Any Kakuro fans out there?

[rabidsamfan]

I've been doing them as "Cross Sums" forever, and I've worked out a nifty little chart to help solve them, and I'll explain it if anyone's interested. I was going to send it to Will Shortz, and complain about how easy his book was, but the submission box wouldn't take my message. So there, bleah.

Comments

[siouxieq.livejournal.com]

I love Kakuro, but I solve them like I do Sudoku - with brute force (write all the numbers that it could be in the square and then eliminating them)

Have you had the Addoku (Killer Sudoku) craze in the US yet? That's the one I like the best.

[rabidsamfan.livejournal.com]

I've seen Addoku, but not under that name (yeah for google searching). My little chart works for that too.

And what you call "brute force" is really the only thing that works with Kakuro, although some folks have memorized the limits of the combinations so well that it looks like something else. With Sudoku you can approach the problem by starting with a number and looking for which positions it can fall into, as opposed to starting with a position and looking for which values can fall into it. But you still have to sometimes look at a position and eliminate values.

What I call brute force is guesswork. Wear your eraser out that way...

[rabidsamfan.livejournal.com]

You've got to check out http://www.killersudokuonline.com/

The killersudoku/addoku for the day or week is bad enough. Now I'm hooked on "greater than" sudoku and "greater than" killer sudoku. (Be sure to read the rules before you try that one...)