Examples of jammed and locked Sudoku puzzles using SP Notation to illustrate the step-by-step solution. Examples were taken from Toronto Star. Puzzle sets were generated by playing around with Java.
Friday, 10 October 2014
Locked twice
Friday's Sudoku puzzle from Toronto Star gets locked twice. Here is the original puzzle on 10 October 2014 by Pappocom:
After only 7 steps it gets locked like this:
The key to this first lock lies in the first row. The last 2 cells (columns H and I) have only 3 and 8 as candidates. Thus, 3 and 8 can be eliminated from the rest of row 1, particularly in cell A1. This leaves A1 with a lone candidate, 1. Also, only one location remains to place 8 in column A, on A6.
HI1: 38 N
A1<>8 R
A1=1 N
A6=8 C
With two more steps, the puzzle is locked again.
D5=8 BC
B6=5 N
The key to the second lock lies in the 4th row. The last 3 cells (columns G, H and I) have only 1, 2 and 8 as candidates. Thus, 1, 2 and 8 can be eliminated from the rest of the block (and the rest of the row too). In particular, 1 and 2 are eliminated from cell G6, thus leaving 7 as the only candidate.
GHI4:128 N
G6<>12 B
G6=7 N
D6=2 R
F1=2 BC
H2=7 B
H7=9 C
E9=9 BC
... to the end.
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