| Friday's puzzle (Friday, 16th March 2007) |
he_he
Kwon-Tom Obsessive
Puzzles: 2007
Best Total: 14m 41s | Posted - 2007.03.16 13:44:52
Absolutely evil! Would love to see how you quicker people solved it - apart from a couple of easy patterns mine was all guesswork. |
chairman
Kwon-Tom Obsessive
Puzzles: 1397
Best Total: 17m 32s | Posted - 2007.03.18 12:51:34
I'm not very fast, and I am sure there are much more elegant solutions, but let me tell how I got to 3m50. This is how far standard patterns got me:
If you put a line under the 1 at row 4, column 7, you create a loop.
Now I need a lucky guess, but what is luck? Because of the almost closed loop in the north west, assuming a line and cross around the 2 at row 4, column 4 reveals a lot of information. Since there is still lots of work to do, I first try the case which appears to be the least likely. A line below the 2 leads with fix-position pretty fast to a contradiction. After this, standard reasoning leads to
If you put a line at the right of the 1 at row 9, column 4, you create a loop.
I need another guess. Here I used the heuristic that the loop tends to choose `the long way'. In this case I would be surprised if there would not be a line above the 1 just mentioned. People who find that using highlander arguments is a little bit of cheating must consider this to be fraud. But I think it is just a type of using the experience learned from former puzzles. It is like a hunter who uses his knowledge of the habits of his prey. Anyway, applying this guess leads to
Now it is easy to see that there must be a line between the 1 and 3 in the middle. After this the rest follows. |
Para
Kwon-Tom Obsessive
Puzzles: 1923
Best Total: 19m 28s | Posted - 2007.03.18 20:46:53
Here is a small pattern you could use for the bottom corner.
Also a line left or under the 1 in R5C2 would create a loop.
This would take you to here. Now putting a line where the question mark is would create a loop.
After this you get to chairmans second picture.
Para
Last edited by Para - 2007.03.18 22:55:26 |
Jankonyex
Kwon-Tom Obsessive
Puzzles: 5680
Best Total: 9m 35s | Posted - 2007.03.19 08:06:45
solution |
he_he
Kwon-Tom Obsessive
Puzzles: 2007
Best Total: 14m 41s | Posted - 2007.03.20 09:19:43
Hey, thanks guys, much appreciated.
H |
