It's Saturday February 13, 2010. Happy Valentine's Day tomorrow and Happy Family Day on Monday. Today's the day the secret of THE CHALLENGER is revealed. You'll find it on P7, in the puzzles and comics section of the Saturday Star. Get over it! Go buy one.
For reference let's number the rows 1 to 6 from bottom to top and the columns will be 1 to 5 from left to right.
The fist thing to look for is a row or column with a low total. Look at column 3. Subtract the given number,6 , from the total of 12 for the column and we have 6 left to make up in that column. This can be made up with a 4 and 2-ones. But where to place them? Consider row 4. If the 4 is placed in the third square , the ones go above and below it.
The current total then for row 4 is 7. Subtract this from 25, leaving 18. This must be made up with 2-nines.
Looking for similar relationships, check column 4. 16-9-2=5 which is made up with a 4 and 1-one. Place the 4 in row 3. The remaining square in row 3 must be 9. The rest of the puzzle is duck soup, as the Marx brothers would say.
Let me know whether or not this makes any sense at all.
Showing posts with label Challenger. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Challenger. Show all posts
Saturday, February 13, 2010
Sunday, February 07, 2010
Why Are You So Puzzled (3)
MINI-CROSS PUZZLE #3
ANSWERS for PUZZLE #2
Across: 3. miasma, 5. antonym, 7. bottom
Down: 1. riot, 2. Tammy, 4. barbs, 6. neon Place: Manitoba
Many of you may be familiar with a number puzzle, The Challenger. It is syndicated across the continent including in the Toronto Saturday Star. It is credited to Linus Maurer, an artist and cartoonist who was also a friend of Charles Schulz. Mr. Maurer's puzzle consists of a 4x4 square grid in which 4 numbers from 1 to 9 are placed so that there is only one given number in any of the four rows or four columns. Along the bottom and right side of the grid are given numbers which represent the totals of all the digits in each row, column and diagonal. The object is to enter digits from 1-9 into the blank spaces in the rows and columns so that the totals are all met. I hesitate to show an example here because this puzzle is copyrighted and I don't wish to infringe on that. I think my description is accurate.
What irks me about this puzzle is that a "Working Time" is given in minutes and seconds to guide a player, presumably into comparing oneself with the rest of the puzzling population. How does he know how long it should take anyone let alone give that time to the second? It seems disingenuous to even quote such a figure. I want to show you how to solve this puzzle in under a minute, every time. And I will do this in a post on this blog next Saturday February 13. I'll use the numbers for that day's puzzle in the Star for the explanation. Your time is too valuable to waste so much of it on the Challenger. Let me show you how to drastically cut that time and you can then spend more time googling other stuff.
ANSWERS for PUZZLE #2
Across: 3. miasma, 5. antonym, 7. bottom
Down: 1. riot, 2. Tammy, 4. barbs, 6. neon Place: Manitoba
Many of you may be familiar with a number puzzle, The Challenger. It is syndicated across the continent including in the Toronto Saturday Star. It is credited to Linus Maurer, an artist and cartoonist who was also a friend of Charles Schulz. Mr. Maurer's puzzle consists of a 4x4 square grid in which 4 numbers from 1 to 9 are placed so that there is only one given number in any of the four rows or four columns. Along the bottom and right side of the grid are given numbers which represent the totals of all the digits in each row, column and diagonal. The object is to enter digits from 1-9 into the blank spaces in the rows and columns so that the totals are all met. I hesitate to show an example here because this puzzle is copyrighted and I don't wish to infringe on that. I think my description is accurate.
What irks me about this puzzle is that a "Working Time" is given in minutes and seconds to guide a player, presumably into comparing oneself with the rest of the puzzling population. How does he know how long it should take anyone let alone give that time to the second? It seems disingenuous to even quote such a figure. I want to show you how to solve this puzzle in under a minute, every time. And I will do this in a post on this blog next Saturday February 13. I'll use the numbers for that day's puzzle in the Star for the explanation. Your time is too valuable to waste so much of it on the Challenger. Let me show you how to drastically cut that time and you can then spend more time googling other stuff.
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