solve

 sudoku

Sudoku is a logical puzzle game, originally created in puzzle books and then made available in countless newspapers worldwide. Many people are put off by seeing a grid with numbers in it. Unlike many card and bingo games that are based on luck, a game of Sudoku should be solvable by entirely logical deduction.
Why bother solving a Sudoku puzzle with a software program?
What brain power does it take to do that? Writing the program - yes. But just for a solution - no.
The whole point of a puzzle is to challenge the mind and gain the satisfaction from the final solution.
That's the main reason puzzle games, like sudoku, are becoming more popular in the media.
Even most of today's handheld and mobile phone deals come packaged with a good selection of puzzle-based games. This just goes to show that there's a yearning for challenging games like this, making automated puzzle solvers a complete waste of time.

There are three tutorials here;

1.   a very simple puzzle to start with,
2.   one for a puzzle in The Daily Telegraph and
3.   one for a puzzle in The Times.

First, a very simple, animated tutorial of my own composition to explain the basics of sudoku.

Second, a 24 page tutorial charts the progress to a solution of a Sudoku puzzle from the Daily Telegraph rated as having a moderate level of difficulty.
At each step there is a brief description of my reasoning.
My thanks and recognition to the late Michael Mepham of The Daily Telegraph who set this puzzle on the 23rd. March 2005. This puzzle requires a guess at one point just to spice things up!

The third tutorial takes seven pages to work through a 'fiendish' rated puzzle from The Times
published on the 1st. April 2005. My thanks and recognition to The Times and Wayne Gould.

I readily admit that there may be more elegant solutions to these examples. This is just the way I did it.

Extra tips for solving Sudoku -
Tip1 ... 3 in a bed.    Tip2 ... a right pair.  Tip3 ... the third column   Tip4 ... two pairs

And now for the real test - a free 16x16 grid SuperSudoku puzzle for you to solve; and a second 16x16
and yet a third 16x16 SuperSudoku puzzle .