Kakuro

The Thursday evening before last, I was relaxing in my comfortable chair in the corner of my living room, with severe storms brewing outside, reading that day’s edition of my local newspaper The Gainesville Sun. It’s one of the benefits of living in Gainesville that I am able to have such a good newspaper as this! Anyway, I happened upon their weekly Kakuro puzzle and I said, what the heck, let’s see how far I can go in it before I get stymied. And, as the thunder outside was booming and lightning was crashing loudly right outside my window, I focused on the puzzle and, to my amazement, completed it successfully! It was my first Kakuro victory! I decided then to hit some sites on the Web that had more Kakuro, and I completed four more that stormy night.

The following days, when I had some free time available, I would sit down and try my hand at a Kakuro puzzle. Inevitably, I’d reach a point in the puzzle where I’d end up with the same two numbers in a row (which isn’t permitted in the rules). This was due to carelessness on my part. I went through about six puzzles like this. And then, a couple of nights ago, as storms were once again descending over my area, my concentration went into full throttle forward again and I zipped successfully through two more puzzles!

George Noory, the paranormal-accepting host of the late night radio show Coast-to-Coast AM, repeatedly claims that there are no such things as coincidences. But my gut instincts tell me that’s a lot of nonsense. Sure, sometimes there really is a cause-and-effect relationship between two hitherto-believed-to-be unrelated phenomena, and sometimes the events are tied together by their connections with a third, unknown event. But much of the time things just happen at the same time! Still, it’s a little spooky to me that my mental concentration was more enhanced when their seemed to be more electricity in the air! Needless to say, this bears more observation before I can make any reasonable conclusion about a connection.

I had written earlier that I would finish my Fiendish Sudoku book (I still have more than fifty puzzles left) before starting Kakuro, but the opportunity presented itself and I’m now glad that I’m doing Kakuro, too. Both puzzles are specialized logic problems with their own particular appeals. Kakuro does, however demand a certain elementary competence with adding numbers. So, if you’ve successfully completed the first grade, I think you’re qualified to start Kakuro. Obviously, it’s a bit more involved than that, but like anything worthwhile, you pick up insights and skills as you go along and gradually get better at it. I’m just wondering whether I’ll reach the point where it’s too easy (assuming I’ve overcome my tendency to make careless mistakes). Until that moment, which may never happen, I’ll enjoy my newly-found hobby!