Nonconsecutive Sudoku by Murat Can Tonta

(This is a bonus “second” puzzle that is not connected to the usual Monday-Saturday week difficulty.)

Nonconsecutive Sudoku by Murat Can Tonta

PDF

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

Author/Opus: This is the 213th puzzle from our contributing puzzlemaster Murat Can Tonta.

Rules: Standard Consecutive Sudoku rules. Since there are no bars in this grid, this should be considered a Nonconsecutive Sudoku.

Difficulty: 3 stars

Time Standards (highlight to view): Grandmaster = 3:00, Master = 6:30, Expert = 13:00

Solution: PDF; a solution video is also available here.

Note: Follow this link for other Consecutive Sudoku. If you are new to this puzzle type, here are our easiest Consecutive Sudoku to get started on.

Best of 2018: Sudoku Puzzles

Here are our best Sudoku puzzles of 2018, selected from the 42 web posts in this category:

Visually distinctive puzzles were an important part of the top Sudoku from 2018. While posted in our last week of 2018, this Christmas Tree Sudoku by Thomas Snyder (that combines Sudoku with the popular Star Battle style) got a lot of FAVE votes in a rather short time.

Star Battle Sudoku by Thomas Snyder

While we have been avoiding “Pi” puzzles for a long time here — some of us assert there is a more fundamental mathematical constant around 6.283 — having some new editors involved on the web led to our first full week of “Pi” puzzles in March and some others later in the year. Two Pi sudoku stood out including this Consecutive Sudoku from guest contributor Fatih Kamer Anda.

Consecutive Sudoku by Fatih Kamer Anda

Another prize goes out to an Arrow Sudoku from Murat Can Tonta.

Arrow Sudoku by Murat Can Tonta

The best sudoku of 2018 goes to another Pi-themed puzzle, a Thermo-Sudoku by Serkan Yürekli with an incredibly elegant arrangement of its givens that still leads to a fundamentally interesting logical solve.

Thermo-Sudoku by Serkan Yürekli

Consecutive Sudoku by Fatih Kamer Anda

Consecutive Sudoku by Fatih Kamer Anda

PDF

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

Theme: Pi

Author/Opus: This is the 1st puzzle from guest contributor Fatih Kamer Anda.

Rules: Standard Consecutive Sudoku rules. Insert a number from 1 to 9 into each cell so that no number repeats in any row, column, or bold region). Some bars are in the grid; any two adjacent digits separated by a bar must be consecutive (i.e., differ by 1). All adjacent digits not separated by a bar cannot be consecutive.

Answer String: Enter the 6th row from left to right, followed by a comma, followed by the 9th column from top to bottom.

Time Standards (highlight to view): Grandmaster = 4:30, Master = 10:00, Expert = 20:00

Solution: PDF

Note: Follow this link for other Consecutive Sudoku. If you are new to this puzzle type, here are our easiest Consecutive Sudoku to get started on.

Nonconsecutive Sudoku by Thomas Snyder

Non-consecutive Sudoku by Thomas Snyder

PDF

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

Theme: Even/Odd Diagonals

Author/Opus: This is the 228th puzzle from Thomas Snyder, aka Dr. Sudoku.

Rules: Standard Consecutive Sudoku rules. Since there are no bars in this grid, this should be considered a Nonconsecutive Sudoku.

Answer String: Enter the 5th row from left to right, followed by a comma, followed by the 9th row from left to right.

Time Standards (highlight to view): Grandmaster = 4:45, Master = 8:00, Expert = 16:00

Solution: PDF

Note: Follow this link for other Consecutive Sudoku. If you are new to this puzzle type, here are our easiest Consecutive Sudoku to get started on.

Consecutive Sudoku by Craig Kasper

Consecutive Sudoku by Craig Kasper

PDF

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

Theme: Fortress

Author/Opus: This is the 4th puzzle from guest contributor Craig Kasper, who has recently started a new blog about puzzles.

Rules: Standard Consecutive Sudoku rules.

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

Time Standards (highlight to view): Grandmaster = 3:15, Master = 4:45, Expert = 9:30

Solution: PDF

Note: Follow this link for other Consecutive Sudoku. If you are new to this puzzle type, here are our easiest Consecutive Sudoku to get started on.

Nonconsecutive Sudoku by Thomas Snyder

Non-consecutive Sudoku by Thomas Snyder

PDF

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

Theme: Primarily logic, with today’s date hidden as well.

Author/Opus: This is the 157th puzzle from Thomas Snyder, aka Dr. Sudoku.

Rules: Standard Consecutive Sudoku rules. Since there are no bars in this grid, this should be considered a Non-Consecutive Sudoku.

Answer String: Enter the 3rd row from left to right, followed by a comma, followed by the 7th row from left to right.

Time Standards (highlight to view): Grandmaster = 4:15, Master = 5:45, Expert = 11:30

Solution: PDF

Note: Follow this link for other Consecutive Sudoku. If you are new to this puzzle type, here are our easiest Consecutive Sudoku to get started on.

Championship Chatter – Hold Tight

Two more from the US Sudoku Qualifying Test in May — both are styles I’ve constructed a lot of in the past and will likely continue to construct a lot of in the future as they are both pretty simple variations that add more properties of the numbers into the logic of sudoku and enrich the solving experience.

I went for a lot of less common symmetry types with this test (diagonal or mirror symmetries instead of 180 degree rotational) and both of these themes showcase one of those less common types. With Tight Fit, the diagonal symmetry works well with the added slashes forming their own diagonals parallel to the mirror plane. The solve was meant to fairly easy, but the sparsity of starting digits here actually leads to a rather large cycle to place two of the highest digits remaining towards the end of the puzzle. This trait pulled it towards the top of my pile of Tight Fit to include here.

For the Consecutive Sudoku, I’ve been doing a fair bit of half consecutive/half non-consecutive exploration recently (such as this earlier GMPuzzles one). And I’ve played with 2×2 box shapes with consecutive bars before too, such as here. Well, it turns out that there are no puzzles possible that have just the 2×2 box shapes in opposite corners as in the second linked puzzle without additional bars elsewhere. But there are a whopping 4 possible solutions with the repeated top boxes and no other bars as here (and 2 of those 4 are trivial copies from a 1-9 to 9-1 swap). It was from that small set of potential solutions that I crafted this puzzle. Using a given presentation that evokes the same kind of bars as up top seemed best and gave the solving properties I wanted. But if you’d like an extra hard challenge different from this one, put a single 1 in the lower-left corner and try to solve from there. As I’ve discussed before, the non-consecutive constraint is really powerful and constraining in ways you wouldn’t expect but it always needs some hands-on work to cultivate a fun and approachable puzzle.

Both of these puzzle are probably on the easier end for this test, but both are good representations of the new logic that arises from the variation. As “extras” from the first Grandmaster Puzzles construction cycle, it seems fitting to get them both up here now.

Sudoku by Thomas Snyder

PDF

or solve online (using our beta test of Penpa-Edit tools; use tab to alternate between Sudoku = big entries and Number candidate = small entries in the corners of cells.)

Theme: Diagonal Series

Rules: Standard Tight Fit Sudoku rules. Range is 1-9.

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.

Solution: PDF

Sudoku by Thomas Snyder

PDF

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

Theme: Boxes of Two Sorts

Rules: Standard Consecutive 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.

Solution: PDF

Dr. Sudoku Prescribes #97 – Non-Consecutive Sudoku

Non-consecutive Sudoku by Thomas Snyder

PDF

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

Theme: Mostly themeless

Rules: Standard Consecutive Sudoku rules. Since there are no bars in this grid, this should be considered a Non-Consecutive Sudoku.

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 = 6:30, Master = 11:00, Expert = 22:00

Solution: PDF

Dr. Sudoku Prescribes #88 – Consecutive Sudoku

Consecutive Sudoku by Thomas Snyder

PDF

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

Theme: Walls

Rules: Standard Consecutive Sudoku rules.

Answer String: Enter the 2nd column from top to bottom, followed by a comma, followed by the 8th column from top to bottom.

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

Solution: PDF

Dr. Sudoku Prescribes #30 – Consecutive Sudoku

Consecutive Sudoku by Thomas Snyder

PDF

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

Theme: Jekyll and Hyde – digits but no bars up top, bars but no digits down below. Master both sides to solve this puzzle.

Rules: Standard Consecutive 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 Standard: Consecutive Sudoku Master = 4:30, Expert = 13:30, Novice = 45:00

Solution: PDF and solving video.