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Puzzle Corner

I’ll end up giving up at this rate. Saturday’s - again I got stuck. Second one-haven’t looked yet. Bogged down on a Kenken from Tuesday...
Give me Gogen, Sudoku or Train Tracks - I can usually do them!
 
Today's Wordle challenge (for those who don't usually play Wordle on-line).

A letter in grey is not in the target word. A letter in yellow is in the target word, but not in that position. A letter in green is in the target word and in the correct place. Five green squares means the word has been solved.

I've shown my guesses from which I deduced the solution, your challenge is to also deduce the solution from the given information (there could be more than one answer fitting the data, although there is only one correct solution in Wordle).

1650873060543.png
 
Oh dear! Even with the spoilers I had trouble with the Saturday puzzle. After the easy three 5s, then next move was not obvious to me even with the hint. Back to (lots of) trial(s) and (many) error(s). Eventually did it. The most recent "easy" one. Phooey! Not easy for me, but simpler than the Saturday one.
 
EEPhil said:
Oh dear! Even with the spoilers I had trouble with the Saturday puzzle.
Click to expand...
prpr seems to be better at them than me, I sometimes have to stare at it for quite a long time before I spot an "obvious" (in hindsight) chain of logic... even something as simple as "only one in that row can have a 5 in it".

EEPhil said:
Back to (lots of) trial(s) and (many) error(s).
Click to expand...
Yes, I've had to do that in the past but trial-and-error has now been supplanted by chains of logic, for which I use "notes" in the form of dots. To illustrate:–

Setting a convention for the position of a note annotation:​
4B665A23-8B5E-48B0-9267-7806C1329CA2.jpeg​
...the actual numbers can be replaced by dots in the equivalent locations:​
9122ECCD-B539-4062-8E53-167CE37EEAAA.jpeg​
...and crossed if later proved to be impossible. So the following represents a box where 2,4,5 were originally thought possible, but 2,5 became discounted therefore the box must contain 4:​
A7731FCA-03C5-457D-A97D-F7CFADBC741A.jpeg​
(I'm not saying this is the way to do it, just the way I happen to do it.)

Where does this get us? Well, I might not have needed these notes at one time, when my mind's eye visual memory was better, but they now act as a replacement for my mind's eye so I can make deductions. For example:–

Suppose the existing numbers and "greater than" signs produces the following notes for a row (or a column):
1650962762099.png
Boxes 1 and 3 eliminate 2 and 5 from box 2, boxes 4 and 5 eliminate 3 and 4:
1650962970929.jpeg
...so box 2 must contain "1".

Apologies if that's teaching grandmothers to suck eggs. Even with the notes, it can take me a while to spot eliminations.
 
Great minds etc. I've started loading your images of the puzzles into a drawing program on the computer and using dots in the same manner as you do.
Then, after writing in the obvious answers, I change pen colour and see what I can do... The "undo" button gets lots of use!
 
Black Hole said:
prpr seems to be better at them than me,
Click to expand...
I don't know about that. I'd guess we're fairly similar in applying the rules to solve.
I've never had to resort to trial and error, although one or two of the ones up-thread did require a mental "if this then that eventually leads to impossible" type of process.
trial-and-error has now been supplanted by chains of logic, for which I use "notes" in the form of dots
Click to expand...
If doing it on paper (and it's not that easy), then I just write the numbers in (in small at the top of the cell) that it could be and then start eliminating, scrubbing them out as I go.
Alternatively for the ones you post on here, I do them in a spreadsheet where I just write all the possibilities directly in the cell, which is obviously easily edited.
Same process for Sudoko.
I find it much easier to use the numbers directly than your system of dots which seems to need another layer of brain processing to map positions to numbers.
 
Black Hole said:
It's just what I've adapted from Sudoku. I find using actual numbers takes up too much space in each cell.
Click to expand...
When I started using the drawing program, freehand writing is was difficult and only suitable for the final numbers. Dots are just a click of the mouse.
prpr said:
one or two of the ones up-thread did require a mental "if this then that eventually leads to impossible" type of process.
Click to expand...
... but I write it down - trial and error. :D
 
Last edited:
Last Saturday: :dance:. Did it, no guessing.
Today, going to have to resort to downloading your image and guessing. Damn it!
 
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