Tuesday, January 10, 2006

Solving Sūdoku

Yesterday, during lunch, I achieved a milestone: I solved a one-star Sūdoku. Evelin's been hooked on the puzzle/game for a while now, but I tend to still prefer traditional crosswords. Whenever she's working on one, I usually suggest trying a 4 somewhere — sometimes that works.

I have tried a few online every now and then, but never seem to get very far with them and get bored. I've also snuck in when Evelin's walked away from the computer and either finished one she's mostly solved or really mess it up (unintentionally, of course).

Anyway, Editor & Publisher has a bit of the history of what it terms the "Sudoku Craze." Most surprising, despite its name, Sūdoku (数独) originated in the U.S.

ADDENDUM: Evelin has asked me to note that she can solve five-star Sūdoku, as well as Samurai Sūdoku, without hints or trouble. And that one-star one I solved yesterday ... she started it and decided it was too easy and went to find a different, more difficult one to work on.

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4 comments:

enjanerd said...

I love sudoku!

Has Evelin tried samurai sudoku? They've started putting them in the Washington Post Sunday comics now.

T. Carter said...

She did the first samurai sudoku they had in the Post two weeks ago and enjoyed it. I think they're interesting, but I haven't been hooked. At Christmas, it seemed Evelin, her father, her sister, her brother in law, her brother, and her brother's girlfriend were all working on a sudoku book at one moment or another ...

Evelin said...

My PRIDE, my PRIDE was at stake!!

enjanerd said...

It *is* about pride! My brother saw me working on a Sudoku months ago and thought it was easy. "You just fill it in with numbers, right?" Now I have him, my sister, and a cousin hooked.