Kakuro and Sudoku

Over the past few months, I have always made a point of carrying around in my pocket some sheets containing sudoku and/or kakuro puzzles. With both puzzle types, I have now reached something of a relatively advanced level, with me now doing sudoku and kakuro puzzles from the "Black Belt" editions of the Martial Arts Suduko and Kakuro series of books by Sterling Publishing Co., Inc., New York. No need to carry with me any solutions: if I "screw up" with a puzzle, a condradiction will inevitably crop up. Nowadays, the one overwhelming factor that will keep me from successfully completing a puzzle is simple carelessness.

I find that I prefer kakuro over sudoku, simply because it requires quick arithmetic and is also a more challenging logic puzzle than sudoku. In both puzzles, a row or column may contain non-repeating combinations of the numbers 1 through 9. With sudoku, each row and column contains all nine numbers, while kakuro rows and columns have variable lengths, with the sum of its numbers indicated next to them. So, for example, a three-space row with the sum "24" indicated will invariably contain the numbers 7, 8, and 9 in some combination. The key to solving the more complicated kakuro puzzles is to eliminate possible numbers for each square by cross-referencing the row and column that the square is a part of. It can be quite exacting and tedious at times, but it is also pretty rewarding to get all the way through a large, difficult puzzle.

I simply buy inexpensive sudoku and kakuro books, rip out a few pages at a time, stuff them in my pocket, and then work on them at my leisure or during times of interruption or waiting. It's a good way to take the edge off situations where I would be tempted to become impatient. I recommend this sort of diversion to others as well. Even if you don't care to do sudoku or kakuro, there are other types of puzzles, such as Jumble, crossword puzzles, word-find, or cryptograms. The idea is to find something that suits you and can challenge you as well.