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Theme: Butterfly — a very elegant 22-given pattern

Author/Opus: This is the 78th puzzle from our contributing puzzlemaster Grant Fikes.

Rules: Standard Sudoku rules.

Answer String: Enter the two main diagonals, starting with the 9 digits in the upper-left corner to the lower-right corner, followed by a comma, followed by the 9 digits in the lower-left corner to the upper-right corner.

Time Standards (highlight to view): Grandmaster = 1:45, Master = 2:30, Expert = 5:00

Solution: PDF

Note: Follow this link for other classic Sudoku. If you are new to this puzzle type, here are our easiest Sudoku to get started on. More classic Sudoku puzzles can be found in The Art of Sudoku, The Art of Sudoku 2 and in our beginner-friendly collection Intro to GMPuzzles by Serkan Yürekli.

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Theme: Virginia is for Sudoku Lovers (Note: This puzzle was the final puzzle for this year’s Arlington Puzzle Festival. Congratulations to Erik Agard, Carolyn Offutt, and Jim Spaulding for their 1st/2nd/3rd performance in the tournament.)

Rules: Standard Sudoku rules.

Answer String: Enter the 1st row from left to right, followed by a comma, followed by the 9th row from left to right.

Time Standards (highlight to view): Grandmaster = 2:15, Master = 3:30, Expert = 7:00

Solution: PDF

Note: Follow this link for other classic Sudoku. If you are new to this puzzle type, here are our easiest Sudoku to get started on. More classic Sudoku puzzles can be found in The Art of Sudoku, The Art of Sudoku 2 and in our beginner-friendly collection Intro to GMPuzzles by Serkan Yürekli.

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or solve online (using our beta test of Penpa-Edit tools)

Theme: High and Low (Note: This puzzle was one of the qualifying round puzzles from this year’s Arlington Puzzle Festival)

Rules: Standard Sudoku rules.

Answer String: Enter the 2nd column from top to bottom, followed by a comma, followed by the 6th column from top to bottom.

Time Standards (highlight to view): Grandmaster = 2:15, Master = 3:15, Expert = 6:30

Solution: PDF

Note: Follow this link for other classic Sudoku. If you are new to this puzzle type, here are our easiest Sudoku to get started on. More classic Sudoku puzzles can be found in The Art of Sudoku, The Art of Sudoku 2 and in our beginner-friendly collection Intro to GMPuzzles by Serkan Yürekli.

PDF

or solve online (using our beta test of Penpa-Edit tools)

Theme: Four-leaf Clover (Note: This puzzle was one of the qualifying round puzzles from this year’s Arlington Puzzle Festival)

Rules: Standard Sudoku rules.

Answer String: Enter the 1st row from left to right, followed by a comma, followed by the 9th row from left to right.

Time Standards (highlight to view): Grandmaster = 3:00, Master = 5:15, Expert = 10:30

Solution: PDF

Note: Follow this link for other classic Sudoku. If you are new to this puzzle type, here are our easiest Sudoku to get started on. More classic Sudoku puzzles can be found in The Art of Sudoku, The Art of Sudoku 2 and in our beginner-friendly collection Intro to GMPuzzles by Serkan Yürekli.

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or solve online (using our beta test of Penpa-Edit tools)

Theme: Logical (Note: This puzzle was one of the qualifying round puzzles from this year’s Arlington Puzzle Festival)

Rules: Standard Sudoku rules.

Answer String: Enter the 4th row from left to right, followed by a comma, followed by the 6th row from left to right.

Time Standards (highlight to view): Grandmaster = 2:00, Master = 2:45, Expert = 5:30

Solution: PDF

Note: Follow this link for other classic Sudoku. If you are new to this puzzle type, here are our easiest Sudoku to get started on. More classic Sudoku puzzles can be found in The Art of Sudoku, The Art of Sudoku 2 and in our beginner-friendly collection Intro to GMPuzzles by Serkan Yürekli.

PDF

or solve online (using our beta test of Penpa-Edit tools)

Theme: Two Rings

Rules: Standard Sudoku rules.

Answer String: Enter the 5th row from left to right, followed by a comma, followed by the 5th column from top to bottom.

Time Standards (highlight to view): Grandmaster = 1:30, Master = 2:15, Expert = 4:30

Solution: PDF

Note: Follow this link for other classic Sudoku. If you are new to this puzzle type, here are our easiest Sudoku to get started on. More classic Sudoku puzzles can be found in The Art of Sudoku, The Art of Sudoku 2 and in our beginner-friendly collection Intro to GMPuzzles by Serkan Yürekli.

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or solve online (using our beta test of Penpa-Edit tools)

Theme: Even/Odd Clover

Rules: Standard Sudoku rules.

Answer String: Enter the 1st row from left to right, followed by a comma, followed by the 9th column from top to bottom.

Time Standards (highlight to view): Grandmaster = 3:00, Master = 4:45, Expert = 9:30

Solution: PDF

Note: This puzzle is probably harder than a typical Monday, but was the style we always had in mind for 9/9, which the World Puzzle Federation recently set as “International Sudoku Day”. Happy solving! Follow this link for other classic Sudoku. If you are new to this puzzle type, here are our easiest Sudoku to get started on. More classic Sudoku puzzles can be found in The Art of Sudoku, The Art of Sudoku 2 and in our beginner-friendly collection Intro to GMPuzzles by Serkan Yürekli.

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or solve online (using our beta test of Penpa-Edit tools)

Theme: A Series of Falls — all 5 digits runs from 1-5 to 5-9 appear. (This puzzle also appeared on the recent Indian Sudoku Championship.)

Rules: Standard Sudoku rules.

Answer String: Enter the 4th column from top to bottom, followed by a comma, followed by the 8th column from top to bottom.

Time Standards (highlight to view): Grandmaster = 1:40, Master = 2:20, Expert = 4:40

Solution: PDF

Note: Follow this link for other classic Sudoku. If you are new to this puzzle type, here are our easiest Sudoku to get started on. More classic Sudoku puzzles can be found in The Art of Sudoku, The Art of Sudoku 2 and in our beginner-friendly collection Intro to GMPuzzles by Serkan Yürekli.

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or solve online (using our beta test of Penpa-Edit tools)

Theme: Two by Three by Four

Rules: Standard Sudoku rules.

Answer String: Enter the 1st column from top to bottom, followed by a comma, followed by the 9th column from top to bottom.

Time Standards (highlight to view): Grandmaster = 3:15, Master = 4:30, Expert = 9:00

Solution: PDF

Note: Follow this link for other classic Sudoku. If you are new to this puzzle type, here are our easiest Sudoku to get started on. More classic Sudoku puzzles can be found in The Art of Sudoku, The Art of Sudoku 2 and in our beginner-friendly collection Intro to GMPuzzles by Serkan Yürekli.

The Sudoku Grand Prix (GP) has certainly now shown a variety of test styles after the creative but unorthodox Turkish test this past weekend. I’m still not sure exactly what the GP is trying to be, and I have no idea what the “playoff” in Beijing will look like (does anyone know anything about the rules or puzzle designers?), but the list of 10 competitors to qualify is getting much clearer now. Quite incredible to have a different winner for each event so far.

Our test, like some others in the GP such as the UK test, had a pretty clear goal to have a lot of elegantly constructed sudoku in pretty simple styles to test basic sudoku skills. All our puzzles had fair, logical solution paths, and we expected many solvers would finish. And as I still think of this as a US Sudoku Qualifier first, and a GP contest piece second, I was glad we got two of the qualifying Americans to submit all of the answers even if one had a mistake. While this is now quite belated, congrats to Jason Zuffranieri for his US victory and to Bastien Vial-Jaime for the overall victory.

Here is the second pair of classic sudoku that appeared on that contest.

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or solve online (using our beta test of Penpa-Edit tools)

Themes: Both geometric and logical

Rules: Standard Sudoku rules.

Answer String: For the USSQT, the answer strings were a set of rows/columns encountered late in the puzzle. For this week, you can just hit the solved button on an honor system if you think you’ve solved it.

Design Notes (highlight to view): The third classic sudoku (and first here) was built around an even versus odd theme and recognizing this unusual partitioning of the digits will be key to making fast progress. A bunch of singles (either naked or hidden) can be found based on parity around the middle sections which finally breaks through to the final solution. The fourth classic sudoku (and second here) was constructed to have an early and pretty clear single sticking point aspect to it. The geometry suggests something should be present in the almost full rows or columns. If solvers focus on those most constrained positions in the first column, they will find a naked pair [89] that gets the whole solve going. While none of these classic puzzles required extremely difficult techniques, keeping the solving paths somewhat tight at the very start makes them good competition challenges in my mind.

Solutions: PDF and PDF