Warm-up Puzzle:
Suppose it is the row player's move in the following situation (where letters represent blanks) and the row player can move anywhere:

5 7 6 1 4 9 2 3 8 8 4 9 3 7 2 5 1 6 3 2 1 8 6 5 9 7 4 4 6 3 7 9 1 8 5 2 1 5 8 6 2 4 7 9 3 7 9 2 5 3 8 4 6 1 2 1 4 9 5 6 3 8 7 9 8 7 4 1 3 6 A 5 6 3 5 B 8 7 1 C 9

How can the row player force a win (that is, force the column player to make an illegal move)?

Solution to Warm-up Puzzle

Now it's your turn, but this time we'll favor the column player.

1. Can the column player force a win in two moves given the following board? (Here the column player can begin by moving anywhere.)

8 1 5 3 4 9 2 6 7 7 A 4 B 5 1 8 9 3 3 9 6 8 7 2 4 1 5 1 4 7 5 2 8 6 3 9 C 8 2 9 3 6 D E 1 9 6 3 F 1 7 G H I 2 3 1 J 8 K 9 5 6 6 7 8 1 9 5 2 3 4 L 5 9 2 M 3 1 7 N

Solution to Puzzle #1

2. Here's a harder one. Can the column player force a win in three moves given the following? (Again the column player can begin by moving anywhere.)

7 A 5 8 1 3 2 9 B C D 1 4 7 6 5 E F 3 4 G 2 5 9 H 1 7 9 1 4 5 ? 7 3 2 6 I 5 7 3 6 2 J 4 9 6 2 3 9 4 1 7 K L 1 3 2 6 9 8 4 7 M N 8 O P 2 5 9 3 1 Q 7 9 1 3 R 8 6 2

Solution to Puzzle #2

Here's an invitation. If you can produce a four-move forced win on a board initially having more blanks than assignments, please send it to me at shasha@cims.nyu.edu. Also, please play Sudokill at Yu Yiwen's Web site designed by a graduate student at New York University: http://homepages.nyu.edu/~yy497/projects/showcase/SudokillWebGame

10 Comments

1. 1. alphachapmtl 12:04 PM 5/13/09

   WShy so many pages? It's annoying!

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2. 2. alphachapmtl 12:06 PM 5/13/09

   unable to view article...

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3. 3. milk 02:09 PM 5/13/09

   The link to Solution to Puzzle #1 has a misplaced i for american leading to a dead link.

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4. 4. TTLG 11:44 PM 5/13/09

   So the idea is to change a game of personal achievement into one of aggression against someone else? Wonderful. Like we don't have enough of those already.

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5. 5. flakwack 02:48 PM 5/20/09

   WHY would you use 0 and not leave the squares blank? Also, sudoku puzzles are typically square.

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6. 6. Bigems 09:02 AM 5/22/09

   why not use images instead of plain text! it's 2009 for petes sake

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7. 7. acr 12:41 PM 5/22/09

   Awkward for students and readers alike.

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8. 8. Mirfy 12:53 PM 5/22/09

   I liked the idea... a simple game with simple rules that creates a great challenge.
   
   Congratulations !

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9. 9. capissen 12:29 PM 5/23/09

   Oh yeah, I use sudo kill every time one of my applications starts acting up!

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10. 10. dmmiller2k 09:57 AM 7/2/09

    Please post the text (non-HTML) version of this article, in one piece. The formatting detracts from the examples and makes them impossible to follow.

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