ng,ng

Done, no green.

done

Congrats, harpjane! Take with a grain of salt those who pronounce various puzzles as "easy" vs. "hard". Everyone approaches Sudoku differently, so there may not be agreement (and many are intimidated after one says a puzzle is easy to say it was hard for them). Persevere!

Diane is SO correct about the "difficulty levels" because so often the difficulty in solving any particular puzzle depends on how one approaches it. Sadly, I am "set in my ways" and tend to approach all puzzles the same way, rather than take the time to get a good overview of the entire grid and then deciding on the best approach to take.

Yay harp! Take your bow... keep up the good work - and pay no attention to the difficulty ratings. i have seen some real stinkers rated "easy"

Done

:)

Personally I find the difficulty rating of a puzzle helpful because it tells me what I am likely to encounter in solving the puzzle.
For example, solving an expert is likely to include a point at which resolving a pair or a triple requires an advanced technique (or trial and error), and in some experts that happens more than once. But, and this is important, so much of an expert goes into creating the difficult pairs or triples that the rest of the puzzle is often trivial.
Equally, any puzzle rated easier than a hard can be solved without advanced techniques or guesswork, but there may be some tricks which require careful examination and a full helping of greens (and maybe some virtual cross hatching).

In general, the length of time I need to solve a puzzle bears little relation to the difficulty rating, except that experts generally go the fastest.

I have seen many of the Easy ones take longer than the Medium or or Hard grids. I don't really see how they arrive at the ratings. Ones I used to do in newspapers had an Easy, Medium, and Hard.. which seemed about right. This system mystifies me.

TK, an IronSudoku puzzle rating reflects the highest level of difficulty you can expect to encounter in solving the puzzle, measured by the most advanced technique required.
In contrast, publishers of newspapers, magazines and puzzle books tend to use ratings aimed at indicating how long it will to take to solve a puzzle relative to other puzzles.
While the first method is more precise, many people (especially commuters) find the second method more helpful because it's more intuitive and easier to understand.

Personally I like the IronSudoku rating system now, but only because I know from experience how to interpret it. It took me a long time to discover that experts are generally less of a challenge than mediums.

EZPZ even while sleepy. 10.