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Sudoku Training

by George Ho

154 pages; quality trade paperback (softcover); catalogue #06-3077; ISBN 1-4251-1318-4; US$15.00, C$15.00, EUR10.25, £7.74

'SUDOKU Training' by Dr. George Ho, a book full of rules, techniques, direct/indirect fillings, examples, exercises with answers, and a uniform method to help solve logically and systematically SUDOKU puzzles.

About the Book

The standard SUDOKU puzzle is a grid of 81 cells made up of nine rows, nine columns and subdivided into nine 3x3 blocks. In a Sudoku puzzle, some cells of the grid come with the numbers 1 to 9 already inserted. The objective is to fill in all blank cells with numbers from 1 to 9 in such a way that each row, each column and each 3x3 block of the grid contains all numbers from 1 to 9.

Solving a SUDOKU puzzle is both easy and difficult, easy thanks to the simplicity of its definition and its independence on the knowledge of mathematics and language; difficult because ‘deadlocks’ usually happen and obstruct the continuation of the filling.

The book has 3 objectives:

a)Proposing the terminology used in SUDOKU for ease of communication.

b)Formulating the rules and setting up a uniform method for solving logically and systematically SUDOKU puzzles.

c)Promoting the manual practice to solve SUDOKU puzzles, considering it as a good exercise for the brain.

The book explains many Value Rules and Candidate Rules such as the Two-Occurrence Rule, Cross Line Rules, Opaque / Open Wall Rules, Cell Family Rules, Rule of the Holes, Certain Line Rules, Generalised Two-Occurrence Rule, Indirect Filling with the False Chain Filling, Special Triplets, Unsolvable Rectangle Rules, Special Chain of 2-value Cells of same numbers, Rectangle of Cells with same Pointing number, Three parallel Bamboo Sticks of same number, the Meeting Point of Chains of Cells initiated by a 2-value Cell, the N-Shared-Cell of N numbers, Twin, Triplet and Quad, the ‘Trial and Error’ technique, …

The rules are followed by examples and exercises with answers. Proposed steps of a uniform method to solve logically and systematically SUDOKU puzzles and an explained solution of a sample SUDOKU puzzle are also given.

About the Author

Dr. George Ho graduated in Mathematics from the Faculty of Pedagogy, University of Saigon in 1962. He holds a Bachelor in Mathematics (1965), a Doctorat d’État ès Sciences Physiques (1975), University of Saigon, Vietnam, and a Graduate Diploma in Data Processing (1982), University of Technology, Sydney, Australia.

He used to be a teacher at a high school, a former Assistant Lecturer at the Faculty of Sciences, Saigon, Vietnam.

His last job was with Baycorp Advantage Limited in Sydney.

He retired in July 2006.

Excerpts