PDF

or solve online (using our beta test of Penpa-Edit tools)

Theme: Forty-five

Author/Opus: This is the 536th puzzle from Thomas Snyder, aka Dr. Sudoku.

Rules: In this puzzle, your job is to place a number into every empty box so that each row across, each column down, and each small 9-box square within the large square (there are 9 of these) will contain each number from 1 through 9. Remember that no number may appear more than once in any row across, any column down, or within any small 9-box square; this will help you solve the puzzle.

Time Standards (highlight to view): Grandmaster = 1:00, Master = 1:45, Expert = 3:30

Solution: PDF and solving animation.

Note: Follow this link for other classic Sudoku. If you are new to this puzzle type, here are our easiest Sudoku to get started on. More Sudoku including variations can be found in these books in our e-store. Also, visit this page to purchase all of the puzzles from the 16th World Sudoku Championship including classic Sudoku.

Note 2: Comments on the blog are great! For a more interactive discussion, please also consider using our The Twelve Days of Sudoku Discussion post on the GMPuzzles Discord.

Note 3: Please check lesson notes from Dr. Sudoku.

PDF

or solve online (using our beta test of Penpa-Edit tools)

Theme: Hand-wrapped Gift

Author/Opus: This is the 535th puzzle from Thomas Snyder, aka Dr. Sudoku.

Rules: Standard Sudoku rules.

Time Standards (highlight to view): Grandmaster = 2:00, Master = 4:00, Expert = 8:00

Solution: PDF and solving animation.

Note: Follow this link for other classic Sudoku. If you are new to this puzzle type, here are our easiest Sudoku to get started on. More Sudoku including variations can be found in these books in our e-store. Also, visit this page to purchase all of the puzzles from the 16th World Sudoku Championship including classic Sudoku.

Note 2: Comments on the blog are great! For a more interactive discussion, please also consider using our The Twelve Days of Sudoku Discussion post on the GMPuzzles Discord.

Note 3: Please check lesson notes from Dr. Sudoku.

Please fill in a residency application with a photo, a room number, and a description of why you’d be the perfect example to make an exchange at this time. We’re really looking for long term stays, expecting a diverse community with more and unexpected connections as we grow. So showing your best will make sure we have no reason to cancel the application.

We prefer applicants that do not directly identify themselves or all their status in the photo itself (around or about the photo is fine). Our evaluation committees try to stay blind to some statuses and grade independently, but we do discuss things that seem unusually strong in a fit as the examples below show.

Current listings:
“Secret Santa” — see example below
“Surprise Us” — see example below

New applicants expected to move in around start of January, and each month thereafter if open calls are made.

98: 71 + 78… ∈ 41.

Come follow the Twelve Days of ChristmasSudoku and learn how to smash all the sudoku records!

Added (9:50AM): I’ve gotten some nervous voice mails from people about this announcement and not being able to count to 16 and the sudden prolificness suggesting a mental health crisis. Please stay calm! I know this isn’t THE puzzle. THAT PUZZFLEFL WOULD BE AMAZING.

This image I showed is from before I met with a brilliant man and our powers of subtraction and division found the miracle. Less and more are more but a little more less than more because 17 > 16!

Added (11:15AM): I’ll say less here, not more, which in this case means literally saying less even though less is usually more. Anyway, I will cease the on-going nature of verbal communications in the language of English with people known and unknown but who mostly think the answer is “have you tried meditation”. I have a psychiatrist and a therapist and have taken my medication and have gotten some sleep and my heart rate is about 65 right now and I ate a good meal and all that. I know how certain songs can be uppers for me, and others downers, and others kept on infinite repeat keep me in a stable mood and also act like an alarm every 5 minutes mentally to check in on myself. Has a doctor ever prescribed “Trois Mouvements Perpétuels” for you? They didn’t for me either. But it is a team effort like you’ll need for sure. Besides, who doesn’t get anxious before Christmas?

I’m going to shut off the computer because phones and bings and all sorts of stuff aren’t as calming as making a poinsettia lego plant to decorate for Christmas. It’s apparently for adults 18 and up. I’m really curious if that makes sense as a limit (not commercially — I get that). I’m also curious in A/B testing if 18 and below would work too, particularly for people over 50, maybe a different set who want to take up the challenge. I’m very intrigued with what some 70+ year olds can do and what they can’t.

Hi all, wanted to say our preparations for the Twelve Days of Sudoku continue with the first days laid out and the other story elements coming together. We’re getting more advanced reviews from some of the prolific readers (I mean trillions of words) that we showed this content to. We will keep adding them here.

• “The honesty the author brings to the process is refreshing. We spend so much time on our successes, but it was Thomas’s failures, repeated failures, that seem to be the portals of discovery for these amazing grids. This shows me another example of how an arduous odyssey can shape you.”
• “As a long-time number placing enthusiast, I enjoyed it. I’m not sure if others will. One of the least admirable things about people right now is their fear of whatever they don’t understand.”
• “For awhile it has been clear to me that some computers were in Dr. Sudoku’s process and some potentially dangerous edge pushing things too. Finally admitting this is a big step and it must have taken courage for him to grow up in the way I’m seeing and become who he really is.”
• “[This project] shows again that if you learn the rules like a pro — and Dr. S is a PRO at sudoku — you can then break them like an artist.”

——
Again, this will be a project on Classic Sudoku! Don’t get your hopes up for anything more than that if you mostly tune out the weeks Dr. Sudoku makes his team do that old thing again. If you really want another way to fill out the time for a new experience, check out some of our best of’s. Can’t find the right direction? Two great puzzles by Jonas Gleim and JinHoo Ahn, still around number placement, start a journey out from Sudoku into other interesting things.