On first glance, today's killer looks quite difficult. I've been staring at it for a while and been unable to make any inroads, apart from the 3 cell 6 cage being 123. I'll keep tyringband will hopefully find a way to get to grips with it.

I'm not looking for any hints (quite the opposite - please don't post any), but I'd like to know what others think of it. I'd also love to know how it has a rating of only 7.7!

I presume this a typo and should be at least 107.7, if not higher.

This puzzle is really an odd one out. The rating number is based on the number of possible number combinations
for rows and columns, and on the number of "paths" the solver has to search, _after_ a lot of "standard" solving
techniques are applied (e.g. plain elimination, innies/outies, etc.).

For this puzzle, there is a relatively large number of standard solving steps, leaving almost no "paths" to search.
(the steps are also rated, easy/medium/difficult, this puzzle has not many easy steps, mostly medium steps,
and 9 difficult steps).

I should change the way the visible rating is computed, at least for the Killer Sudoku puzzles..

Patrick

Thanks Patrick. Not sure I fully understand your explanation, but there's clearly something about the scoring system that causes unusual rankings for killer sudoku puzzles if today's puzzle is only valued at 7.7.

It took me a long time to get a hook into today's puzzle, but once I did, everything fell into place fairly easily, so I guess it wasn't quite as difficult as I thought it was going to be.

I did it three times, and the first two came with the same result.
So I went through a different path - where I kept getting stuck, and that one worked out.

I felt good when I got it.

For me, the key was realising that the cell in column G in the 6 cage plus the cells in Column G in the 29 cage had to equal 13. This gave 157 as the only possible combination leaving 23 and 89 in Column F. Everything kind of fell into place after that.

I too tried it a number of times and got nowhere near the right numbers for the right cells and finally gave up

Paul,
I was on the same track.
But bad logic messed with me twice but not a third time.

Beaker,
Yesterdays Difficult KS was easier for me than todays's. I just want easy puzzles next week. I only ask for a one week reprieve.

How true, ECLIPSEGIRL......the name says it all as we are not too far from the day of a total solar eclipse in many parts of the world......alas, my part of the world is not one of them ly

PS: a KS like the one today would help if it were to be found at the end of the week!!!

THIS IS VERY OFF TOPIC:

Beaker,
You have to make plans to travel to these events. These can occur in a difficult to get to place, which makes the challenge / chase that more rewarding. We just signed up for Chile 2019 with one tour group. I was sure with that this many millions of people seeing the event for the first time, tour groups for 2019 might be overwhelmed with requests / reservations just after this years event.

In the US, there are predictions of cell phone / internet failure due to too many people is a small region overwhelming the system. Of the people in our group, all have accepted the maps, except my 25 yr old. She laughed at me when I tried to hand her maps. "No one uses paper maps anymore.'' For their sake, I hope they are right.

Where I am, there's going to be a partial (60%?) eclipse. I've been trying to convince my parents to go south, but to no avail