Join the Smartie Party now 🥳to get EXCLUSIVE reward puzzle packs, ad free content, discord access, and so much more👉👉www.buymeacoffee.com/timberlakeB/membership Timestamps 0:00 Intro 00:21 It’s Solving Time 01:00 Puzzle Story 01:26 Snyder Notation 02:56 How To Find Break In 05:21 Easily Overlooked Strategy 07:30 Following The Snyder 10:33 BONUS Tip #1 11:30 BONUS Tip #2 12:32 Neat Naked Triple Trick 14:08 Sweeping The Blocks

I hv recently started the practice of filling the grid selectively .Earlier I had the habit of filling the entire grid box by box and not choosing particular col's and rows. Since u had mentioned abt the XYZ wing, I focused on the same while filling trivalued and bi valued cells. I cld locate it pretty quickly and yes finished the puzzle successfully.

13:57 there was an opportunity to repeat the 7-9 pair in another four block arrangement linked to the earlier one.

This took me 39:50 to solve. I got stuck after 15 minutes and had to click on the video to see what to do next. Just like in the video, I got after stuck after snyder, but then started looking for BVCs and potentially forcing a number anywhere. But none of that worked and just wasted more time. It turns out I already had all the info needed to do the xyz wing, but I didn't put it together in my head. The only positive was I had been focusing on all the same areas that the video said to focus on, but I still didn't catch the xyz wing. Once I watched the video and saw which numbers were involved in the xyz wing, I quickly clicked back to my puzzle and solved it the rest of the way through.

I might have found the XYZ-wing if you hadn't mentioned it; I don't know. With it hovering in my mind, I found it rather early. It wasn't the first advanced position; that was a finned swordfish in 1s that appeared to have a very long-term delayed benefit. I had cornermarked every digit in block 1 except for 9 and the givens. 89 and 39 were bi-valued cells, along with 79 in block 2. A suspicious cornermarked 78 cell gave me 789 and the XYZ-wing and placed 3 in R3C3. A few digits later, R5C1 became 9, the 789 cell became 78, and the XYZ-wing became a Y-wing removing another 9. R5C4 became 36 thanks to the finned swordfish. That's about when I got stuck, and proceeded to centermark cells. I found an empty rectangle, something I'd not seen in a long time, in 8s. I was still stuck until I noticed that block 8 had only one possible 3. R5C4 became 6. Many pencilmarks unraveled, but I still got stuck, primarily due to the clutter and incomplete removal of candidates. One last advanced position was a finned X-wing in 7s in blocks 2389. Various pairs appeared to help me finally finish the puzzle. 2:40 I cornermarked three candidates in a block, which gave me many more cornermarks, including every digit in block 1 except 9. The finned swordfish in 1s removed 1 from R5C4 and limited 1s in block 5 to three cells. I also centermarked blocks 2 and 4. 5:10 "Quite a bit of 9s" -- that's expected with no given 9s. 7:40 I missed that 3 in block 8 for the longest time -- failure to cross-hatch (right word?) after placing block 7's 3, clutter, and getting caught up in more with column 2. A 589 triple placed all the digits in block 4. The 9 converted the XYZ-wing into a Y-wing. Block 8's 3 was what got me started again. 12:20 I recognized the lack of a problem with 79s in that situation, but thought back to a couple earlier similar situations where I didn't notice the four different blocks. I remember continuing on until the puzzle broke, and when it solved instead of breaking, I realized what the situation was. The advanced strategies turn into embarrassments when I see how one can progress simply by noticing things. (Sigh.) Sam Cappleman-Lynes has a certain reputation with variant Sudoku. The only puzzles I remember off-hand are a GAS which bamboozled Mark, and a 6x6 that bamboozled Simon.