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I found today’s Killer extremely challenging for a “medium” puzzle. I finally solved it, but I think I probably spend an hour or more on it.
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As I started it, I was a bit concerned but as I plugged along I saw something that popped it open for me.
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I had paulv66's experience. It took me 55 minutes and more guessing than usual.
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My opinion:
There are plenty of medium KSs I have struggled with.
With this particular puzzle, I completed a great deal of the bottom third and was stuck. I didnt relish the idea of filling in all the pencil marks.
As I did, I realized 9 could only be in a certain place. I think it was in column D
That is what I mean as "popped."
If I didnt see that, I would have been doing T & E. Once I saw that, the puzzle played out nicely.
There are plenty of medium KSs I have struggled with.
With this particular puzzle, I completed a great deal of the bottom third and was stuck. I didnt relish the idea of filling in all the pencil marks.
As I did, I realized 9 could only be in a certain place. I think it was in column D
That is what I mean as "popped."
If I didnt see that, I would have been doing T & E. Once I saw that, the puzzle played out nicely.
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I also struggle with medium KS puzzles from time to time. Difficult puzzles are meant to be challenging and can take me quite a while to solve. I find that I can solve the great majority of non KS medium puzzles in a few minutes and even the ones can cause me some difficulty never take more than 10 or 15 minutes to solve.eclipsegirl wrote:There are plenty of medium KSs I have struggled with.
I’m somewhat obsessive about solving all the daily puzzles, although I will sometimes use the extra day or two allowed for the 12x12s and for Tuesday’s 9x9 and Friday’s KS. So far this year, I have only missed out on two puzzles. One was a difficult KS that I really struggled to get to grips with. The other was a medium KS that I worked on close to the deadline and eventually solved a few seconds after midnight CET, before the new daily puzzles had loaded, but received no points for.
![[cursing]](./images/smilies/msp_cursing.gif "Cursing"){kind=small}
Maybe it’s just the way I’m approaching these puzzles?
![[confused]](./images/smilies/msp_confused.gif "Confused"){kind=small}
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Should the difficulty of the medium Killer Sudoku be lowered a bit?
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I don’t know how you program difficulty levels, but I find there can be a lot of variation. Today’s medium KS was about at the difficulty level I would expect. It’s just the occasional medium that strays into difficult territory.pnm wrote:Should the difficulty of the medium Killer Sudoku be lowered a bit?