Puzzle No. 501 & 502 – Killer Sudoku & Extra Region Sudoku [Daily League]

Now that I’ve posted my 500th puzzle, I am sharing the Sudoku I contributed to the Daily League last Saturday, along with the Sudoku I’m contributing for it today. I didn’t post the Killer last week on my blog because I wanted the space saved for the special puzzle.

Remember that you can solve the puzzles from the League online on the Sudokucup Guest League page with a 24h delay.

Common Rules – Follow regular Sudoku rules.

For Killer – The number in the top-left corner of a dotted cage is equal to the sum of this cage’s digits. No digit can repeat within a cage.

For Extra Regions – Each group of nine grey cells must also contain the digits 1 to 9.

Enjoy!

P501 – Killer Sudoku

P502 – Extra Region Sudoku

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Some solving steps for Puzzle 499, a bit about LMI, and some other stuff

I am attaching a mini-walkthrough PDF for the Arrow Sudoku I posted for the league recently. Its a bit rushed, and only takes the solve through the more difficult deductions, but should be really helpful if you were stuck on that Arrow Sudoku or didn’t attempt it but want to know more about the variant in general. Here’s the PDF –

P499

Now, a bit of a plug. Want more walkthroughs? We do much more detailed ones for LMI patrons. Also, I should say that, at least currently, supporting LMI would mean you are supporting my personal goals too (which is why I don’t have any such effort for this blog).

Also, I might have to disappoint any fans of milestone puzzles by saying that I currently don’t have anything planned. But you never know right? Maybe I think of something worthwhile in the next few days. If I don’t, then come Saturday I’ll just post a League Sudoku as my 500th and that’ll be that.

Soon I’ll be shifting residence, so I’m generally a bit more busy since I want to finish a bunch of things before I probably lose internet access for a week or two.

Puzzle No. 499 – Arrow Sudoku [Daily League]

This puzzle has a nice application of group-thinking… I think. The solving path is also pretty narrow. Not something I’d advise for beginners.

Remember that you can solve the puzzles from the League online on the Sudokucup Guest League page with a 24h delay.

Rules – Follow regular Sudoku rules. Additionally, the number in a circle is the sum of the digits which are covered by its arrow. For circles with multiple arrows, apply the rule for each arrow separately.

Rated – Hard.

Enjoy!

P499

Announcement: Indian Puzzle Championship 2014 on May 25th

The Indian Puzzle Championship will be held on Logic Masters India this Sunday at 14:00 IST. I won last year’s edition, and went on to be the highest ranked Indian at the WPC, which gives me a wildcard into this year’s Indian team. Therefore, I decided to step back into organizing, and have collaborated with some fine International authors to prepare what I think is a really fun Puzzle set for the Competition.

So I’d encourage all Indians reading this post to participate in this Championship. Please note that for Indians, it is a limited time-slot to participate, as only submissions before 16:45 IST will be considered for official scoring. The top 3 from this competition will be invited to join me in the Indian Puzzle team for the World Championships this year, and the winner of the competition will be the Indian Puzzle Champion for the year 2014. You can check the relevant discussion thread for practice links and other information.

The competition will be open after official time, for International competitors to enjoy the puzzles.

All the best to everyone participating!

Puzzle No. 495 : Arrow Sudoku [Daily League]

Update: Puzzle had 2 solutions. Fixed now. Apologies.

Just about got in a Wednesday post.

Remember that you can solve the puzzles from the League online on the Sudokucup Guest League page with a 24h delay.

Rules – Follow regular Sudoku rules. Additionally, the number in a circle is the sum of the digits which are covered by its arrow. For circles with multiple arrows, apply the rule for each arrow separately, where some arrows can have some cells in common. (e.g., 1-2-3 and 1-2-1-2 are valid sums for a 6 in a circle, with the starting 1-2 being common).

Enjoy!

P495

Puzzle No. 491 : Killer Sudoku [Daily League]

Remember that you can solve the puzzles from the League online on the Sudokucup Guest League page with a 24h delay (though I’m not certain whether this is too late to be put up today).

I’m sorry dearest readers, I think I’ll have to skip an explanation of why I’m inactive on my blog right now for later. There’s just too many plans right now, that all seem to end around May, and if it all goes as planned, you’ll see at least some of the reasons why I’ve been too busy to post here.

Anyway, here’s a Killer Sudoku that was used for the Polish Sudoku Championship qualifiers. These qualifiers were open to International solvers online, so I think many solvers would have seen this already. I still think it’s nice enough to put it up for those of you who haven’t.

Rules – Follow Classic Sudoku rules.
Additionally, the value on the top-left corner of a dotted cage is equal to the sum of the digits in the cage. No digit can repeat within a cage.Enjoy!

P491

Puzzle No. 483 – Arrow Sudoku [Daily League] + updates

A few things –

If you haven’t already, please like/tweet/comment for my blog here (if you like my puzzles of course). The blogging awards will be handed out in a public ceremony on the 9th of February (you can find out from the link how to attend if you want to) and some publicity for what we do is always a good thing.

The blog will now be divided into 3 main tags.

1 – Daily League – Medium to difficult mostly-variant Sudokus.

2 – Ex-Contest – Although I won’t be releasing everything I contribute to Championships free anymore (more on that later), I’ll release some of the smaller doses, like when it’s not enough puzzles to make up an entire set.

3. Instructive – I am working on a curriculum for puzzles, and as a result, I feel the need to put some easy puzzles and some preview of tips and so on, without giving the entire content away of course.

I will be linking to this post in the future for reference about the tags. Hopefully I’ll post 2 and 3 tomorrow and day after itself to give a full view of the plan going forward, but can’t be sure of that as I have travel coming up. Definitely within the week.

Now to to the Daily League.

First, PDFs!

The League of Extraordinary Ladies and Gentleman_week01_2014

The League of Extraordinary Ladies and Gentleman_week02_2014

The League of Extraordinary Ladies and Gentleman_week03_2014

Remember that you can solve the puzzles from the League online on the Sudokucup Guest League page with a 24h delay.

Rules – Follow regular Sudoku rules. Additionally, the number in a circle is the sum of the digits which are covered by its arrow. For circles with multiple arrows, apply the rule for each arrow separately.

Enjoy!

P483

Puzzle No. 471 : Weighted Frame Sudoku [Daily League]

First, PDF!

The League of Extraordinary Ladies and Gentleman_week47

Remember that you can solve the puzzles from the League online on the Sudokucup Guest League page with a 24h delay.

This puzzle’s really tough, I think. The Weighted rules do play in nicely for the break-in.

Rules – Follow regular Sudoku rules. Additionally, a clue outside gives the sum of the first 3 numbers in that direction. Also, the numbers in shaded cells will count for double their values for any sum they are part of.

Rated – Hard.

Enjoy!

P471

Puzzle No. 456 : Sudoku +/-4 [Daily League]

More of the practice puzzles I wrote for Team India. This variation was in the WPC and IS pretty puzzly, but I’m pressed for time and this solved the purpose of a Sudoku post.

Remember that you can solve the puzzles from the League online on the Sudokucup Guest League page with a 24h delay. However, I spoke to Karel and chances are this one might not be interface friendly. Do check in tomorrow if you want to though, just in case.

Rules – 

Enter whole numbers between -4 and +4, inclusive, into the grid so that each row, column and region contains all possible numbers exactly once. Clues outside the grid indicate the sum of all numbers that appear between the clue and the cell containing zero in that row/column. Some cells already contain a number. However, the signs for these clues are not indicated, it is part of the puzzle to determine whether they are positive or negative values.

Rated – Hard.

Enjoy!

P456

Puzzle No. 450 : Product Sudoku [Daily League]

Update – Oops. Looks like I forgot to add the variation rules!

Remember that you can solve the puzzles from the League online on the Sudokucup Guest League page with a 24h delay.

Rules for Sudoku. In each gray square of four cells, the two bottom cells make up a two-digit number which is the product of the two digits in the upper cells.

Rated – Easy.

Enjoy!

P450