![]() Strengths: It starts with the basics and clearly explains all the techniques you'll ever need, including some that are very advanced. If you're looking to improve your Sudoku technique and are confused by the many books on the market, this is the one to get. However, it is too difficult for beginners and is incomplete for people looking for the latest advanced strategies. I awarded the book 3 stars since I did learn something from the book, and I appreciate the effort that went into it. However, from that time forward, the book has apparently never been updated. Now that I have completed my research and written my own Sudoku book, which is available in the Kindle store, I can appreciate the prowess of the author in developing these strategies, and believe that the Mensa Guide to Solving Sudoku was probably the best book written about Sudoku strategy.in 2006. I was not interested in the puzzles, and I would have preferred a longer discussion of strategy with multiple examples to help clarify the patterns and logic. The section of the book that describes strategy is 86 pages (and 17 of these pages are dedicated to practice problems), and the rest of the book is puzzles and solutions to puzzles. To describe Sudoku logic, it is essential to discuss specific cells on the board this book uses a two digit row-column identifier (for example row 2 column 5 is 25), but the boards are not labeled and it is tedious to have to count rows and columns to find the position on the board being discussed. ![]() ![]() Also, the diagrams are a bit difficult to follow. I found it necessary to continue my learning process with other resources.Īfter obtaining other books and resources, I discovered that the Mensa Guide was quite out of date since many new strategies have been developed since it was first published.įor the beginner, I think this book starts too fast and does not provide sufficient examples. While I found the book useful, I did not find it easy to understand. Not being a Mensa, perhaps I should have been more careful in my selection process. When I was learning the logic of Sudoku, the Mensa Guide to Solving Sudoku was the first book I bought. Who is to say there is not some deeper logical deduction that would solve these Sudokus, which remains undiscovered? Meanwhile, using bifurcation, I can continue to complete my daily diabolical and then get on with more important things. This, frankly, is not so different from "forcing chains", yet the author dismisses bifurcation as "guessing" and arrogantly claims Sudokus that will not submit to his collection of logic techniques should not be allowed. This is not a process of pure guesswork, it is informed trial-and-error - "easy" logic reduces the puzzle to a few possibilities, and then we test one of those possibilities until it either leads to a solution or a contradiction. Without that ability, how does the merely-human complete a puzzle? Bifurcation will find a solution in deterministic time rather than spending an unknown amount of time staring at a grid for the trick that will solve it. ![]() Perhaps nobody has come up with one and the ability to find them is what separates the highly intelligent from the super-intelligent. There remains a gap in the market for developing a method to aid a NI (natural intelligence, as opposed to a computer) in spotting the more esoteric patterns necessary for cracking the harder puzzles. That said, it is as good as any other Sudoku guide I have come across. There are many pages devoted to providing a supply of puzzles (which can easily be had from any daily newspaper) but some of those pages could have been better used for diagrams to illustrate the logic of solving. In my opinion this book misses a trick: mostly, the diagrams do not highlight cells of interest in the discussion so leave the reader to search for them at the same time as following the discussion - perhaps the author can do that with ease, but I can't and it makes for a hard study. I was looking forward to some tips about the practicalities of solving tougher Sudokus - my own logic techniques are very similar to those explained in this (and other) books, but I fall down on being able to spot the patterns amongst the clutter. I am already adept at Sudoku solving, and a Mensa member.
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