Can You Follow The Traces?
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- čas přidán 18. 06. 2024
- ** TODAY'S PUZZLE **
Arbitrary has acquired a stellar reputation in recent months for exceptionally good sudoku puzzles. Today we tackle Traces which many of you have recommended - and with good reason. This is a fascinating puzzle with original logic and some incredible steps. Enjoy!
Play the puzzle at the link below:
sudokupad.app/qh4zzpbcow
Rules:
Normal sudoku rules apply. Box borders divide blue lines into segments of equal sum. Different lines may have different sums. Digits in small circles must appear in at least one of the surrounding cells.
** NEW SUDOKU HUNT ON PATREON **
We're delighted to share with you a brand new sudoku hunt themed around snake egg puzzles by Glum Hippo. If you've never tried snake egg logic puzzles before, prepare for serious fun - these sudokus are outstanding! Finish by May 20 to enter the competition!
Other treats on Patreon include:
- the Sumgeons & Diagrams sudoku by sunnyjum;
- Simon's latest forays into the world of Islands Of Insight;
- Mark's video looking at the new OneUp puzzle from Rodolfo Kurchan;
- his solve of Region Geometry by Emre Kolotoğlu (3hr 36min long...!);
- and Mark's latest solve of The Times Club Monthly cryptic crossword
/ crackingthecryptic
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▶ Contents Of This Video ◀
0:00 Theme music & puzzle intro
1:19 Braid stream
2:04 Patreon tease
2:29 Happy Birthdays
5:43 Rules
7:43 Start of Solve: Let's Get Cracking
▶ Contact Us ◀
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![This New Sudoku Rule Is [...........]](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/wSPu8nH59iY/mqdefault.jpg)
Like this post if you'd talk to Simon at a party so he believes it.
IDK, he'd have to tolerate me talking about open source game development.
Can we appreciate Simon explaining "the secret" every time it comes up, instead of just assuming we've seen other videos and know? It just makes these videos so much more approachable to someone that just catches a single video, they still get to learn something.
it also makes the video less long because its easy to skip...
I don't like it. Too much repetition.
That and I really like that he breaks down everything even if it seems completely obvious. Someone catching a video for the first time still gets the full experience.
It's annoying that all these "secrets" are explained in the Solve section of the video. They should be in the Rules section, where regular viewers can easily skip them. I've suggested this before but of course had no reply. Simon claims to read comments, but he never bothers to answer them.
@@robert-skibelo But he's using the secret to solve the puzzle. I think it would be a little disjointed if he was like "secret of 45, that's a 9.". That's what makes these videos very approachable for novices, he's explaining the solution step by step and walking you through the logic it takes to get there. That really helps the viewer as you try to solve future puzzles on your own. And if it truly bothers you that much you can always hit the right arrow a couple times or top the right side of your screen a few times to quickly skip ahead 20-30 seconds.
Oh, I’m very glad this puzzle is featured. I enjoyed it immensely, and call also feel smug that I solved it much faster that Simon!
me too!! it was definitely not the 3.5 (for me at least) that arbitrary said it was for v1!!
I should also add that I wrote this comment right upon seeing the puzzle - and before I even noticed that Simon namechecked me in the video. This was a purely coincidental troll on my part :)
@@tallcat hahaha i rate that
Oh, you long tubular cat, you!
@@tallcat congrats on the solve! How do you find these puzzles before the CTC videos come out? Clicking on their website link only goes to the puzzle in the video and going to the websites home directory just has general sudoku information, is there a list to open newly published puzzles etc somewhere?
@tallcat is right. He is living rent-free in Simon’s head 😂
Usually, when it takes Simon more than an hour to solve a puzzle, I find myself unable to even start or otherwise get completely stuck, but I managed to solve this AND even faster than Simon! I never thought this day would come 🎂🎉
Congrats!!
Vyse would be proud.
@@Meowsma Ha! Love that someone understands the reference :)
Thanks for the (slightly early) birthday shout, Simon! And for another fantastic puzzle to solve! 💜
This puzzle is a brilliant masterclass in pointing pairs and x-wings.
i love how at around 51:30 he shows that a 3 in R4C5 or R4C6 puts a 3 in grey, yet because of the 3 quadruple clue, there would be a 3 in grey if there WASN'T a 3 in R4C5 or R4C6. grey is 3/7 either way. i thought for sure that was the deduction he was coming to lol
But it's wrong, right? A 7 in R4C1 still give two options for R23C1
@@driesvanoosten4417 no, 7 in three different digits must be 1,2, and 4
Amazing! I can't believe that I could solve this one!!! It take me 70:27 to do this, but it was worth it. I had a resolution today: I will solve this yes or yes! No looking for hints! And I did it! 🎉🎉🎉
Thanks for the solve Simon! I usually would only watch you, but today I am quite happy about my solve as well! 😀
Finished in 67:57 and just got pipped by Simon. Took me a while to get going with this puzzle as I'm not very good with most line puzzles. I went down the possibilities in box 2 but it turns out the first one I went down was the correct solution, so I couldn't find a contradiction, but as I worked through it, I realized that 1 of the quad circles became very important which allowed me to eliminate the other possibilities and restart the correct possibility and finish it.
Fun puzzle!
Brilliant puzzle. Brilliant solve.
35:42 for me. The logic really was all over the board and I loved it :)
Simon was so close to the logic I noticed at 51:40. We know the circle needs a 3, so its either going to be in the grey domino, or its going below it. If we put 3 in the grey domino then grey becomes 3 and 7. If we don't put a 3 there we put it below, the domino to the right becomes 2 and 8, r4c1 becomes 7, 2 and 4 are set in box 1, the grey domino in box 1 becomes 3 and 7, and grey ends up 3 and 7 anyway. Therefore grey IS ALWAYS 3 and 7.
52:28 Simon asks himself the wrong question: How can R3C1 ever be a 3? That would make the grey pair in box 2 a 28 pair, so the 3 around the 3 circle clue would have to go in R4C5/6, making the pair in R4C7/8 a 28 pair, which knocks the 8 out of R4C1 making it a 7 - which breaks the puzzle because it has a 3 on top of it in R3C1, and 7 in 3 digits can only be 124.
He does see it in 59:20, but I'm impressed with myself for seeing it so clearly and immediately when he didn't for a while. I'm usually very slow with these things.
37:45 A better way of saying this is to ask what color domino R1C3 and R2C3 is.
If it's either yellow or orange then you have four yellow/orange cells marked that can only be from three possible configurations.
Take R2C4 as an example, it sees one yellow and one orange in its box. Itself being one of the two. Then it sees half a yellow and half an orange in R2C7 and R2C8.
If you add them up, 1+1+0.5+0.5 you get 3. That is, R2C4 sees three dominos selectable from four different digits.
IF R2C3 were from orange or yellow, then R2C4 would be seeing more than three dominos that have four different digits and you would HAVE to arrange the digits in such a way that R2C4 only sees three other digits other than itself. Knowledge bomb for you, 3.5 is more than 3. You simply can't make the cells in R1C3 and R2C3 yellow or orange.
And they can't be green, all of green already looks at R2C3.
They are therefore gray. They have a 2 or a 3 in them.
* Hence, R4C1 cannot be a 9 because then gray could have neither a 2 or a 3 in it.
Additionally, R4C1 cannot be a 6 as it too would have a 2 and a 3 in it.
You have proven why the region sum lines cannot BOTH have a 1 on them remember? That's why the 9 sum would have a 2 and a 3 in it.
* EDIT: Oh yeah, you are correct in that ONE of the three cell region sum lines can have a one on them. But not both.
But you've now proven in a different way why R1C4 cannot be a 9, as you would have nowhere to place a 9 in box 7.
---------------
Also, for the very same reason that R2C4 cannot see any more orange/yellow cells in those rows, it cannot see any orange/yellow cells in its column.
If the colors cells at the bottom of the grid added up to ten, they would by design have orange/yellow cells in them. And neither red or purple can be orange/yellow, lest R2C4 would see more orange/yellow than it can.
But blue and green also can't be orange and yellow. Since orange/yellow has a 9 in them.
You have already proven why 9 is not in the colored cells at the bottom of the grid.
Interesting what a huge difference it makes how you put a question. At 51:00, had Simon simply asked if grey is a 3/7 or a 2/8, it would have been immediately clear that it cannot be 2/8 (as it would make r3c1=3, r4c1 =8, r4c7=3, and you could not put a 3 in the square).
34:05 easier way to see it is to ask where does 1 go in box 2
Rules: 05:47
Let's Get Cracking: 07:46
Simon's time: 1h6m18s
Puzzle Solved: 1:14:04
What about this video's Top Tier Simarkisms?!
The Secret: 3x (18:15, 18:26, 18:32)
Bobbins: 2x (44:09, 44:09)
Three In the Corner: 2x (04:20, 1:13:18)
Knowledge Bomb: 1x (25:02)
Maverick: 1x (23:39)
Phistomefel: 1x (04:37)
And how about this video's Simarkisms?!
Ah: 13x (09:00, 12:59, 21:07, 24:12, 33:17, 34:54, 39:01, 39:04, 48:06, 58:33, 1:02:05, 1:05:33, 1:08:19)
Sorry: 12x (06:58, 13:33, 18:02, 22:49, 23:50, 28:19, 40:20, 41:05, 45:18, 46:05, 48:02, 54:24)
Hang On: 10x (22:39, 26:53, 29:17, 46:28, 50:54, 50:54, 55:58, 59:18, 1:01:47, 1:03:02)
Beautiful: 6x (15:34, 15:41, 17:16, 22:58, 1:02:10, 1:07:19)
In Fact: 6x (18:15, 19:27, 21:04, 24:40, 25:04, 1:10:27)
Weird: 6x (23:50, 34:20, 37:38, 39:45, 59:28, 1:00:37)
Brilliant: 5x (02:57, 04:10, 1:14:01, 1:14:01, 1:15:00)
Good Grief: 4x (41:07, 1:02:10, 1:07:22, 1:12:48)
The Answer is: 4x (11:13, 16:36, 26:23, 49:00)
Cake!: 4x (03:02, 03:16, 03:49, 03:56)
Goodness: 3x (31:49, 57:41, 1:14:04)
Deadly Pattern: 3x (44:39, 1:13:48)
By Sudoku: 3x (28:02, 43:45, 43:47)
Bizarre: 3x (37:41, 1:01:18, 1:01:18)
What Does This Mean?: 3x (06:06, 16:15, 45:50)
Pencil Mark/mark: 3x (42:02, 47:11, 1:04:17)
Incredible: 2x (00:41, 1:14:15)
Shouting: 2x (03:56, 49:57)
Obviously: 2x (15:05, 21:46)
Alexa: 2x (1:11:45, 1:11:45)
That's Huge: 2x (34:32, 1:11:28)
Useless: 1x (56:31)
Clever: 1x (17:20)
Recalcitrant: 1x (48:52)
I Have no Clue: 1x (53:52)
Horrible Feeling: 1x (1:00:15)
Ridiculous: 1x (42:00)
Straight Off the Bat: 1x (40:44)
Gorgeous: 1x (16:20)
Take a Bow: 1x (1:15:00)
Think Harder: 1x (52:13)
Box Thingy: 1x (1:08:01)
We Can Do Better Than That: 1x (18:19)
Phone is Buzzing: 1x (1:09:12)
Wow: 1x (32:01)
Baffling: 1x (57:26)
Thingy Thing: 1x (1:08:01)
Most popular number(>9), digit and colour this video:
Ten (31 mentions)
Nine (130 mentions)
Green (17 mentions)
Antithesis Battles:
High (2) - Low (2)
Even (9) - Odd (4)
Column (11) - Row (8)
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!
I finished in 113 minutes. This was a long one, but quite fun. I think my favorite part was realizing that one of two cells, r4c1 and r9c6, had to be a 9. Therefore, r4c6 couldn't be a 9 and had to belong in box 1, making those region sums add to 10. Great Puzzle!
Beautiful puzzle, I saw more than I usually manage to
38:53, took a bit to see how to start (the blue lines in column 1 and row 9 did a lot of work), but it went pretty smooth from there. I kept thinking "pencil marking isn't going to help," but every time I did, I saw doubles and triples that did heavy lifting around the grid.
43:20 for me. Gosh that was tough, but incredibly fun to solve as well. Fantastic puzzle!!
I found this pretty tricky, but there was some lovely logic so I'm happy I persevered.
Simon the other green in box 1 must go in row three. This makes a 2378 in row 3 and cell 9 in box 3 must be a 5.
85:02 for me. I made excellent progress and loved the deductions but got horrifically stuck after placing 10 digits in. The question I needed to ask that broke everything wide open afterward was "what value can r3c1 *actually* have?". You use the 3 quad clue to rule out one of the options, and the rest of the puzzle is pretty straightforward after.
Edit: I watched up to the point where Simon figured out what r3c1 was. I did the logic backwards to his solution. I considered whether the cell could be 3 and found it would put two 8's in row 4 (one because of the sum in col 1 and a 2+8 in box 6 forced by the 3 in the quad).
damn, that was a hard one! really enjoyed it, thank you
i had an easier way to make progress at 21:45 using similar logic as simon, but without having to go as deep in thought. I did it by asking where 1s go in boxes 1 and 2. in box 2 they're on the region sum line on the left, in box 1, they can either be on the left most region line, in r1c3 or off of both lines. if it's in r1c3, then it would have to be in r3c4 and break their region sum line as r2c3 and r2c4 can't be equal. if the 1 was not on a line in box 1, then the left line would have to be 234, then the right line would contain at least a 5+6. this breaks the line as there's a 1 somewhere in box 2's segments. that means the 1 must be on the left most line which narrows the 1 in box 7 to row 9 and makes r9c6 a 9, giving most of the same conclusions as the video but split into bite sized chunks
Thank you. This is the insight I was looking for in the comment section. Unfortunately, I solved like Simon.
33:40 Another way to look at why this version breaks from this point is to ask in this case where 1 goes in box 2-if it goes on the 10-sum line you get two 9s in row 3, and if it goes on the 8 sum line you get two 7s in row 2.
Thank you. This is the insight I was looking for in the comment section. Unfortunately, I solved like Simon.
Solved it with much help from the video.
1:05 for me. But I didn't use the 3-quadruple clue ...
41:16 Seems like the reason for this is that r2c3 sees two green cells and either two orange or two yellow cells, while r1c3 sees two of the other from yellow or orange.
51:42 I think "if 3 is in one of r4c5-6, then gray has a 3" does tell us something, because in conjunction with "if gray has no 3, then there's a 3 in one of r4c5-6" it implies gray can't have 3.
its not often i can see logic faster than simon, but the moment the 9 appears in box 9 we can tell that the other set has to sum to 8
sum to 9 rather, it has an 8 on it with the 1
Brilliant puzzle.
Nice one!
When you were looking at 9 in box 2 you didn’t look quite hard enough at box 7. It would have been less difficult. But still a challenge. Also I love this puzzle and the video!
My starting observation was slightly different. I realized those 8 digits he is talking about had to be all different. Therefore they all add up to 45 minus a digit. The total had to be divisible by 4 because of the 4 segments. So they summed up to 36, 40 or 44 and the "1" clue eliminated the possibility of 44. And that's as far as I got.
51:43 so three is in bottom and top or three is just in top either way 3 is grey and 2 is green
You spent a lot of time on the r1c3 r2c3 domino but as soon as you knew it was 10 you could prove it was grey very easily.
If you had arbitrarily assigned orange and yellow to dominos in box 2, then the one in the top row would be ruled out immediately and you also would have had two of the same colour looking at r2c3.
And the same logic would hold if you swapped the colours.
Blooming marvellous
Really entertaining puzzle. 67:15
Solved in 54:26 but had to guess at least one time.
"Rose, your wife Bee wrote to us"
Ah thank you for the happy birthday! ☺️ 10/10 we had chocolate cake
42:16 Earwax!
Is the 3 clue actually needed to solve this puzzle? Once you get a 7,2 domino in box 5, as long as you've coloured and pencil marked all the 8 dominos accurately, you discover which 10 domino is which in box two. That automatically puts a 3 in the domino directly above the 3 clue.
I could be wrong, but I was getting worried towards the end that I simply couldn't see the purpose of it.
76:10 for me - going so well and then got stuck, spent about 20 minutes trying random digits until I found what worked.
Nice job on the solve! :-)
I watched Simon, and he got stuck at the same place I did, and he also seemed to stumble onto the 23 pair in box 1. I tried putting a 2 in R2C3 and got two 8s in row 4.
I was yelling at the screen for ages that grey had to be a 3 7 pair. Because whether or not the three was below the circle or not grey always had a 3.
Solved it in 16:51 🎉
17:56 After proving that 1 can't be on the line in box 7, Simon just assumes 1 can go on the line in box 2? Order restore at 23:40.
24:54 for me.
63:40 for me
the digits moving isn't new. It's been that way for a while.
54:48 today. i was quite slow.
Not checking immediately what happens when green is 37 has made me very disappointed when I watched Simon's solve...
I’d really love to know what Simon is saying that triggers Alexa 😂
This puzzle is great. You can't fake it.
It must have been tricky to make it.
And my good Arbitrary,
It has made me quite merry,
For I never once managed to break it!
The logic at 59:32 is wrong, right? R4C1 can be 7 if R3C1 is a 3 and R3C2 is a 4.
If r4c1 is a 7 then it has to be a 1+2+4 triple on the line above it, so no 3 in r3c1.
@@RichSmith77 stupid me. I somehow forgot to take the 1 into account. Guess I should be doing sudoko's in the middle of the night...
30:14
This was very challenging but immensely fun.
Does anyone else get slightly disappointed when there's no 3 in the corner? 😂
Another messy solve. Round minute 43 or 44 the pencil marked 1 in r2c1 was wrong from the moment it was entered. And at 44:15 he still doesn't see the 1 in r2c7. Blind as a bat. This is the point where I give up and go and watch something else.
Compare that with the impeccable solves he did three or four years ago. E.g. *The Devil's Most Beautiful Sudoku!* on october 10 2020.
Anyway, his solves are still very interesting, if you jump ahead when he is stuck due to bad scanning or messy notation. Typically, his breakins are brilliant, and often more elegant than mine.
@@Paolo_De_Leva I agree he's good at break-ins. Jumping ahead defeats the purpose of watching, for me at least. I want to try to comprehend the complete solving path that the clever setter intended. If I jumped over all the wrong notation I'd miss half the video. I've seen the older solves and I think you're right that he was more careful back then. Since then it's turned into more of a clown act. I particularly dislike the silly predilection for avoiding doing basic sudoku at every point possible: this is a bad idea because it's not what the setter intended and almost always results in an inferior solve path (as well as setting a bad example to the novice viewers whom he seeks to educate).
@@robert-skibelo I see your point. Anyway, he and Mark select and feature the most beautiful puzzles solved on the internet. Also, they collect the best of them in amazing books.
Moreover, their viewers are great. I can learn from their comments as well.
My first goal is always solving myself before watching. Then I watch only if I can learn more, and in most cases I can learn something.
Most of the times I do not need to see the whole solve. I am typically interested in the crucial, most difficult, logic steps, and in the notation chosen.
@@Paolo_De_Leva Yes, I do agree that this channel features the most beautiful puzzles on the internet. That's why I persevere with it. Nice talking to you.
99 minutes
I am shocked that Simon can't figure out the simple reason that R1C6 can't be a 9. If it was, you have to get value of the other line segment to add to 8 two different ways which is impossible with the values you need to add to 10 in that box. You have to use 2 combinations of 2,8 3,7, and 4,6 in the green and grey squares, but that leaves you with not enough ways to make 8 since if you use the first and second, you only have gotten rid of every possibility 1,7 2, 6 and 3,5: if you use the first and 3rd ones, you have gotten rid of 2,6 and 3,5 and if you use the 2nd and 3rd ones, you gotten rid of 1,7 and 2,6!
If you use the first and third (2+8 & 4+6), then don't you still have 1+7 and 3+5 as two ways to make 8? (You claim we've got rid of 3,5 as a possibility, but I don't think so).
@@RichSmith77 Oh, yes you are right, I forgot that you got rid of 3 because of a second reason, that being that you would be stuck having to put 2 1s or 2 3s in row 2 to complete the 8 line.
Does anyone else find it extremely condescending when Simon mocks us with his "very best friends" speech?
not at all -- I think it's quite endearing!
Never... never. Simon is not the type of person who would mock his subscribers.
No I look forward to it.
Cosmic-class construction. 👏👏👏👏👏👏👏👏
Ruling *9* out of *r1c6* was quite challenging for me, but since the logic was beautiful it was well worth the effort.
Also, my way to perform that deduction was the same as Simon's, but now I know there is a slightly easier way, as described, for instance, by *HunterJE* and *mstmar* in this section.