never been confused by the way Simon or Mark explains the meaning of the word, even in those types of puzzles. (Also, a connection between cells is often given, if it is shown in the puzzle by the constructor and not up to the solver to discover, by a line, so there is no question about which cells are connected.) I will have to listen more closely the next time Simon does a snake-type puzzle to see whether the distinction makes a difference or not.

[@AlexanderQ689]

@@emilywilliams3237 In this video at 5:20, when Simon defines orthogonally adjacent, he says orthogonally connected. It makes no difference in this puzzle because orthogonally adjacent is the relevant one here but it's best not to mix them up for when it does matter

[@kevinmartin7760]

During a long period including 14:00 it seems to me it would be helpful, or at least a bit more descriptive, to assign definite colours to red, green, yellow, and pink in box 5, and make the pairs in boxes 2 and 8 have the ambiguous colours. This would allow assignment of a specific colour to R1C5 and R9C5. Also, when Simon considered colouring R6C7 orange and apparently getting nowhere useful, he forgot that due to the cage orange is not green or red and so only has two cells in box 5. Because of the asymmetry of the 2-cell cages near box 5, it is even more instructive to see where R5C3 and then R4C3 map to in box 5.

[@carljacobs1287]

I followed the same solve path, using colours. I think letters were slightly easier. But gosh, finding those adjacent cells was annoying - I got stuck several times with one staring me in the face.

[@hlynurjensson]

I used both letters (out from box 5, same way as Simon) but also colors to follow logic of the triples (from boxes 2/4 and 6/8) which helped in spotting DE and EF pairs. By the way CTRL+A does not work to select all cells when in letters mode. Instead it makes an "A" center pencil mark.

[@MadScientist212]

Oh, at about the 1 hour 30 second mark, Simon tries to ctrl-a to select the whole grid to get rid of the colors but it doesn't work. Simon, if you're reading this, the same thing happened to me and has on occasion happened before, but I finally figured out why this time. If you have letters currently selected, ctrl-a will not select the entire grid for some reason. I guess it's a bug or quirk of the software. Click to go back to entering numbers and it will work for selecting the grid again.

[@KevFrost]

Simon would be proud of me - an entire solved grid of letters here after 84 minutes. Now for some Sodoku.

[@reganmartin5412]

That 'outro' music.....WOW! Love it! Also....great solve, Simon! That was way too tricky for me to even attempt! Loved watching you do it, though! Nice!

[@rollingwithvirgil1647]

I did nothing but colors until the very end. Worked like a charm on this one. Colored up a storm.

[@yadiracamacho499]

00:38:47 for me. I filled it with letters rather quickly by pencil marking the 3 adjacent cells to the 6-cell cages on each box.

[@AstronomyMark]

50:23 as Simon’s cursor moves in circles around the D in box 7 “but there’s no communication with D down here” (in box 9, missing D in box 7 giving us D in box 8).

[@Bonehead777]

I was hoping Simon would get this one. I got stuck on this and appreciate seeing a solve, even more than normal.

[@jimdavis2683]

Finished in 14:46, and was completely shocked when I went back and looked at the video time. I can occasionally work faster than the video, but never by this margin. I was also surprised to see comments that people thought using letters was easier than using colors. I thought colors worked extremely well, for me at least it makes it much easier to scan rows/columns/boxes for missing colors. In fact I mainly attribute my unusual solve time to (a) using colors and (b) working with the cells outside of the big cages right off the bat, in particular focusing on row5 c2,4,5,6,8 which had to be different. I'm curious if other people had this experience, I saw at least one other person with a fast time.

[@stormpolderrail45mm2]

Same here, using colors and starting with the cells outside the big cages, first time I finished in less time than Simon 31:22

[@mr.mindor]

I used both colors and letters, (each letter had its own color with it) which I think helped me spot where things went faster, but also added some overhead having to switch back and forth in the marking tools to keep things in sync (I've not quite mastered using the keyboard to do so so lots of extra mouse clicks.) I also didn't start adding colors until after I had nearly half the grid marked with letters. Other than that it seems like we had at least a similar initial path. Your time was probably about half of mine. (51 minutes on the clock, but I opened the puzzle right away and then let it run while I watched the announcements, answered some emails and walked away for a bit.) Where I often find letters superior to colors for marking is when you have more than 2 options in a cell or a lot of overlapping dominoes/triominoes as happened in box 3 for me in this puzzle. Colors I almost always find preferable if I'm already working with digits, mixing letter/digit pencil marks usually ends up with too much inconsistency in where the character shows up in the cell that it messes with my ability to track it.

[@bevobexley4087]

I love these kinds of puzzles. They really show off the logical thinking because it all slots together at the end beautifully.

[@shawnmichajluk2044]

What a fun puzzle! Glad you switched to letters! Wish I thought of that.

[@18Wolves77]

Part way through the video, but already excited because there's a possibility for a B, C, D OR G in the corner... I like those odds

[@sillvvasensei]

"Maverick! How I've missed you... not" LOL

[@pardox28]

1:00:25 when you're in the ABC function of the number pad of the software, control-A won't work. You have to switch to the numeric pad in the software to get control-A to work again.

[@siddharth_desai]

Even though it may have been harder to scan, I think letters was the right call here. It's better than using colors because it allows for both center pencil marks and corner pencil marks. Using proxy numbers instead of letters would maybe work as well, but it would get confusing when converting the proxy numbers into real numbers.

[@fluffycritter]

I'd think that using proxy numbers, then converting the proxy numbers to proxy letters, then the proxy letters into real numbers, would probably have worked fairly well for Simon.

[@cyrusmagnus]

Btw, colors were a lot of fun to use when Brown is substituted in for the light grey on the primary color wheel from the secondary. It'd be nice if we could choose our 9 colors rather than having the 3 palettes. (though it's absolutely awesome having all the options and bravo to the coder!)

[@empororllid13]

You can choose colors by clicking and holding

[@titusadduxas]

I had to restart it after making an early error but having done so I managed it in 37:10 which I’m well pleased with. Once again though I ignored the cage totals to start with and substituted numbers for colours (No alphabet on the iPhone) to disambiguate. Gorgeous puzzle.

[@KrisCadwell]

Personally I think choosing letters over colors or numbers in this case was the right choice.

[@rnulfschmer7537]

Maybe both would be ideal?

[@jaeusa160]

I'm actually kind of glad. I just don't have the time to solve these, I'm a slow solver, so I watch when eating a meal usually. My first instinct was to see what could be done with the 3 digits outside of the 6-cages, and give all 9 cells Letters for substitution. Often when I think of things like this, Simon ends up on a completely different solve path and it makes me wonder if my idea would've panned out well. But this time at least I know it did. :D

[@TheFreeBro]

4:18 Rules

[@doublelxp]

I wonder how much more confusing placeholder digits would have been at the end.

[@RoderickEtheria]

Not a bad puzzle. Took me 40:41. My start was to color cells around 6 cell cages, and then color the grid from insights I obtained. I guess it isn't too fair to be angry at Simon for failing to resolve this easier; the way to crack this puzzle requires a fair bit of thinking outside the box, er, cage.

[@emilywilliams3237]

I am a day late in watching this video, and I see that there are a lot of comments! I have skimmed through them and see that the vast majority are kind indeed - thanks, fellow-commenters! I really enjoyed this video and this puzzle. As I often do, I downloaded it before watching (but after seeing the rules explained) to play around with it and see whether I could get some of the logical challenges that the puzzles posed in my mind. I find that I am a better viewer if I have done that first. This puzzle really made me want to use colors to solve, and so I was right at home as Simon started with colors. But I can understand why letters were also a good idea. Simon, I think that the only challenge with the letters is the lack of keyboard facility that you have with them, and the lack of practice scanning. (I once tried to do a classic sudoku using musical notation symbols, which I am very familiar with - but it was tedious and irritating as a sudoku!) I did not laugh at you, I did not shout at the screen. Yes, I did see a couple of tiny things while you were solving, but I had the luxury of looking all around the grid and pausing my thoughts in a certain line of reasoning, while you were moving on to another area and another deduction, so me seeing something has nothing whatsoever to do with your solve. Thank you so much for this video, and for everything that you (and Mark) do to make CtC so amazing.

[@PaulAndHisUkulele]

This is the first time I’ve ever beaten Simon on a solve . . . 47m39s, and yes I’m adding his initial work to his 44m final solve. I did it with colours but it starts by working out the colours of cells NOT in the 6 cell cages, just as he did with CDE. Poor Simon though, getting himself into an almighty muddle for a lot of this puzzle!!!

[@MarushiaDark316]

I love the thumbnail for this video. And yes, I did notice that you might have been using AI to make them.

[@ronjohnson6916]

Great to see you having so much fun.

[@jimi02468]

I would love watching a live solve and people in the chat constantly yelling for Simon to do Sudoku

[@sanabas1]

Now watching the vid, and I think one thing you missed which slowed you down a lot was that @27:00, r3c3 sees both halves of a DE pair, and must be C. You did that, but missed the symmetrical logic, r7c7 sees both halves of the EF pair in box 6, and must be G. edit - and then at @44:00 you almost spot it, but you ask where red might go in box 9, rather than checking c7 and seeing red is forced to be in r8c7.

[@BleachWizz]

24:32 - most people would notice by sometimes receiving the same video with 2 pictures at different times. Also reliably I recognize this by youtube starting to rerecommend 1-3 years old videos...

[@sanabas1]

I used 4 colours at the start, green for the 6 digits in the large top-left cage and blue for the other 3 digits, and coloured a lot of the grid in blue/green, because box 2 & 4 then have 3 blue digits, so the others must be green, r3 also has 3 blue digits, etc. Same for red & yellow using the other 6-cell cage. Then added letters, the one square in box 5 that must be red and blue was A, the other two blues were BC, the other two reds were DE, so now I could pencilmark pairs or triples in all the blue & red cells, and then do sudoku on them. That was enough to place most of those 5 letters (all of D, 7 each of B, C, E and 5 As) and allow me to delete the colours. Then FGHI assigned to box 4 as the cage looked helpful, do more sudoku and I had F in both the 6 & 14 cage, so F = 5 and I'm just about finished.

[@andrewgrant6516]

It had to be E It had to be E I wandered around And finally found The letter for me Cause nobody else fits in this cell With all your faults I think you're swell It had to be E Wonderful E It had to be E.

[@longwaytotipperary]

👏🏻👏🏻

[@markbennet9058]

The letters were worth it for C in the corner ...

[@jayyamaki3869]

For people struggling with remembering the meaning of "orthogonally adjacent", this might help: "orthogonally adjacent" = "not diagonally next to"

[@andersosterholm2538]

Poor R6C3 - ignored for 25 minutes. 😄 Thank you Jay and Simon for the entertainment.

[@ericpraline1302]

Great puzzle, but fairly sure I missed quite a few things as scanning was certainly a challenge. I started with colours, then added a few letters before phasing them out as soon as I could. Edit: oops I am slow sometimes, missed the significance of the 6-cell cages and the 3 neighbours.

[@knexfan0011]

I didn't spot that the AH pairs at the end resolve by the given rules, so I solved it from there using only math based on the given cage-sums and that worked too, very fun puzzle!

[@cathybryant5119]

Ah ha!

[@mute1085]

I loved the idea of this sudoku! Thank you! I just used colouring, it works great here. Although in hindsight, maybe I to should've just used digits and then replaced them at the end. I managed to get this in 22:02, starting with the 3 colours missing from the top left 6-cage which have only one legal way of being placed around the aforementioned cage, then moving on to the colours around the other 6-cage, and after that it was smooth sailing, if requiring quite a bit of meticulous elimination.

[@jRoy7]

14:03 When you said r6c6 was worse, because it could go in r5c4, that's not actually true because r5c4 has to be red or green, and both colors are already in the same cage as r6c6. I've not watched the rest of the video yet, but this feels like bad luck, because noticing red and green are eliminated for both r6c6 and r5c6 means both only go into r4c5 and r4c6, giving another solid 2 color domino in the center. Then by rotation, the same applies and we'd know r4c3 and r5c3 live in r6c4 and r6c5. Meaning the center space is not any of these 8 colors. No idea if this would have helped or not, I don't plan to try and solve it from here, I'm just going to enjoy the video. :)

[@trisha2584]

tried using colours to solve but got stuck trying to get out of the middle area. Pleased that Simon managed this and would love to understand how Jay thought this would be solved.

[@saphirelynn2000]

Heather Traudt that's me! :) Yes, you said it right it is said trout like the fish.

[@emdiar6588]

I just realised that every orthogonal square around each big 6 cell cage had to be made up from just 3 numbers (colours for me... Letters are a last resort as they scan worse than colours). It gives you a much quicker start I think.

[@SirBradiator]

You could have B, C, D, E or G in the corner and it still works for the song.

[@HunterJE]

And the solving software isn't limited to A-G so you could also have P, T, or V (or here in the US, even Z)

[@mrno184]

if you also use the letters P, T, V, and Z and you can always get a song in the corner, although P in the corner could mean something completely different, but not any less funny lol

[@longwaytotipperary]

@@mrno184 😳

[@inwalters]

Due to work schedule it's been a while since I've been able to comment when the puzzle dropped. I wanted to comment to express my disappointment with the December 26 video. Although I'm American I know that is Boxing Day in the UK, which usually involves people switching their usual jobs. After thinking about it I realized what I [and I hope other viewers of the channel] want to see next Boxing Day is Aad van de Wetering, Phistomefel, Shye, Jovial or Jay Dyer solving a puzzle set by Simon. As Captain Picard would say you have 11.5 months to "make it so". 😁