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HomeSudoku BooksMensa Guide to Solving Sudoku: Hundreds of Puzzles Plus Techniques to Help You Crack Them All |
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1 of 1 found the following review helpful:
 Great Introductory Book Jan 21, 2010
I'll preface with the fact that I'm not a member of Mensa. I bought this book after becoming curious about the Sudoku craze a couple of years ago. I found it to be engaging, well organized, and presented in easy, step-by-step, lay-person's terms. After working my way through this book in a short time I went from a know-nothing-at-all to a beginner black belt (Brown belt is easy for me and black belts can require more than I want to do.) Because of the information in this book I would be an outright black belt, but I don't want to put the effort forth in looking that deeply for number patterns; instead, I enjoy Sudoku as a relaxing pastime, and now look for alternative Sudoku puzzles with various formats. I would love it if Peter Gordon and Frank Longo made some. I highly recommend it--it's a great book!
Best yet, for me Jan 19, 2010
I like Gordon's book better than Sudoku Master Class by Sheldon and Just Sudoku published by Loki.
1) Clearest, fullest explanations of strategies with examples and practice problems (76 pages!)
2) Goes farther in advanced strategies.
3) Brief history of Sudoku.
4) Many unspecified problems, numbers 97 to 800, increasing in difficulty.
Problems number 200, 300, 400, 500, and 600 can be solved without X-wing or swordfish. Problems 700 and 701 require X-wing. Haven't solved 702. 703 to 707 all require uniqueness arguments.
Example: if there is a rectangle with possibles XY, XY, XY, XYZ in two boxes, Z cannot be a correct choice because the puzzle would have two solutions.
It doesn't bother me that the grids are small. Any problem worth working hard on I always copy onto a larger form.
3 of 5 found the following review helpful:
 Please read Kimberly J. Annis' review Dec 10, 2009
If you are a beginner and want to learn to solve sudoke; do yourself a favor and keep looking.
I would recommend
1. Master Sudoku: week by week" Paul Stephens
2. "Master Sudoku: Step-by-Step Instructions for Players at All Levels" by Carol Vorderman
3. Chad Barker (SP) The Sudoku Professor has four or five free video lessons to teach people how to get started solving sudoku at [...], Then has five or 6 hours of Sudoku instruction if you choose to buy them. The free lessons easily gives you techniques to solve the level 1 and II puzzles. If you want to be able to break Level III and IV puzzles his complete course will help you.
4. Dave Meade also has free Sudoku lessons on the internet these lessons are not video based but still a *^&% site better that this AWFUL book. I do not remember Dave's site for sudoku lessons but should be easy to find with a search engine.
What's wrong with this book? Well how much time do you have to read this review or e-Mail me.
1. This book is large format which means it is large and unwieldy. I much prefer the normal sized paperbacks
2. As Kimberly pointed out correctly there are six puzzles per page, and insufficient room for pencil marks.
3. He has his own way of numbering the cells 11-99. In my opinion numbering the columns A-I and rows 1-9 would be MUCH easier for the reader to find the cells he is talking about. Either change the labeling method or high lighting the cell he is talking about would be a tremendous help to the reader.
4. I have been solving Sudoku for more than a year, and I have worked my way from Level 1 (easiest to level 4 puzzles (Often labeled Hardent or chalenger) in sudoku magazines. I bought this book solely for the purpose of discovering "Gordonian logic" that he uses to break the most difficult (level 5 (expert) level puzzles. I have gone over and over and over this section, and it makes absolutely no logic to me. In my opinion it looks like nothing more than a guess which I have been using to solve a few level 5 puzzles.
If you are interested in Sudoku. Don't waste your time here (unless aggravation and frustration is your thing;) but check out the four better options I describe above.
Brilliant resource Dec 05, 2009
I love sudoku puzzles and work on them almost daily. I am way past the beginner stage, but on the expert there were some puzzles I just couldn't figure out. This book is divided into chapters that leads you through each techniques for solving, starting with the simplest, then gives you practice in that chapter for that technique. I have been using the book now for over a year and just bought another to start all over again!
 Mensa Guide for Idiots Nov 13, 2009
Peter Gordon spends a lot of time walking you thru the sample puzzles, and his logic works on the example.
However, I don't think Peter Gordon did a very good job explaining the what to look for when you are trying to determine when a certain technique will work.
Example: How do you spot an X-Wing or swordfish opportunity when there are lots of candidates to chose from.
Example: Is there an eaxy way to spot which number is a good candidate for X-wing, etc. His samples are obviously well thought out, but I was hoping to have a quick-easy way to spot when a certain application or number is a good starting point.
I guess I was looking for some concrete rules for when to apply a technique:
Example: X-Wing only works when there are two candidates in one column which align (in same row) with two candidates in another column.
CB
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