Things That Terribly Disappoint Joe: Sudoku

The year was 2006. The world was gripped by Sudoku Mania (not to be confused with the Rubiks Cube Ague of 1983). I, being of this world and highly attuned to all its whims and fads, was soon spending every spare waking moment filling empty squares with numbers, such that each number from 1-9 would appear nine times, but once and only once in every row, column, and 3x3 grid.

Man, was I hooked. I started on the easy ones, developed a few strategies, and methodically planned to move up the Sudoku difficulty ladder from easy, to medium, to hard, and finally (Lord willing) fiendish! Each level found me getting stymied, as my early strategies were found to be inadequate to handle the tougher puzzles. But each time, a new strategy appeared before me, beckoning like a great big beckoning thing, showing me the way forward. Thrilled beyond hope, I crept along steadily, amazed in the ability of the human mind to construct ever more refined logical tools to solve problems, until, one day, I finally discovered something that would change my life forever....

You can't solve every Sudoku with plain old logic. There are some puzzles (millions, in fact), where you have to guess - there's no other choice. You pick a square that has two possible numbers, pick one, and try to solve the rest of the squares, hoping that your 50/50 chance works out. If you reach a dead end, you backtrack to that same square, erasing everything you've done along the way, go with the other number, and voilá - a completed puzzle.

I think that's stupid. The whole point of Sudoku is that it's a universal logic game. It's not like the hybrid logic/verbal game of a crossword puzzle. You don't have to know any historical or pop figures; you don't have to know twelve synonyms for "paltry"; you don't have to be clever enough to figure out any themes or cutesy clues (Clue: "Head start?" Answer: "Doodoo"; ha ha ha); you don't need to know anything at all beyond the numbers 1-9 - it's pure logic. Wow! what an incredible challenge, thought I. The greatest human advancement since staging the moon landing at Universal Studios in 1969.

Well, that's baloney. It's not pure logic. If you're guaranteed to reach a point where logic stops working, then it's not pure logic. That's pure frustration. And a waste of my valuable time the entire way. If I'd known that guessing was eventually going to be not only a strategy for the weak, but a requirement for success, I would've found something more worthwhile to do - like twiddling my thumbs, or listening to Kenny G (best jazz artist ever imho).

By the way, I understand that, strictly speaking, guessing (or trial and error, or Ariadne's thread, or whatever you call it) is still logic. When you're walking around a labyrinth, keeping track of where you've been and so forth is actually a very logical way to proceed. In fact, it's the most logical way to proceed. But if you're not in a labyrinth, guessing is stupid.

Point is, Sudoku betrayed my trust. It's not what it purports to be. And I think it's sad that Will Shortz has jumped on the bandwagon by putting his name on so many Sudoku books - for all the dumb puns and obscure 1920s actresses that find their way into the New York Times crossword puzzles, at least you know what you're in for. Suduko, though, the siren of puzzle games, sang her song of mental stimulation, lured me too close to the shores of false logic and dashed my brain ship on the rocks of stupidness. Very messy.