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[Earl]

This one offers alternate routes.

Solution: x-wing (3), then xy-wing (269); or an xy-chain beginning at R8C2 to R4C6, extended to R3C5 eliminates the <6> in R3C2 for a single step solution.


Early Earl

[Marty R.]

I used what I'll call a 1-1/2 step solution.

[crunched]

I think below shows the grid after basics are removed.

[crunched]

I also found an x wing on 1s (rows 1 & 6). That opened up a 239 xy wing. But I did not see the xy wing that Earl found. Nor did I solve the puzzle. LOL

[George Woods]

Using the grid given by crunched , I found the XY wing(239) that eliminates the 9 from r2c6. But so What?. Looked hard at the 45 at r2c6 and realised that a 4 kills the 9 at r1c4so r8c4 is9, and a 5 at releases the triplet 236 in col 4 that makes r8c4 9. So r8c4 is 9. Now look again and see that the XY wing wasn't needed for this logic . Use the ALS? set 36 23 and 256 in col 4 . If r3c4 is not 5 then r8c4 is 9, and if it is 5 the the 49 pair in Box2 mean that r8c4 is 9.

So having done all that I went to draw/play and used the hints to see how the "official" solution went- Wow a 9 at r8c4! So something close to my barbaric solution is the "official" one!

[arkietech]

Needed two steps:

[tlanglet]

[Ema Nymton]

.

The recent spate of VH Sudoku seem to be exercises in minutiae.

[Kdelle]

Never mind......Brain cramp!

[storm_norm]

George Woods wrote:

[Marty R.]

[swando]

This were I got with the basics and then used a 269 to eliminate the 9 in R 1 C4 and that did it.

[code]
+---------+-------------+----------+
| 5 4 69 | 169 3 169 | 2 7 8 |
| 8 2 39 | 7 49 459 | 1 345 6 |
| 1 36 7 | 256 246 8 | 35 45 9 |
+---------+-------------+----------+
| 2 7 5 | 8 69 69 | 4 1 3 |
| 6 1 8 | 23 24 234 | 59 59 7 |
| 3 9 4 | 15 7 15 | 8 6 2 |
+---------+-------------+----------+
| 7 5 23 | 4 8 29 | 6 39 1 |
| 4 36 26 | 29 1 7 | 39 8 5 |
| 9 8 1 | 36 5 36 | 7 2 4 |
+---------+-------------+----------+

[Ema Nymton]

.

Thank you for the help. It is very helpful.