| August 2006 Beast of the Month (may contain spoilers) |
nevstyles
Kwon-Tom Obsessive
Puzzles: 537
Best Total: 27m 19s | Posted - 2006.09.08 17:56:19
Firstly, I must say I am loving the Beast of the Month puzzles, I think that they are really helping my game. I think when I complete puzzles on the site, I tend to use a fix position far too often, and in turn I think that stops me learning new patterns. Whereas you cannot use any sort of fix position when doing them by hand.
Anyway, getting to the point of my post, I am 80% of the way through last month's beast but I have hit a brick wall. I have 4 "islands", or should they be "seas" in my puzzle, that is 4 individual incomplete areas. Any pointers on how I can progress with the following would be greatly appreciated (the other three areas are slightly too large to reproduce here).
Section close to bottom right corner
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prj
Kwon-Tom Obsessive
Puzzles: 2356
Best Total: 18m 20s | Posted - 2006.09.08 22:40:29
I see a couple of things: the 2 at r2c7 has its lines on either the northeast or southwest corner. So the 2 at r3c6 must also be northeast/southwest, which means its northwest corner has a line and an X coming in, and you already have the line.
Putting a line at the top of the 2 at r3c4 leads to a closed loop, so you can put an X there. Together with the other X, that menas the 2 must have a line on its right. |
procrastinator
Kwon-Tom Obsessive
Puzzles: 1083
Best Total: 12m 56s | Posted - 2006.09.09 05:00:24
Quote: Originally Posted by prj
Putting a line at the top of the 2 at r3c4 leads to a closed loop, so you can put an X there.
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Actually, it's really hard to _stop_ this loop from closing; almost any move that looks like closing it will close it within easy reading depth. You can pretty much ride that through to the end of that whole segment. |
Naivoj
Kwon-Tom Addict
Puzzles: 314
Best Total: 33m 50s | Posted - 2006.09.15 03:06:30
NevStyles,
I reach a similar position(see my diagram) than yours except that I had 8 lines less and 4 X's less. I was able to complete this section but mainly by trial and error. I am wondering if you used any known patterns to get(from my diagram position) the "right line of the r2c9 blank square" and to get the "right and bottom lines of the r5c7 three square" or if they were the result of trial and error.
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procrastinator
Kwon-Tom Obsessive
Puzzles: 1083
Best Total: 12m 56s | Posted - 2006.09.15 03:59:29
Quote: Originally Posted by naivoj I am wondering if you used any known patterns to get(from my diagram position) the "right line of the r2c9 blank square"
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Not really a pattern, but it's easy to see what will happen if the line goes the other side of that two.
Quote: Originally Posted by naivoj
and to get the "right and bottom lines of the r5c7 three square"
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Try putting the other two edges on that 3 and see what happens above. |
Naivoj
Kwon-Tom Addict
Puzzles: 314
Best Total: 33m 50s | Posted - 2006.09.15 05:58:50
For my first question I meant "right line of the r2c8(not r2c9) blank square" and yes by exploring the alternative it leads to an impossibility which is what I was calling trial an error.
Quote: Originally Posted by procrastinator Try putting the other two edges on that 3 and see what happens above. |
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nevstyles
Kwon-Tom Obsessive
Puzzles: 537
Best Total: 27m 19s | Posted - 2006.09.15 07:40:02
Hi Naivoj,
The line from the three at r1c9 can only go left or down - try making that line go left and see what happens. It is soon clear that you can't go that way.
I really need to try and train myself to see further ahead when testing new patterns in my head. I can visualise 7-10 lines/crosses but then my brain turns to mush!
Going a bit off topic, I remember some classes I took at University explained all about long and short-term memory (in a Computer Science degree of all things). One important point of short-term memory is that, on average, the human mind can only register 7 things in short-term memory which probably explains why I can only see a few lines/crosses ahead.
One way you can train yourself to overcome this is to consider patterns of lines/crosses instead of individual lines/crosses. If these patterns are held in long-term memory, you can put (on average) seven of these in your short-term memory, thereby seeing much further ahead.
I guess it all comes down to that fact that the more puzzles you do, the greater number of patterns are stored in long-term memory.
I am sure there are people on here who can probably put my point across a little better - I certainly don't profess to be an expert on this matter after just a handful of lectures on it!
Cheers,
Nev |
Naivoj
Kwon-Tom Addict
Puzzles: 314
Best Total: 33m 50s | Posted - 2006.09.16 04:49:24
Thank you for your feedback Nevstyles.
Quote: Originally Posted by nevstyles One way you can train yourself to overcome this is to consider patterns of lines/crosses instead of individual lines/crosses. If these patterns are held in long-term memory, you can put (on average) seven of these in your short-term memory, thereby seeing much further ahead. |
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