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1 of 3 found the following review helpful:
 just another book of puzzles Aug 05, 2008
this book bills itself as something special, but, sadly, it is not. it's just a group of your saturday newspaper puzzles with all their warts and problems.
sheldon doesn't have a website, after starting to work the puzzles from the back of his book forward i see why. the puzzles are fairly easy, mixed in is the odd puzzle that, despite his protestations, is not really a logical puzzle rather is more like a jigsaw than, say, a chess problem.
4 of 5 found the following review helpful:
 A Worthy Companion to Sudoku Genius Sep 21, 2007
I find Mr. Sheldon's two difficult Sudoku books to be the best on the market. The puzzles are very challenging, but they are fair and honest. Since I have been routinely disappointed with other "hard" Sudoku books, I decided to purchase five copies of both Genius & Master Class. I've found that I can't remember anything about a given puzzle solution about about ten minutes after I've completed it. So repeating a puzzle months or years later is not a problem. At one puzzle per day, I'm good to go for the next five years!
13 of 13 found the following review helpful:
I hope this is not the end of this terrific series! May 24, 2007
My introduction to sudoku was Sheldon's Big Brain Workout, a book which guides the beginner from easy to more difficult puzzles. Sudoku Genius continues the series, with difficult puzzles representing the "nine circles of hell," from Daunting to Deadly. Sudoku Master Class introduces advanced strategies for solving the most difficult puzzles. For the first twenty-four puzzles, the answer key provides guides to the techniques discussed in the introduction--including X-wing, swordfish, and various buried partnerships, so those experimenting with new techniques may want to check the hints in the answer key first so that they can practice these techniques.
Like the other books in the series, the puzzles themselves are large, with plenty of space to record options, one puzzle per page. The books, about five inches by eight inches, fit nicely into a purse or briefcase, and though there is no spiral binding, the fixed binding still allows for right-handed puzzlers to have plenty of space to work the puzzles on the left side of the book. Though all these puzzles are supposed to be difficult, some are much more difficult than others, and I found myself wondering, after a particularly difficult puzzle, if the author deliberately made the next puzzle much easier, as was so often the case.
Three puzzles (#57, #64, and #130) are missing one number from the outset, and while these may appear difficult, they are, in fact, the most fun of all the puzzles, and not difficult at all. I confess that as I was practicing techniques at the beginning of the book, I sometimes got stuck and had to resort to "trailing," Sheldon's word for choosing one number from two pairs and tracing it through the puzzle to see if it is the correct choice. Gradually, as I became more proficient at some of the techniques, the amount of trailing declined so that by the end I was not doing it at all, the sign that Sheldon has created good puzzles which rely on logic, rather than chance.
My appreciation of this series has grown since I tried to find a comparable new collection at the local bookstore--Sheldon may be unique in his grouping of puzzles of comparable level of difficulty in a single book. (Most others contain a range from easy to difficult.) I'm crossing my fingers that Sheldon has another collection in the works. n Mary Whipple
14 of 16 found the following review helpful:
 Limited, Somewhat Useful Guide to Sudoku Apr 22, 2007
If you're looking for a book that will help you improve your Sudoku technique, think twice before getting this one. Here's why:
Strengths: Gives a clear explanation of basic methods (filling in the more obvious squares, pairs, triplets) and X-wing, swordfish, and uniqueness. The answers to the first 24 puzzles tell you where you're likely to get stuck and which method will get you past this, a very valuable teaching technique. Challenging puzzles; unless you're an expert, I doubt that you'll find any of them too easy. Puzzle grids are large enough so you can do the puzzles in the book without copying them on a separate piece of paper.
Weaknesses: The instruction section is very brief (16 pages). Useful techniques included in other books are omitted. The author states, "[There] are a whole array of techniques--Forcing Chains, Coloring, Nishio, and so on--making up the logical twilight zone. I haven't included a discussion of them in this book, because these all involve an element of 'what would happen if . . .'" What Would Happen If is an important solving technique, and there's no reason not to have included some of it given the small size of the instruction section. At least the author should have provided a more accurate title, since I couldn't read this disclaimer on Amazon before buying the book. Finally, and perhaps most importantly, the invaluable helpful hints are NOT included for the last 120 puzzles.
In Sum: If you want one book that covers just about everything you need to know to solve Sudoku puzzles, get Mensa Guide To Solving Sudoku (blue cover) by Peter Gordon. Sudoku Master Class may help you by showing where you get stuck on the first 24 puzzles and how to deal with this, and it may entertain you by providing some additional challenging puzzles.
2 of 2 found the following review helpful:
Clever and Well Written Nov 09, 2006
Tom Sheldon's clever style is a most welcome addition to Sudoku Books. His Master Class techniques are straight forward and well presented. Puzzles are hard, but he gives you the necessary tools and walks you through the dicipline in order to solve. Very rewarding and great fun!
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