04.03.2015, 22:50
(04.03.2015, 11:59)Fred76 schrieb: I'm always curious to see what kind of sudokus are incorporated in puzzle competitions, in term of difficulty when it's a classic sudoku.
Here this seemed to be a 5-7 minutes classic sudoku regarding points. I wondered if this solving time was the target for a very good all-around puzzler or for a sudoku specialist (I know some players enter in both category).
I don't know if average puzzle players felt that this sudoku was overrated, but it was effectively a 2min-2min30 puzzle for the best sudoku players.
I think it was fair to put an easy classic sudoku, so that puzzle players that don't take part in sudoku competitions or don't like sudoku are not too disadvantaged.
I think it was probably harder than easy for a non-expert -- according to myself, it was necessary to spot a unique rectangle to get through smoothly. Which doesn't make an expert pause, but probably does cause trouble for a lot of solvers. But I was happy to have something in there which was cheap points for Sudoku specialists. (Also, I was quite happy to have finally made what seemed to me to be a non-trivial Sudoku. I'm still far off from feeling comfortable constructing classic Sudoku...)