Category Archives: Puzzle Reviews

Reviews of preselected puzzles from published collections. Summary review table, and highlight analysis.

Sysudoku Basic Subsets in a Sunday 5-Star

Posted on March 29, 2022 by Sudent

In this post, a Dave Green Sunday 5-star illustrates how naked and hidden subsets are spotted in Sysudoku Basic, a 3-stage process to identify candidates, and solve many Sudoku puzzles in the process.    Sysudoku Basic finds clues and subsets … Continue reading →

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Dave’s Octuplet 

Posted on March 22, 2022 by Sudent

In this post, 3-fills leave a near solution in the bypass, with an entirely blank box. Box marking resolves it systematically. Seeing the four 5-fills and box corner candidates, you might suspect that this is a follow up on the … Continue reading →

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Dave Defies the Bypass on a July Saturday

Posted on March 15, 2022 by Sudent

This post encounters a very odd situation. All the givens in your homework Dave Green Saturday 4-star of 7/18/21 are on corner cells of the boxes. No double line exclusion (dublex) or cross hatch clues in the bypass. The past … Continue reading →

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Doing Every 4-Fill

Posted on March 8, 2022 by Sudent

In the Dave Green 5-star of 1/23/22, four 4-fills are available before starting the bypass values list, on r2, r8, c2, and c8. It brings up the possibility that 4-fills can solve this Conceptis puzzle by themselves? We normally put … Continue reading →

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4-Fills Lead off on a  Dave Green Surprise

Posted on March 1, 2022 by Sudent

In this Sunday 5-star of June 13, 2021, two 4-fills are resolved before the bypass value march begins. Follow-up continues in box marking, leaving little line marking to be done.  Coloring is demanded and it responds, with an unexpected discovery. … Continue reading →

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All the Way With Dave

Posted on February 22, 2022 by Sudent

This post goes through Sysudoku Basic with the Dave Green puzzle published in the Akron Beacon Journal on Sunday October 10, 2021. It’s the first in a series of published Conceptis puzzles selected to illustrate basic moves introduced in the … Continue reading →

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UHC 397 Fills the Stocking

Posted on December 21, 2021 by Sudent

After two “simple” ANL, Beeby finds a candidate removal by pattern overlay analysis. On PhilsFolly.com, this is requested under “POMs”.  Then a pattern analysis for The Guide offers many more removals using freeforms.   A finned swordfish gets us to coloring, … Continue reading →

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An AIC Parade by ultrahardcore 397

Posted on December 14, 2021 by Sudent

This post follows basic with a variety of Alternate Inference Chains. It is an opportunity to compare their effects and corresponding Sysudoku labeling. Three bypass clues, naked triple eliminations, and the line slinks marked in cell corners, that’s the  outcome … Continue reading →

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A BARN Storming UHC 353 Finish

Posted on December 7, 2021 by Sudent

This posts finishes left page ultrahardcore 353, using several notable moves to expand a cluster.  Sudokuwiki starts it with a grouped terminal ANL with line and box winks, a regular swordfish expands the cluster, trapping four candidates. Expansion creates an … Continue reading →

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Softening left page ultrahardcore 353

Posted on November 30, 2021 by Sudent

Here is another puzzle the DIY oriented solvers suggest is too hard for human solving, even as the moves they find are too instructive to ignore.  This post gets quickly to ALS methods that demand exhaustive enumeration from the DIY … Continue reading →

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