Times Fiendish Su Doku

The book contains original puzzles. For me, this is repeat purchase.

Don't underestimate the puzzles. These are really hard, and gripping.

I have completed a sample of 25 of the first 200 'fiendish' puzzles and did not encounter a single advanced sudoku technique.I have also completed all the 20 'super fiendish' puzzles and had to use an x-wing on six occasions but no other advanced technique - how can this book claim to contain 'fiendish' and 'super fiendish' puzzles?!If you are, like me, a competent but not expert solver looking for some challenging puzzles using advanced techniques then this book is definitely NOT for you. Please do not waste your money!However, if you like solving sudoku puzzles but have no desire to learn any advanced techniques then you might find these puzzles interesting.So, I have again wasted money buying a book purporting to contain puzzles that will stretch ones sudoku solving skills but for me it has failed abysmally.

When I started this book I was fairly clueless about how to solve Fiendish and Superfiendish Su Doku puzzles. I took note of some advice (mainly to not use too many pencil marks, usually no more than two in any cell). The author has often said that there is an inner logic to the puzzles that is there to see if you think in the right way rather than trying to solve it by some inflexible computation. After a few false starts I got into the right mindset by following that advice. I even came to realise that many Fiendish Su Doku puzzles are not really very difficult. I found that the vast majority of puzzles can be solved by identifying pairs. I also realised that I had been using x-wings a lot to solve Killer Su Doku puzzles but in a limited way. Once realised it was easy to adapt and I found that x-wings were the most frequent way of getting unstuck. The ones that are only solvable by Swordfish or other techniques not based on pairs arrive in the hardest puzzles at the end. I still find these quite difficult although sometimes a Superfiendish can be really easy for reasons I don't really understand.The strange thing about Fiendish puzzles is that the ones at the beginning of the book are relatively easy and they get more difficult as the book progresses. So it is not advisable to do them in random order assuming Fiendish puzzles are all equally difficult.The journey was a lot of fun.

I love sudoku but so many of the books you can buy have too many first stage puzzles and so are a waste for me. This book is filled with puzzles for the experienced puzzler. The puzzles really make you think and look hard at what you have. Will definitely buy the next in the series when I finish this book.

This much more difficult than I thought, I thought I was good at Su Doku but this item proved that I am not as good as I think I am, I get probably about 50% right, very hard but great satisfaction when you do complete one, the wrong ones go on the fire.

The book itself is perfect.Just a bit annoyed it came with a tear as it is a gift for my Dad on Father's Day.