New York Post Difficult Su Doku: The Official Utterly Adictive Number-Placing Puzzle

by Wayne Gould

Book Overview

200 New Difficult Puzzles -- They Are Not Going to Be Easy But You Are Ready

Su Doku, "the crossword without words," comes with a warning: it is seriously addictive. You don't need to be a mathematical genius to solve these puzzles; it is simply a question of logic and a little patience.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0061173371
• ISBN13: 9780061173370
• Release Date: June 2006
• Publisher: William Morrow & Company
• Length: 320 Pages
• Weight: 0.50 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.6" x 5.3" x 7.2"

Customer Reviews

A favorite & truly addictive!

These puzzles seemed more logical and intentionally designed than most. It's my favorite Sudoku book so far... I enjoy puzzles of a level that is medium "difficult", which is just what the book purported to be.

Expands your technique

Difficult? Yes, but not impossible and very educational. I've been utterly addicted to these puzzles for over a year now, and they truly are absorbing. I've never read anything about the technique involved other than the bare essentials underlying the game. Everything I've learned beyond that has been self discovered by doing puzzles of different levels. I've worked on books like Mensa Sudoku (Mensa), Sudoku Easy to Hard Presented by Will Shortz, Volume 3: 100 Wordless Crossword Puzzles (Sudoku Easy to Hard), and others, and have learned a lot over the past several months. Generally speaking, the process boils down to elimination and selection of the obvious for easy puzzles. These are very easy to do and would be a great point to get younger children started on them; it really does develop a sense of number and place. Simple basic logic is used at intermediate levels, and here too, it would be good for kids, especially junior high level because it introduces patterns that have to be thought out logically to eliminate some of the possibilities. After that it becomes pattern recognition at higher levels, and the logic that is involved is much more complex. The most astonishing pattern is that sometimes found in the "fiendish," "evil," or "diabolical" level puzzles, because the answer is so counter intuitive. Taking this into account, the reader will be able to recognize his or her own level and whether or not they're ready for something more. The New York Post Difficult Su Doku is as represented, difficult, but it offers a good opportunity to expand what you already know from the previous levels. I was amazed at how much I learned and how rapidly I put it to use. I started out rather poorly at the beginning, frequently getting to what I thought would be the end of one only to find I'd goofed up somewhere. Sometimes I started over several times on the same puzzle before I got it right. By the time I was just under half way through the book, however, I found myself doing the puzzles as rapidly as I do easier ones. It all comes down to pattern recognition. Give it a try and don't give up.

No easy puzzles

Having become impatient with most sudoku book that devote a third of their space to easy puzzles, I was happy to find this one that has medium to hard puzzles. Through solving them I learned more about how to solve sudoku and have moved on to the author's 'fiendish' book.