One-Man Band for a One-Year Anniversary!

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Normal sudoku rules apply. Box borders divide a line into segments with the same sum. White Dots separate values that are consecutive (not all dots are given). Every row, column and 3x3 box has exactly one hot cell (with a value equal to its digit plus one), and exactly one cold cell (with a value equal to its digit minus one). Every digit 1-9 is in exactly one hot cell and exactly one cold cell.
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▶Credits◀
Music: Tim McCaskey (Guitar) or Lucy Audrin (Piano): Mozart's Sonata no 16; and Mark’s outro music by Riffclown.
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▶ABOUT US◀
Hi! We're Simon Anthony and Mark Goodliffe, two of the UK's most enthusiastic puzzle solvers. We have both represented the UK at the World Sudoku Championships and the World Puzzle Championships. We're also "cryptic crossword" aficionados. Mark is the twelve-time winner of The Times crossword championship and twice Senior World Champion in Sudoku, and Simon is the former record holder for most consecutive correct solutions to The Listener crossword. We hope we can help your puzzle solving while also introducing you to some of the world's best puzzles.
Thank you for watching!
Simon and Mark
▶ Contents ◀
0:00 Theme Music & News around the channel
4:28 Rules of today’s puzzle
6:00 Start Of Solve - Let's Get Cracking!

[@brennan985]

Excited for another feature! That's exactly where the name came from; i was imagining Dick van Dyke with all the contraptions, legs kicking and all.

[@MMN-pt8il]

I'd like to solve sudokus involving this constraint, but your puzzles are too hard.

[@MattYDdraig]

44:59 Simply brilliant. I love the puzzles with the variable cell values (hot/cold/doublers, etc) and this was a particularly fine example.

[@meamemg]

Took 2.5 hours, and needed to use the answer checker a few times along the way, but got it done without using the video! One of the longest solves I’ve managed to work through.

[@srwapo]

@16:35, "Yeah, this isn't bad." *looks at the hour left in the video length*

[@minamagdy4126]

Spoiler (to the puzzle. I haven't watched the whole video yet): I'm sure Mark's agonizingly long solve comes purely from how often he missed the 5 in column 6, and its implications on the rest of the solve. EDIT: of course I comment that less than a minute before watching Mark find what I mentioned.

[@srwapo]

@1:05:31, could have gotten that a LONG time ago. You had the 8 in Box 1 marked as a possible cold digit. The only other ones that were possible are the 12345 in Row 1 of Box 1, but you already have 12345 as cold digits from, like, the start of the puzzle. So, the 8 is cold. In box 4, that rules out r4r5c2 from being able to be cold. r4c1 is a 2 or 3, which, again, can't be cold. Thus, the 6 is the only available option.

[@minamagdy4126]

@@srwapo How about 6? After thinking, you are right if you include that the cold digit in box 2 has to be 6.

[@srwapo]

​@@minamagdy4126Ah, good point. The 6 can also be the cold number. But that's still in column 2 of box 1, which puts the cold number in column 1 of box 4 and it still can't be the 23 in r4c1, but which still makes it the 6 in r5c1.

[@angec9908]

I think this is the first time I yelled at Mark. Trying to get him to see the 5 in box 5 to resolve the line below it 😂

[@MegaEriadorIII]

I was coming to post this myself.

[@jdyerjdyer]

Also, there were several points where he would struggle that I had used the fact that the 1-5 cold digits were already isolated to their particular regions to quickly rule out cells from being cold and either eliminating possible values from those cells, or identifying the cold cell in a column/row/box more easily. All that said, he is still twice as fast as I was when you factor in all my restarts. At least each time I restarted, I was able to get to a central point much quicker because I was seeing what was flawed logic and what was infallible logic in my solve. Still hurt my head on this one. lol

[@richardfarrer5616]

This flowed pretty well at the beginning. Shaping up for a comfortable sub-hour time. Then I decided to make the 6 the red cell in box 1, even though I knew it wasn't, and reached a contradiction. Spent nearly half an hour rewinding almost to the beginning. Eventually 1:22.

[@chocolateboy300]

I finished in 87 minutes. This one was really fun to do in my head, trying to calculate both the hot and cold numbers simultaneously. Interestingly, the cold digits represented the low digits in the beginning while the hot digits represented the high digits. How thematic! Great Puzzle!

[@RichSmith77]

I think I did the last half of this puzzle three times, each time finding a slightly better logical path (less bifurcatory). I think the key steps, for my 'better’ final solve, involved asking where the high digit was in r7. It couldn't be one of the high digits in the top of box 9, as we knew which boxes the hot 56789 already appeared in. So there had to be a hot 6 in r7c4. Then it was asking which boxes the cold 8 and cold 9 go in. For various reasons, I could rule out both from going in box 9. Which left cold 9 going in box 3 and cold 8 going in box 1. However, feeling happy with my solve, I then watched Mark's solve and realised I'd completely ignored the possibility of a cold 9 + hot 1 to make 10 in box 3! I'd only seen cold 9 + regular 2 as an option. So I had to pause the video and solve the ending for a fourth time. 😂

[@emilywilliams3237]

I really loved this video, you had my attention from start to end. I marvel at how you can keep things in your head, Mark. You are brilliant, and also fun, and funny (especially when you laugh at yourself).

[@futurefox128]

Normally not a huge fan of doublers or modifyers like these, but this time this hot n cold stuff was more enjoyable than I thought. :)

[@anaayoung9142]

Nice one, after I did a lot of things I was a bit lost, your help at row 9, about the quadruple, helped me, do I could finish the puzzle! I am very happy to be able to finish this one, a Mark puzzle that have more than 1 hour!! 🎉🎉

[@ericpraline1302]

I like these modifier puzzles and usually get on pretty well with them, and this was no exception. Thanks.

[@boskidialer]

1:04:25, r2c2 there was "6" placed that is not hot. There was still no cold 6 found, what was the reason to color it green? "8" in r3c2 was not yet decided to be cold for sure.

[@rubbish8522]

You are right. But it can be disproved easily. If r2c2 was a cold 6, then the cold digit in box 4 would be forced to be 2,3 or 6, all of which where already used.

[@Petrus74-yj4kv]

Hot 6 was waiting for half an hour to be finally placed...

[@RichSmith77]

Yes! I was willing him to ask what the hot digit in row 7 could be. He knew the boxes the hot 56789 digits appeared in, and they weren't box 9, so there was no hot digit in row 7 in box 9.

[@thumper8684]

I beat Mark! Solved in 61:14. Just to be fair, I always talk to myself when I am solving a puzzle.

[@biaberg3448]

Well done Mark! You are incredibly smart, that’s the truth, just realize it! 😊

[@awilliams1701]

OMG!!! Sudoku is your friend mark!!! AHHHH!!!!

[@Paolo_De_Leva]

Beautiful. Modifiers are always interesting.

[@Rach881101]

53:59 for me. Nice puzzle!

[@Gonzalo_Garcia_]

21:09 for me. Fantastic puzzle!!

[@frankjiang1857]

Finished in 47:51. I think I'm starting to get the hang of the hot/cold squares and how to approach it. I still made a couple of bad assumptions early on, but this time I caught them early and was able to proceed fairly smoothly in the solve of this sudoku. Fun puzzle!

[@RecreationalCynic]

112:12 for me. I usually struggle with hot-cold cells because there are two colors to manage and they work independently of each other, but I figured out a system that works for me: give every cell red and blue to indicate where the hot and cold cells *could* be, then remove the red and blue from rows, columns, and boxes when definite hot and cold cells are located. Cells with both red and blue have the possibility of being either hot or cold, and are otherwise undetermined. Cells with no color are normal cells with no thermal modulation applied to them. If multiple cells in a row, column, or box are red or blue, those cells are the only cells in that grouping that could be hot or cold, which you can do sudoku on. For clarity I use two shades of red and blue: light red and blue for possible locations (pencilmarks), and dark red and blue for definite hot and cold cells.

[@ewenfraser883]

In box 5 I resolved the 7 first and then the 6 and 5 , unlike Mark, so clearly I wasn’t the only person “screaming at him” about the hot 6 in box 8

[@przemekmajewski1]

Superb puzzle which I also managed to solve within 1 mark, which makes me very happy

[@piarittersporn]

Wonderful and very exciting puzzle.

[@jinkela7295]

The cold cell in col 1 can only be placed in r5c1, so 6 can be placed in r9c7 and then r9c7 is a genuine cell, which places 6 in r7c4 (and it's a hot cell), and when the 4 in col 7 is placed, r12c7 can't be 45 pair anymore, so 5 in col 7 is placed in r7c7, which means the white dot is not necessary to make the puzzle's solution unique.

[@LednacekZ]

38:53 today. happy to have solved it at all. i struggled a lot.

[@ewenfraser883]

I wonder if Mark watched this back and screamed at himself 🤣

[@TheClawNinja]

Wondering why David Gilmour is on the thumbnail...Gonna watch the video now.

[@Roblilley999]

59:34 for me, not too bad, enjoyed this

[@H0lyMoley]

One hundred and eighty three looooong minutes. Man, I persevered with this one despite not being at all good at these puzzles yet... This has to at least be a 4 difficulty, right?

[@jdyerjdyer]

This one hurt my head and I had to start over around five times, but I solved it in the end without any cheating. Just had to be very careful not to make false assumptions. Also had to not eliminate digits that you normally could eliminate without the hot/cold rule, which was what really kept biting me and forcing my restarts. Final run, even with taking it very slow and careful I reached one point where I thought I had made a mistake, but luckily there was still a way to make the math on a particular line work out. Even after all that, I wound up with a 12 x-wing that I thought, that doesn't work, but then I remembered that I already had a hot cell in one of the columns resolving the final bit. Fun, but I need an aspirin, now. lol

[@inspiringsand123]

Rules: 04:39 Let's Get Cracking: 06:00 What about this video's Top Tier Simarkisms?! Three In the Corner: 2x (1:11:32) The Secret: 1x (12:40) And how about this video's Simarkisms?! Ah: 10x (09:25, 11:38, 31:11, 37:07, 37:23, 46:17, 50:50, 58:43, 1:04:41, 1:10:04) In Fact: 9x (10:36, 13:35, 19:50, 44:02, 57:46, 1:04:45, 1:07:58, 1:09:33, 1:09:40) Hang On: 8x (16:57, 32:08, 1:00:12, 1:03:34, 1:03:34, 1:03:34, 1:03:34, 1:06:36) Brilliant: 7x (01:38, 02:08, 03:06, 04:29, 30:42, 35:29, 1:11:52) Pencil Mark/mark: 7x (23:21, 25:43, 25:59, 29:33, 31:38, 35:29, 1:00:04) By Sudoku: 6x (11:25, 15:16, 15:26, 30:03, 34:13, 40:43) Sorry: 4x (09:02, 12:11, 23:41, 1:00:04) Bother: 4x (29:42, 37:41, 38:28, 1:04:45) Snake: 4x (02:35, 02:39, 02:47, 02:54) Wow: 4x (47:14, 1:03:46, 1:05:46, 1:08:33) Weird: 4x (11:25, 11:58, 21:48, 43:12) Deadly Pattern: 3x (1:05:49, 1:06:02, 1:06:44) Astonishing: 2x (12:09, 12:11) Obviously: 2x (05:39, 06:50) Progress: 2x (16:21, 33:53) Useless: 1x (1:01:03) Goodness: 1x (00:16) Clever: 1x (1:11:43) In the Spotlight: 1x (1:11:38) Stuck: 1x (38:28) Fascinating: 1x (00:20) Extraordinary: 1x (02:52) Shouting: 1x (01:36) Irritating: 1x (38:23) Proliferation: 1x (02:04) I've Got It!: 1x (29:33) Intriguing: 1x (58:28) Most popular number(>9), digit and colour this video: Ten (31 mentions) One (163 mentions) White (12 mentions) Antithesis Battles: Low (11) - High (7) Even (13) - Odd (5) Lower (3) - Higher (1) White (12) - Black (0) Row (29) - Column (19) 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!

[@theredstoneengineer6934]

40:23 for me

[@MMN-pt8il]

Bobbins, this was hard to me. I usually try to solve sudokus before I watch these videos, so that I don't have to yell Mark and Simon where to put some digits. But I have to admit that I'm not better than them at solving puzzles.

[@phuybrechts6875]

White dot in box 9 never could be hot or could after a while

[@vulkandrache1928]

I am malding because of the five.

[@thebitterfig9903]

The 5 remaining in the pencil marks in column 6 box 8 for so long caused at least a little yelling at the screen.

[@jinkela7295]

20:33 and they don't use 5 either by sudoku

[@jinkela7295]

also 21:40 the hot cell in column 3 has been placed...

[@ewenfraser883]

So much screaming at Mark about not making use of his discoveries ( how many times did he say hot 5 is in box 6 but not marking it in the only row possible?) how many times did he say all the cold 12345 are located before making the cells in C3 and R9 box9 green? Different brains

[@helpeytb]

Do you want to play my sudoku game?