Throwing Caution to the Wind – Doing Suduko in Pen

I was on the train the last night and really wanted to work on a suduko puzzle. Over dinner the other weekend, a family friend mentioned that she too was now doing the suduko puzzle that comes in her daily paper. Her strategy is to first identify which number is represented most on the puzzle and fill in the rest missing for that number. From there she just works her way around the board until everything is filled in. While she can do the New York Times Crossword puzzle in pen, she hadn’t yet started doing suduko in pen.

So there I was on the train with my puzzle book only to find out my pencil was no where to be found. Despite serious reservations about pulling out a pen, I really didn’t have a choice. I figured if I only filled in numbers that I was 100% sure about, everything should be fine.

I started using my friend’s strategy. I tried to find the number with the larger representation. Much to my dismay, my New York Post book really doesn’t make it that easy. Five seems to be the maximum that they give you and they aren’t in the perfect spots. But, if you think in rows of three, you can see which numbers are represented in the columns and rows and try to figure out things from there. From there I try looking at different numbers with sufficient representation to see what I can find. Next, I work my way around the 9 squares to see if I can “1, 2, 3… 9”. For each square I try to count my way from 1 to 9 to see if I can finish off the sequence. Finally, I work on rows to see if I can complete the sequence. Depending on how awake my brain is at the end of the day, I can sometimes finish 1 or 2 puzzles in about an hour. I’m sure I’m not the fastest on the block, but at least I’m exercising my dendrites. And feeling confident from yesterday, I worked on another puzzle on the way home again, in pen.

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