Timing TBLR Sudoku, 2/26/10-3/11/10

The more Sudoku puzzles I do, the less shocking certain situations become. For example, it’s getting less surprising that I may have to search for a contradiction or tautology by making a choice for a square that has gotten down to two possibilities.

For those who are just tuning in, this is the sixth of a series of posts occuring once every two weeks. In these posts, I show how long it takes for me to do a Sudoku puzzle with the additional restriction of having to fill in the numbers in top-to-bottom, left-to-right order. Hence the name TBLR Sudoku.

Here are the times for the last two weeks, shown with the difference between the time and my personal best for that level of difficulty.

3/11/10 – 4-Star Sudoku in the Star-Tribune, top-to-bottom, left-to-right, 45:58, 17:06 slower than my personal best (PB+17:06)
3/10/10 – 3-Star, 30:23, 1:23 improvement over previous PB, 1/20/10
3/09/10 – 2-Star, 33:29, PB+13:05
3/08/10 – 1-Star, Fail. Again, not really sure what that was about.
3/07/10 – Didn’t do the puzzle
3/06/10 – Didn’t do the puzzle
3/05/10 – 5-Star, 40:22, PB+2:43
3/04/10 – 4-Star, 46:16, PB+17:24
3/03/10 – 3-Star, 46:09, PB+14:24
3/02/10 – 2-Star, 27:13, PB+8:49
3/01/10 – 1-Star, 28:06, PB+9:53
2/28/10 – Didn’t do the puzzle
2/27/10 – Didn’t do the puzzle
2/26/10 – 5-Star, 35:13, 2:26 improvement over previous PB, 2/12/10

Here are the updated personal bests:

1-Star: 18:13, 11/23/09
2-Star: 20:24, 1/12/10
3-Star: 30:23, 3/10/10
4-Star: 28:52, 2/18/10
5-Star: 35:13, 2/26/10
6-Star: 45:09, 2/13/10

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