Thursday, July 31, 2008

TTD's at work

In this example I will show you how a TTDs can help you to solve a puzzle




Look at the numbers five, there are five written on the grids.
The other four grids have the POP's (points of possibilities) dotted in. I have circled those in red.

I performed a TTD on the number five (incomplete of course) as seen below

Below it I have done a pair of DDTs with the POPs (and yes RW sometimes you'll need a fourth dot in this process)
The grids without the number 5 are, left center and left bottom plus right center and right bottom.
By overlapping the POPs over the uncompleted TTD pattern, you will notice that the only possible pattern is the "airplane". (topside bottom left)
This knowledge will not solve the number 5 pattern, because there is two options for the completion of the said pattern. But.
You can eliminate (r6c2) and (r9c8) or as I like to simplify (6x2) and (9x8).

You can "logically" eliminate those two cells as candidates for the number 5.
Thereby cell (6x2) becomes a possible 1-8 and cell (9x8) becomes a solved 9.
All this was accomplished through the use of deductive TTDs.

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