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Clueless Special Archive - Ruud's Puzzles http://www.rcbroughton.co.uk/sudoku/forum/viewtopic.php?f=14&t=1238 |
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Author: | Andrew [ Thu Jan 30, 2014 3:46 am ] |
Post subject: | Clueless Special Archive - Ruud's Puzzles |
Clueless Special Archive - Ruud's Puzzles This is an archive of Ruud's Clueless Special puzzles and solutions, which were originally posted on sudocue.net from 2006 to 2008. The ratings are those quoted by Ruud when he posted his puzzles. enxio27 also found some Clueless Specials which Ruud had posted on other sites. These and other puzzles are listed at Ruud's Specialty Puzzles. Links to these puzzles are included in the final part of the table. The archive entries for these puzzles include original puzzle diagrams and code strings. Solutions can be obtained by copying the code strings into a software solver such as SudokuSolver and clicking on Solve. For those who aren’t familiar with Clueless Specials, the nine blue boxes form an extra Sudoku grid. This form of Sudoku is called Clueless because the blue boxes don’t include any numbers (clues). There are diagrams for each puzzle and solution. Alternatively, if you are using a software solver, there are code strings. If you are using SudokuSolver first select File, Puzzle Type -> Extended; then in the Puzzle Type drop down menu below the right-hand diagram select Clueless Special. Now Select the Code String and Copy and Paste into SudokuSolver. Other software solvers will have similar procedures. Edit. I've now found that there's a simpler way using SudokuSolver. Select File, Import, Clueless, copy and paste the code string into the new window that opens and click OK. There is also a Clueless Special guide which gives hints about how to get started; this guide includes a Clueless Special Starter puzzle. I hope that this archive of Ruud's puzzles, and the puzzles posted in this forum by Børge, enxio27, Tarek and udosuk, will encourage people who haven't tried Clueless Special sudokus to try them. enxio27's second puzzle was posted as another ideal starter puzzle. Tarek's Clueless Implosion puzzle is an interesting looking variant on the Clueless Special theme and also claims not to be too difficult. udosuk posted two Clueleast puzzles which only have two given numbers (clues) in each puzzle but have extra conditions which make them solvable, these will be hard puzzles. Puzzle rating table, with links to archive entries. At Ed's suggestion, I've added SudokuSolver(v3.6) scores to the table. A score of 0.85 indicates that SS solved these puzzles using hidden singles and box/line intersections, scores of 0.95 and 1.00 are when SS used hidden singles, hidden pairs and box/line intersections, higher scores indicate the use of harder techniques. +----------------------+------------+-------+ +----------------------+------------+-------+ +----------------------+------------+-------+ +----------------------+------------+-------+ +----------------------+------------+-------+ +----------------------+------------+-------+ +----------------------+------------+-------+ +----------------------+------------+-------+ +----------------------+------------+-------+ +----------------------+------------+-------+ +----------------------+------------+-------+ +-----------------------------------+-------+ Roll of Honour Ruud wrote: For each correct Clueless Special, you earn 1 point. For a submission within the first 24 hours, you earn an extra point. To enable new players to catch up with the regulars, only the last 26 Clueless Specials will included in the score. On Ruud's website, players with 52 points were shown with a gold medal, those with 51 points a silver medal and a bronze medal for those with 50 points. +----+-------+--------------------------+-------------+-------+ +-------------+-------+---------+---------+ There was also a list for each of the last 26 puzzles of the order in which correct solutions were submitted. There were between 26 and 40 correct solutions submitted for each of these puzzles. |
Author: | Andrew [ Thu Jan 30, 2014 4:10 am ] |
Post subject: | Re: Clueless Special Archive - Ruud's Puzzles |
Ruud’s Clueless Special Guide As a special service for people new to the Clueless Special, here is an introduction to this format. This page contains an easy Clueless Special, which you can solve with singles only. A Clueless Special has 9 constituent Sudokus. You can try to solve these puzzles on their own, but you won’t get very far. At some point, you need to pass results from one puzzle to the next. Here’s where the blue cells come into play. Together, the central 3x3 boxes of all 9 Sudokus form a 10th sudoku. The name of this format is derived from the fact that you will not find any initial clues in this 10th puzzle. It is completely clueless. Start with the clues you receive from the 9 sudokus. Even if you prefer to solve regular Sudokus without pencilmarks, the sheer size of a Clueless will not allow you to remember all eliminations. You can maintain the pencilmarks for the central sudoku in a separate grid. Take the first sudoku in the starter, for example. On it’s own, you can only solve 17 cells, none of them in the center box. To achieve this, you need several locked candidates, naked pairs, a hidden quad and an X-wing. Brilliant if you manage to find them, but not effective. A better strategy is to work out the pencilmarks for the central blue 3x3 box. This is the second puzzle (top row, center) solved with basic techniques as far as it goes. There may be more eliminations when you go all the way and use any advanced technique at your disposal, but as I said, that is not the way to solve a Clueless Special. Notice that you now have some useful data in the blue box. Pencilmarks are worked out and you even have a placement of a digit 8. Repeat this for each of the 9 puzzles, then start adding things together by looking at the 10th puzzle that is made up of the 9 blue boxes. These are the pencilmarks for the 3 top blue boxes: Because a 3x3 box in a constituent puzzle is also a 3x3 box in the 10th puzzle, there is no need to look for hidden singles in these boxes again. Concentrate on the rows and columns in the central puzzle. There is a hidden single for digit 1 in the 3rd row. When you cannot find any singles, you may need the boxes to find locked candidates in the central puzzle. Eliminations done in the central puzzle can also be fed back to the constituent puzzles to reveal singles and other goodies. Make sure that you correctly pass the results between the central puzzle and the 9 constituent puzzles. An error is easily made and hard to detect, until you get stuck hours later. You may have to move back and forth between the 10 puzzles a few times, before you have solved them all. Clueless Special Starter puzzle Code: Select, Copy & Paste into solver, set for puzzle type Clueless Special: Solution: |
Author: | Andrew [ Thu Jan 30, 2014 4:29 am ] |
Post subject: | Re: Clueless Special Archive - Ruud's Puzzles |
Clueless Special 1 15th February 2006 Easy Puzzle Diagram: Code: Select, Copy & Paste into solver, set for puzzle type Clueless Special: Solution: |
Author: | Andrew [ Thu Jan 30, 2014 4:36 am ] |
Post subject: | Re: Clueless Special Archive - Ruud's Puzzles |
Clueless Special 2 7th March 2006 Very Hard Puzzle Diagram: Code: Select, Copy & Paste into solver, set for puzzle type Clueless Special: Solution: |
Author: | Andrew [ Thu Jan 30, 2014 4:41 am ] |
Post subject: | Re: Clueless Special Archive - Ruud's Puzzles |
Clueless Special 3 13th March 2006 Moderate Puzzle Diagram: Code: Select, Copy & Paste into solver, set for puzzle type Clueless Special: Solution: |
Author: | Andrew [ Thu Jan 30, 2014 4:44 am ] |
Post subject: | Re: Clueless Special Archive - Ruud's Puzzles |
Clueless Special 4 21st March 2006 Moderate Puzzle Diagram: Code: Select, Copy & Paste into solver, set for puzzle type Clueless Special: Solution: |
Author: | Andrew [ Thu Jan 30, 2014 4:47 am ] |
Post subject: | Re: Clueless Special Archive - Ruud's Puzzles |
Clueless Special 5 6th April 2006 Hard Puzzle Diagram: Code: Select, Copy & Paste into solver, set for puzzle type Clueless Special: Solution: |
Author: | Andrew [ Thu Jan 30, 2014 4:49 am ] |
Post subject: | Re: Clueless Special Archive - Ruud's Puzzles |
Clueless Special 6 16th April 2006 Tough Puzzle Diagram: Code: Select, Copy & Paste into solver, set for puzzle type Clueless Special: Solution: |
Author: | Andrew [ Thu Jan 30, 2014 4:52 am ] |
Post subject: | Re: Clueless Special Archive - Ruud's Puzzles |
Clueless Special 7 23rd April 2006 Hard Puzzle Diagram: Code: Select, Copy & Paste into solver, set for puzzle type Clueless Special: Solution: |
Author: | Andrew [ Thu Jan 30, 2014 4:54 am ] |
Post subject: | Re: Clueless Special Archive - Ruud's Puzzles |
Clueless Special 8 1st May 2006 Moderate Puzzle Diagram: Code: Select, Copy & Paste into solver, set for puzzle type Clueless Special: Solution: |
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