It's Sudoku - but is it Art?

[00:00:11][music] Hello. Welcome back to Cracking the Cryptic and uh hope you had fun with my cryptic crossword master class this morning. It's Friday and that's what we did. And also please check out Patreon where there is a um a times monthly club special as well posted today which is a puzzle by Mark Kelmanson monk and great fun. It's a really really difficult puzzle. I mean today's times crossword was not easy but that that is a really difficult puzzle and absolute great fun. There's a there's a Nenina in column three which I didn't spot while I was solving but I did spot it afterwards. I just had finished filming at that point. Um it's good fun and uh there's loads on Patreon. There's gridoggram and connections videos as well. There are some other hard cryptic solves like Saber's Listener. So it's good time for cryptics. Um also we've got uh the detective pets sodoku hunt.

[00:01:12]Still time to enter that if you're more into the Sudoku. If you are, you might want to try our apps which feature Line Sudoku and Thermo Sudoku and the worms.

[00:01:22]And uh those are great fun. They're all available on the links under the video and they're very good value. And then so is our merch. You could get yourself a mug or something like it. Bit of clothing with cracking the cryptic on or bobbins on a hat and uh treat yourself.

[00:01:41]Now, Olyar is a name that has featured a number of times on the channel. Always very good value. Sent us this ages ago, and I'm not quite sure why we it didn't get done, but I'm going to look at it today. Um, now more than that, who sent us the first Banksy puzzle we did on the channel 6 years ago, and Banksy is a sort of street artist who nobody knows for sure the real name of, but pops up occasionally. I actually did a crossword about him in the Magpie magazine that uh Simon and I founded that I still help run. Um and it was based on a series of artworks that popped up in London two years ago, one after the other every day for about a month, no for about two weeks. Anyway, this one is about perhaps the closest Banksy artwork to where I live. It's within about a mile's walk away. And uh I've got a bit of a picture of it. Two children lying on um lying on the ground pointing upwards in their winter clothes. And this this puzzle is called Banksy Were King at Queen's Muse.

[00:02:58]Ollie has used king in the title there because there's a king's move rule. And it's time to go through the rules of this puzzle and see how Oolar has adapted uh the Banksy artwork into being a Sudoku. And here we go. So normal Sudoku rules apply. One to nine will go in every row, every column, and every 3x3 box.

[00:03:21]Digits a king's move in chess apart must be different. The king will Mr. King will sit there and remind me. Uh, so any digit touching and another digit must be different from it, which really only matters when you're looking across a box through a diagonal.

[00:03:40]Um, adjacent digits on a green line have a difference of at least five, the normal German whispers rule. And on thermos, digits increase from the bulb to the tip. Give it a try on that first link. I'm going to start now. Let's get cracking. And if I have done this before somewhere and I don't remember, I apologize.

[00:03:59]1, two, three, four, five, six, seven. I don't remember it at all, so I don't think I have.

[00:04:06]So, I'm going to say one or two there. And let's see if that's proven right when I get to this cell. This is five or six.

[00:04:19]I don't think it can be six because all of these cells in the same box would have to be bigger and they can't all be 7, 8, and 9. So five or six there. Six or seven. Seven or eight.

[00:04:31]Eight or nine. 6 7 or eight here. 7 8 or 9 there. And Simon would somehow have magically seen this 678 triple occurring and written a nine in there. But I have to do the goodlifting of the thermo and find out that that's what's going on.

[00:04:48]That 678 triple also makes this digit a five. So then we get to run that down towards this person's head.

[00:04:58]Now, we've had nine in this row.

[00:05:02]I I think [clears throat] I'm missing a trick here as well. Well, I can see one trick I'm missing. Now, we've had a one in this box, so that's not one. And that runs up the thermo eliminating possibilities.

[00:05:18]Oh, it also got rid of the four there that I had spotted as impossible.

[00:05:22]But look, here's another 678 triple. I mean, I defy someone as clever as Simon who can just see what thermos do to notice that off the bat. But that gives me 5 432 and a one in the row.

[00:05:38]And now I'm going to pencil mark the rest of these or good as you prefer the rest of these thermos.

[00:05:47]Look at that. There's there's very limited possibilities. But but while I say that, we have also run out of giveaway doubles and triples. As far as I can see, this isn't even a quad in row six. So, what are we going to do next? Am I going to move on to the German whisper?

[00:06:12]I like to tell you three things about German whispers. One is that five can't go on them. The second is that they alternate between digits higher than the illegal five and lower. And the third is that four and six can't get placed in cells where their neighbors see each other. But on this one, there are only one of those looks like it's there.

[00:06:35]Anyway, so I'm going to color alternating cells one color and the other alternating cells the other color.

[00:06:46]and then try and work out which is high and which is low. So this digit is the one that can't be six or four. It also can't be three. That's that's not widely helpful.

[00:06:59]Wildly helpful.

[00:07:04]I don't know. I don't think I can use the whispers yet. They seem desperately uninteresting. Okay. Three in this box has to be in one of these cells. Now, if we can definitely find a digit that gets on the whisper, that would be interesting.

[00:07:24]Or for this to be high, these would all be high in the column.

[00:07:34]That would have to be a one.

[00:07:40]It's not impossible, but it's interesting. It's interesting. It It does bring a constraint to one of these cells.

[00:07:50]I wonder if I've missed some basic thermo stuff.

[00:07:58]If that was high, this would also be high because of the coloring.

[00:08:04]So, if that was high and these were all high, these are definitely high. And that's high. Actually, maybe I'm going to color these cells in blue and orange for their high or lowess down here where we definitely know that there has quite a lot of orange actually.

[00:08:33]These two are both orange as well.

[00:08:35]That's interesting.

[00:08:40]And that's why this being the fourth orange in its column would be quite significant.

[00:08:48]There's a two in one of these cells and a two in one of these. That's not very interesting yet. Oh, the king's move.

[00:08:55]Mr. King is saying, "What about me, you numpty?

[00:08:59]What about me?" He's saying looking at this 678 triple that all see that cell these must be different from each other because of the king's move rule. Thank goodness for Emily providing Mr. King.

[00:09:11]So I don't totally forget these things or not for more than five minutes as it were on this occasion. So that's had a great impact. This couldn't be nine. So this couldn't be eight. Now we've got a six seven pair. Not only seeing that cell, but that six seven pair is also seeing this cell using the king's move.

[00:09:30]That's what it was. It was the king's move again a six seven pair and both of these become eights. And now we've got now this can't be seven or eight. If it's high, it's nine.

[00:09:42]Now what else can we do with these putitive six sevens? We take eight out of that pair and out of this cell. And that means this can't be seven. Oh, but it's touching a five. I nearly didn't spot five because it's got no color. So that's a six. That's a seven. Then I can do 7 six 76.

[00:10:05]And this is not seven. Oh, that's a lovely that's a lovely get going moment in the puzzle.

[00:10:13]Yeah, I'm very impressed. That's nice.

[00:10:16]However, well, I was going to say the rest of the puzzle is going to have to be done by the German whisper. And that seems rather implausible to me. But it's also not true because the rest of the puzzle is going to be done by the king's move as well. And that matters. That matters a lot. As we've just seen, 2 3 4 and this digit can't be a four on the king's move. 1 79 in these cells. This one can't be nine vertically. This one can't be seven. And this can't be one on the king's move. 568 here. There's no six in those cells. This can't be six.

[00:10:56]None of that is going to really help unfortunately because these didn't unwind.

[00:11:02]So I'm looking at this digit. It sees 8 976 in the row. 52 in the column. Four on the king's move. That is one or three.

[00:11:13]This one 2 three or four.

[00:11:17]This one not very constrained.

[00:11:20]This one is quite constrained because it sees all of this 2, three, four triple.

[00:11:26]Ah, and three has now wound up on this pair because of the king's move three to there being ruled out. Three is on one of these cells with either eight or nine and forming a triple there. 3 8 9 76.

[00:11:41]The rest of the box is 1 2 4 or five.

[00:11:44]These two can't be two. This one can't be four on the king's move.

[00:11:52]Now, what does this three? If that was a three, this would be eight or nine touching that cell.

[00:12:09]We've got a seven in one of these two by Sudoku.

[00:12:13]We've got eight in one of those two. Not here.

[00:12:18]Nine. I don't know. Nine's not obvious.

[00:12:27]We've got a three to come up here.

[00:12:30]That's quite interesting. If this digit was high, 2, three would be a pair around it.

[00:12:41]If it was high, it would have to be eight or nine. And this would be five.

[00:12:55]Yeah, I'm not sure not sure what's going on. Um, oh, we're close. We're close to a sort of next and probably last major breakthrough. And when that will be finding out how the German whisper works in terms of high low. So if gray is high, this digit is a nine. Oh, look. If gray is high, this digit is a six.

[00:13:28]Okay, this is interesting. One of these two digits is high.

[00:13:36]And that digit is not nine or eight.

[00:13:41]that digit is seven or six going therefore with one or two as the low digit and this one can't be a seven.

[00:13:54]So if that's seven or six, this digit is also one or two. But if that's one or two, this digit is high. And the only high digit allowed there is a nine.

[00:14:05]R that would be looking across at this digit.

[00:14:11]So for this to be high, it would be touching a three and it would be eight or nine, but nine would be looking at it. So it would be eight.

[00:14:21]We'd have nine there and we'd have nine here on the king's move. And now there would be nowhere for nine in row five. Isn't that bizarre?

[00:14:35]Right? Let me explain that again. If this was nine, i.e. high, then this digit would be high and this would be low. That would make this one three. And if that's nine, this would have to be eight. That would put nine here.

[00:14:53]Where would you then put nine in row five? Remember, we posited this as a nine at the start. Couldn't be there because of that nine. Not here because of this nine. And not here by the king's move because of that one. So, this is not nine. This is low. And that is our breakthrough. And we have found that gray is blue. Gray is dark. Gray is low.

[00:15:15]And pink is high. And this digit is a three. And this one is not a three.

[00:15:23]And this one is not a six. And this one is high. Six or seven.

[00:15:30]That's now an 8 n pair. This digit's not allowed to be three.

[00:15:35]I'm going to say 1 2 or four because I just don't. This is known high. That's nine. This is also high. Five won't do.

[00:15:44]So this is eight or nine. And now we do have that 23 pair that I was speculating about. This digit is five at the bottom.

[00:15:54]Two three pair there means this isn't a two. For that to be a four, it would be touching two nines.

[00:16:04]Can't rule that out.

[00:16:08]Trying to keep an eye on the king's the king's move.

[00:16:13]This is high. Let's say any high digit.

[00:16:16]This is low. Can't be four. This is low.

[00:16:18]can't be two.

[00:16:23]Well, that hasn't really resolved all the digits on the line at all. We've got that nine and nothing else. Oh, that deals with this as a one.

[00:16:33]And these are now 2 4 in some order.

[00:16:40]Um, we need a five and a two in these cells. I'm I am thinking that the next thing has to be another king's move issue, but I don't know how to make it. Oh, I haven't thought about this row for a while for good reason.

[00:17:04]There's a seven in one of these two cells.

[00:17:13]That 2 4 5 triple they see both of these.

[00:17:18]So they can't be 255 or nine.

[00:17:27]I don't know this 8 n pair both see that cell 8 97 [clears throat] if that was a six this would be the six in the middle box what would that do to sixes I don't know right let's uh let's find something else important.

[00:18:01]It's tricky. Okay. For this to be a four, we'd get a four here as well. And nine's in both of these.

[00:18:14]Now, what would that do for this to be a four and four here?

[00:18:19]We'd have a four in one of these.

[00:18:29]I don't know. I think I'm close to understanding the puzzle, but actually even filling that in in blue shows me there's three blues in the top row, which I hadn't been fully aware of.

[00:18:45]Where's nine in this row? I can just fill it in. Why didn't I keep thinking about that? It's here.

[00:18:51]And that is the last orange in its column.

[00:18:56]Nine in this box is in one of these cells.

[00:19:07]Eight is in one of these three. Oh, eight's in one of those two. That's better than finding seven in one of those two because this seven eight pair both look at this cell and make it a nine. And that gives me eight and nine down here.

[00:19:24]And that gives me 97.

[00:19:27]I could color eight and six if I wanted.

[00:19:31]Let's keep going with the coloring cuz I like it. Um, now seven, seven. One of these is a seven.

[00:19:44]That digit, whatever it is, must be here. So, this can't be a five. Now those are the same as each other.

[00:19:57]78. That's what got me. Oh, that nine is looking at this cell which is now 8 7 or six. And 9 and 8 are looking at this.

[00:20:07]Okay. This 8, seven, or six here. What's that doing?

[00:20:12]It's If it was six, there'd be nowhere for six in this box. So it's not six.

[00:20:19]It's the same as this digit. Those two are indeed both orange. And that and that whatever that is goes up here somewhere.

[00:20:35]Six is in one of these. Then uh for the box these are from this one is one two or five by General Elimination.

[00:20:47]It's going to be another of these. Where am I going to put four in the box or something? Oh, that. Yeah. Where's six in this column? It is. It's these weird questions that you just don't think of in Sudoku without a king's move in it.

[00:21:01]But that king's move has dealt a blow to that being six. So, we get seven over here.

[00:21:09]Now, now all I know is that one of these three is seven. That's not And that didn't resolve the whisper.

[00:21:18]Ah, no. Look, there's a 798 complete triple. This is a 789 triple. They're all orange, and we know which one is nine if we think about it. So, now I've got a 78 pair there, a 78 pair there, and I might end up with one here.

[00:21:35]Um, but that is still to be resolved.

[00:21:41]If that was a three, this would be an eight. What would we make of that?

[00:21:50]I don't know.

[00:21:58]I bet this is going to be a four because it can be on the line. And the same might be said about that. But 1 5 9 7 8.

[00:22:08]These are Oh, that's not six. So again, we found six. I should have just pursued six. Now I pursue it and unfortunately I just get possibilities.

[00:22:21]Um right this central row has been very helpful.

[00:22:26]In fact this digit is one or four because it can't be two or five. So four is definitely in one of those cells.

[00:22:41]It's in one of those two as well. Are they bound by king's move somewhere? No, I don't think they are. This 78 pair prevents that being a seven in row two.

[00:22:55]So, we've found seven in column eight.

[00:22:59]And that forces this to be eight and that to be seven, this to be eight, that to be seven, which I could have done by just looking at the king's move from there. If I was using half of my brain.

[00:23:12]Now eight is in one of those two cells in the box. And that fixes the corner. A six.

[00:23:19]Now six is there by Sudoku. This is just Sudoku. Now that gives me a six here and a six in the corner.

[00:23:30]Um maybe I got two focused on coloring or something.

[00:23:35]Right. These include five now. 8, five, and either one or four.

[00:23:49]Wow. How is the whisper and the king's move going to solve everything from here? I don't get it. One of these two is a four.

[00:24:04]We're nearly there, but not quite.

[00:24:15]Yeah, I'm finding this quite puzzling if I'm honest. Um, lots is all the orange done in the whole puzzle. 9876 in every single box. It is, you know, even that is quite strange.

[00:24:32]Five in the top row is either in the corner or here. Oh no, we haven't done eight. That's because I haven't written it in. There it is. Right.

[00:24:40]That eight in box three was the last remaining high digit to do.

[00:24:46]There is a five in one of these two cells.

[00:24:53][snorts] Somehow the king's move is going to provide me with more, but it's very hard to see how that's working.

[00:25:12]There's a couple of cells I can color blue, although I don't see the point in it particularly.

[00:25:18]In fact, I might get rid of all the blue now that we've done the orange.

[00:25:21]Everything else is 1 2 3 four or five.

[00:25:23]It doesn't really matter what it is. Um I'm trying to find that for instance is a quad of four different digits because they all see each other.

[00:25:49]But I don't see how that helps.

[00:25:55]Um, I was going to say this can't be four. That's not true. It could be.

[00:26:01]Wow. I'm sorry. I don't I don't know what to do next.

[00:26:06]These are from 145 and they include five.

[00:26:12]This digit is there.

[00:26:22]I mean, there's a point maybe that if that was a one, this would be a two on the line.

[00:26:33]No, I don't know. I think I'm missing something to do with the king's move.

[00:26:37]That's what I think I'm doing.

[00:26:44]But it goes without saying that I don't know what it is. Ah, okay. Five is in one of these two cells.

[00:26:51]And that means using the king's move that five can't be here in row 3, column one. Five must be in one of those two.

[00:26:59]No, not not there on the green line. Not here because of that. And whichever of those positions five's in, it can't be here. So there's only one place for five in this row. And that is quite interesting. Now there's only one place for five in box five. using the king's move again.

[00:27:19]And and and and we know there's a five here. There's a five in one of these two. Now, and then we've we started by observing that there was a five in one of those two and not here.

[00:27:34]So then we get a five up there. So, that hasn't really done done the job, but we got this as a five in a row in a box. That's interesting. This can't be four. It can be 1, two, or three.

[00:27:55]Oh, now I need to find another of those groupings of four digits that all see each other. That's what I need to do.

[00:28:03]Then I would know that they would be potentially one, two, three, four.

[00:28:11]I don't know. This isn't easy to finish off. It's probably like Banksy's artworks. Not easy to finish off. Um, and the king's move is a very different beast from the knight's move. I do find that.

[00:28:32]But I am meant to be focusing on the king's move. I feel it's just where where do I do it? This digit is from 1 2 3 4 5 and it sees all of those. So it must go here. Now it could be green, but I'm going to color it blue for now. No, not blue.

[00:28:56]Red for now.

[00:28:59]And whatever it is, it goes in one of these. So it's not four.

[00:29:08]I mean that that's interesting. It's just not it's just not strong enough to do something with.

[00:29:25]If it's five, obviously that's fine. If it's not, it goes in one of these two and one of these two. Whatever it is.

[00:29:36]And if it's not five, it goes in one of those two. So, it's not there.

[00:29:44]Right? I mean, I think I am then ruling out four.

[00:29:50]So, if that was four, that would be four. That would be four. And there's nowhere for four in box two. So, I can rule out four from this cell if nothing else. And I mean, I I do think nothing else can be ruled out. We knew that four was in one of those in the column. So, maybe there's no shock value going on. However, maybe we can tease something else out because we now know four's in one of these three cells.

[00:30:30]If this digit was a one, we'd get two three four in the row.

[00:30:42]But but okay, I'm going to take Oh, look. There is in this box there is definitely a two in one of those cells. And that means this can't be a two. And that means this is a two in box six. Goodness me. And that means neither of those are a two.

[00:31:00]And this one has become a one.

[00:31:03]Now I thought that was going to be helpful. It gives us a four there. That makes this a two in terms of what it can be that's left.

[00:31:13]That gives us four up here.

[00:31:16]That means this isn't four obviously and this isn't four.

[00:31:22]And now this is one, two, or three. Now has this got us close. So we've got a 1, three pair. We know two is in one of these cells.

[00:31:35]That two is not threatening to touch this one. That's a one, two, three triple in the top row. So that one is four or five. So is this Still not finished, but definitely getting closer. I feel um two we know is in one of those cells.

[00:32:07][snorts] Doesn't get much easier as you get into this, does it? Maybe I'm just not good at spotting the pairs.

[00:32:18]Oh, this red cell can't be two either.

[00:32:21]Why did I color it red? It's a It's a bad color. Yellow is what I should have used. And that can't be one anymore since we got this. So, that yellow cell is three or five and is in one of those two down here.

[00:32:38]And it's in one of those.

[00:32:42]I don't know. It's not. If it was five, it seems more constrained than other things.

[00:32:52]No, that would work fine.

[00:32:56]If it was three, it would be in one of those two. Definitely here. Obviously, we've got some threes in the grid.

[00:33:07]Oh, it would be going there. If it was three. Yes. Yes. Then it would be here.

[00:33:14]So if it was threes, it would be in these positions.

[00:33:20]Oh, seven can't touch three on the line.

[00:33:26]Right. So now I know, do I, that this can't be three because of what I just did. We'd have a three there and we'd have nowhere for three in box two. Wow.

[00:33:36]So yellow becomes five. Not entirely unexpectedly.

[00:33:43]Um, and I'm going to uncolor it. And I think I've got all the fives. No, I have not got all the fives in the grid now.

[00:33:49]And I can put them in. There we go. So, this digit is now a one. And that's going to be important.

[00:33:57]This is two or three. This one has to be a four in the row.

[00:34:03]This is two or three. This is the only place for one in the box.

[00:34:09]And that makes green into a four. Thank you, green. That makes this digit into a one.

[00:34:18]Finishes row four. We finished row five.

[00:34:21]I presume we can finish row six now.

[00:34:25]Or not. Left with a two, three pair.

[00:34:29]I can put in four down in the corner.

[00:34:32]But we are going to finish in a moment.

[00:34:37]when I see the last king's move or I don't think there's any more whisper moves to achieve. We got the last one of those that was necessary.

[00:34:49]So it must be Oh no, it's not King's move. It's just Sudoku three is looking at that digit. So there we go.

[00:34:58]And it is straightforward to finish.

[00:34:59]It's a lovely puzzle. Again, not sure why it slipped through some cracks, but there we go. Not many people have solved it because I think Oyar some sends some exclusively to us. So very well done Oyar for that. Sorry it was so long in the coming to fruition but it was great fun. Thank you guys for watching us as always on the channel. Such a pleasure to have you with us. We'll love to see you again soon. Bye for now.

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