It really isn't when you get into the hard ones.
The logic required to solve them changes as you
work the more difficult ones out.

Yes Ed, I got it a couple of days ago and I actually have a check on my desk ready to mail to you. Not that it is doing any good to you while it is sitting on my desk, so when I head out to the post office in the morning I will send it. I haven't had a chance to look closely at the magazine but a cursory glance tells me you did a great job as usual.

And Ed, Sudoku is really not as simple as it sounds. The difficulty ranges from easy to difficult and although not unsolverable, the difficult ones can be quite trying.

Hi Bob,
Thanks in advance for the cash news. It is always welcome!

Bob and DVIGNES, there's a difference between "simple" and "complex" on the one hand and "easy" and "difficult" on the other. Chess is complex and difficult, while checkers is simple and difficult; tic-tac-toe is simple and easy. Games that are simple and difficult attract a different type of person than games that are complex and difficult. The latter type of people are more rare than the former in America.

Ed Yetman, III
YetmanBrothers.com

Sudoku is very popular in Denmark to. I have solved a few, but it does not interest me much.

Why solve Sudokus when you can use the time solving chess problems instead?

There was an All India sudoku contest held in Mumbai recently and it attracted lot of media attention. I think that was mainly because of the novelty factor since it was probably the first time ever that such a contest was held on a national basis.

Chess is of course far more interesting as compared to sudoku which is more of a puzzle rather than a game. You solve a sudoku puzzle on your own without involving any opponent. The popularity of sudoku stems from the fact that it is so handy to solve especially while travelling you just need a pen/pencil and unlike chess you dont have to set up any board or pieces.

Sanjeev

I think one of the attractions of soduko is that it is simple and depending on the puzzle can vary in difficulty allowing an appropriate level of challenge for a wide variety of people.

As far as I’m concerned, Sudoku is stealing valuable shelf space from crossword puzzle omnibuses at book stores. I can’t wait for this fad to end.

That's not so bad. Sudoku is stealing shelf space from chess books at my local McNally-Robinson, however, which is very bad indeed.

On a related note, it sure is depressing browsing the chess section at McN-R. My chess library is at least ten times larger than theirs. Makes one long to live in a civilized part of the world. Like New York, or London. Or Boise.

Local bookstores around these parts never had a great variety of chess books to begin with. As such I’ve gotten use to ordering my chess books online and waiting for delivery.*


When I run out of crosswords, however, I usually don’t want to wait five to seven days, nor do I want to pay overnight charges on $7-14 purchases.

A bit more than half of the crossword anthologies at the local Borders Booksellers are beginners or cute novelty puzzles that I may have found interesting when I started solving but now just leave me wanting. The rest are the wonderful collections from the Boston Globe, Washington Post, and my beloved N.Y. Times which, after 11 years of fervent solving (my wife introduced me when we started dating), I’ve managed to go through the lot of them. Since sudoku came on the seen, I’ve noticed that the new omnibuses are slower and fewer to come in stock. Meanwhile, the sudoku section has grown to include six shelves, an end cap and its very own table at the front of the store.

*[When I was younger, I got almost all of my chess books through the USCF and Chessco. I burned through the local book stores rather quickly. My chess library is over 400 titles (something that I am oddly proud of), most purchased during that wonderful time when I had a job and no expenses.]