Sudoku is a board puzzle that requires gamers to reason and think logically. To help you play against your opponent, you can begin with simple scanning techniques and then move to more advanced ways of locking the game.
You can scan in one direction or scan in two directions. You can also decide to search for single candidates or eliminate numbers from columns, rows, and boxes. If elimination doesn’t get you anywhere, you can opt to search for missing numbers along rows, columns, and boxes.
What if you still don’t make headway?
If the above techniques are too elementary for you or your opponent, you can use analyzing techniques. It is common to find a gamer resulting in more sophisticated methods to solve the Sudoku puzzle.
Challenging puzzles need intricate logic analysis. This level demands the gamers to make pencil marks. Pencil marking in Sudoku is the systematic calculation and writing of small numbers inside the squares to help decide which number fits in.
What’s the way forward when pencil marking doesn’t work?
When all the above techniques are used, but a gamer doesn’t seem to make any progress, it’s time to change to advanced means to win the game. Shift the gears of your competition by using Swordfish techniques.
Sudoku Swordfish advanced techniques are used in the most challenging levels of the puzzle. The motivation of employing is to eliminate your opposing candidate in the game. Surprisingly, it is considered a basic technique due to the simplicity of the fish pattern needed for its recurrence and application in the puzzle.
The Swordfish technique is the ultimate strategy that results in finding the solution to one or more cells. It also allows a gamer to use easier strategies and other basic techniques such as scanning and elimination. From here, the gamers are more at ease to progress with the puzzle.
What is needed to apply the Swordfish technique?
Swordfish technique is similar to the X-Wing strategy. However, instead of using four squares, it uses a nine-square grid. To apply the Swordfish technique, basic constraints must meet the bare constraints. Should a single constraint go missing, Swordfish variants such as Sashimi or Finned Swordfish can be applied. At this juncture, the elimination of gamers is more restricted and harder yet possible.
When can a gamer use the Swordfish technique?
A player can use Swordfish when there are three rows where each contains two or three of the given characters. Additionally, each of these numbers should be aligned on three consecutive columns. It is also possible to apply the technique if three columns contain either two or three of a particular character and the numbers aligned on three rows.
Does a gamer need to fulfill some requirements to apply the Sudoku Swordfish strategy?
Sudoku Swordfish strategy requires the gamer to only concentrate on a single digit. This is so because the Swordfish technique is a single-player method that focuses on three rows and three columns.
The grid should have three rows and three columns where each digit is a candidate to only 2 or 3 cells. Every cell should be connected to another cell by row or column. This link between cells should always be there regardless of the outcome shape when they’re joined to each other.
And because each digit has 2 or 3 possible placements in these rows and columns, it follows that the solution for that digit will be found within that chain. The gamer can then go ahead and test the numerous possibilities. A gamer can lock the puzzle by deleting the digit from all the cells that don’t solve the puzzle in all instances.
Can a gamer use the finned Swordfish strategy variant?
A seasoned or a learner can use the finned Swordfish strategy to help to unlock a hard puzzle. In this strategy, the gamer finds the missing digit is a member of an extra cell in columns or rows.
For instance, if a gamer wants the 2/2/2 configuration to solve the puzzle, it means that the missing candidate is a member of 3 cells in any row or column. And if the configuration is 3/3/3/, then one column or row with the missing digit will have four cells.
To successfully apply the finned Swordfish strategy, the missing extra cell should be lying within the chain and share a pair with one of the linked cells. The technique derives its name from the resultant regular fish pattern.
Which candidate should a gamer eliminate?
If the fin is false, yet the Swordfish technique is applicable, the gamer should find the candidate that suits elimination. In the event where the fin is valid, which of the remaining candidates is impossible?
A player can safely remove the members that would be impossible when responding to these two questions.
However, if the digit lies within the possible Swordfish chain and is found in the same group with one of the cells connected to it, the finned Swordfish technique can be applied.
Sashimi Swordfish technique
This technique only applies to characters that are sets of two digits in each row or column. As opposed to the finned Swordfish technique, in sashimi Swordfish, a gamer is short of one cell to complete the pattern to apply the Swordfish strategy. The sashimi Swordfish technique also needs the presence of “fins” on the grid.
Notably, only the members within the odd cell can be eliminated with the sashimi Swordfish technique. The presence of an odd-out cell is not a common configuration and therefore, a seldomly used technique. Nonetheless, sashimi Swordfish is a very easy and practical Sudoku technique.
Sudoku Swordfish strategy is a method employed for the advanced levels in this game. Sashimi Swordfish is ideal for the later sessions of the game. Because there are fewer members in each cell, the sashimi Swordfish will likely give an outcome for a single or several cells.
However, as a gamer practices this Swordfish variant technique regularly, one realizes that it is rarely used in the game’s initial stages.
