Sudoku
 

What is this thing? It's come from out of (apparently) nowhere, and has taken the world by storm. What makes it so fascinating that there are dozens of websites devoted to daily puzzles and solving it? Handhelds (that pretty much require you write the puzzle down on paper and then solve and reenter numbers into the game) are selling like hotcakes. What's the big deal here?

I've tried a few, they're sometimes frustrating, but the word I apply most to them is "tedious".

I like doing them.

But I can't help you on why. Brain exercise, I guess...

I can usually do one of these in about 40 minutes.

I'm addicted, and I've already passed it on to my daughter. (She get the daily sudoku for kids via email.)

What can I say? It's no better or no worse than crosswords as far as puzzle compulsions go.

I've tried to solve them. It makes my brain hurt too much.

Doing an "easy" or "for kids" helps your self esteem.

Don't be stupid enough to start with a "very hard" or "expert."

I speak from experience.

Oh, and buy a big eraser.

Like a crossword puzzle but not as fun.

I believe I've mentioned Millsberry, the General Mills-sponsored web site with lots of cute little games that everybody else in my family but me seems to enjoy. (I seem to be stuck playing online poker, though I just started dabbling in Second Life a little bit.) (I have also suggested what types of business establishments move into Millsberry that would attract my custom . . . .you can just imagine, I'm sure.)

Anyways, the lovely, talented, and ever-so-slightly warped Mrs. Dallas reports that the Lucky Charms Sudoku has come to Millsberry, featuring Lucky Charms marshmallows instead of numbers. :lame:


Oh, forgot to mention...

If you go to the Daily Sudoku for Kids, they have plenty that are 4x4 or 6x6 instead of the standard 9x9.

I have just discovered Soduku, and for me, its a wonderful exercise in getting my spatial pathways working again. My neropsychologist says my verbal skills have remained as intact as they are in part because of my habit of playing Scrabble against my computer. I have the assignment of doing 3 Soduku every day. It takes me 28 minutes to solve an easy one! :3_eyes: I'm going to keep doing my homework, though. It would be cool if this actually helped me recontruct some new synapses to replace the ones that got clobbered!

yeah, some become more tedious than others -- when there are numerous 'paired' choices -- and you have to systematically eliminate the choices. I'd like to see a brain scan of someone working a puzzle vs. reading, or watching tv etc. Is it a left or right brain thing to work these?

I think its probably a combination, although I believe the right brain may be more responsible for spatial organization skills. I was always a left brain type, but I now have what is sometimes called a diffuse brain injury or a mild traumatic brain injury. My verbal skills are good enough but shapes and numbers have become my nemesis. I do the 9 cube puzzles which drive me crazy because you, in effect, have to remember shapes to solve them - the shapes of the numbers. If there was a word in each square, I imagine I would do better. Its really true that if you don't use it you'll lose it. When I got really sick at the end, I didn't have the energy to leave my house. I spent a lot of time just playing scrabble on my computer, but I didn't venture out to new places or sit around staring at geometric shapes.

My neurologist is actually testing a group of his patients to see if soduku puzzles played 3 times a day help patients such as myself show improvement in spatial tasks. Since I scored a whopping one percent in spatial recall on my neuropsych eval, I'm open to anything. It can't hurt, anyhow! ;)

Someone I work with enjoys Sudoku. Overstock.com sells a half dozen different models of the handhelds for $20.

don't know what the deal is with it.. I've read the instructions, but I think I just need to sit down and watch someone play to have it make sense, although my poor brain hates math, although it does like puzzles.

There's no math involved. Knowing the numbers one to nine is all that's needed, and you just need to understand that they are discrete symbols. You don't really need to know the order they go in, even.

Go to The Daily Sudoku and grab one of their easy puzzles.

Grab a sharp pencil with a decent amount of eraser left, and take a look at a guide to solving. wikipedia has a fairly decent one. I use the "marking up" method.

There are also some online versions that aren't too bad, with varying difficulty levels and various mark-up strategies.

I like this one, but I wish you could put six marks into a box.

it would also be interesting to see if some people work them faster if instead of 1 to 9 it's A to I -- or maybe dingbats.

I've seen puzzles like those, but haven't tried them. You'd have to choose the dingbats carefully because most of them are too hard to draw.

A - I would be OK. Dingbats or colors would slow it down considerably, for me at least. The difference is when I look at a group (either a row, a column, or a 3x3 sub-square), how long does it take to determine which of the nine numerals is missing? Not long at all ("OK, I still need 3, 4, 5, and 8 in that column"). Probably the same with letters. But with colors or symbols, I expect I would never get the "missing" ones as fast as I get the numbers. Of course that wouldn't make the deductive process of solving it harder, it would just take longer to go through everything. The Sudoku game I have on my phone has a timer and I usually finish in 5 to 15 minutes depending on how hard they are.

Of course people would work the puzzles faster if they weren't dingbats. But most people are.

:D

How about A to Y?

*meltsdown*:sniff:

I would like to try the Times of London's Samurai, but my laser printer at work refuses to figure out how to do the tiling to print it.

Trouble is it all starts to get out of hand - already we have a world champion - and take a look at some of the puzzles she solved ! (adobe download)

My lady gave me a Sudoku book that I worked on when I flew to California in November. I liked it a lot...unfortunately, I haven't looked at the book since.

Well this site is not dingbats and not numbers, but is pretty cool. The biggest puzzle is only a 6X6 grid. I find it pretty easy but I have been doing these sudoku puzzles a lot(I have a lot of spare time at work).

http://www.jigsawdoku.com/


T

My mom gave me a Sudoku book for Christmas. I was hooked for the first day. Then she stole it, and I haven't seen it since, therefore ending my addiction.

But, to answer the question of the first post: Honestly, I have no idea. It might be the sense of accomplishment when you finish one. It might also be the fact that it makes you (or at least me) feel smarter when I finish one faster than the one I did before it.