gareth Administrator Daily subscriber Has not played this puzzle yet
Usually when you find a 5x5 Futoshiki hard it's because it starts with an 'x-wing'. What's an 'x-wing'? Well:
Columns 3 and 4 each can only have a '5' in their 2nd and 3rd rows, so you can eliminate a '5' from other columns on the 2nd and 3rd rows since you know these are already accounted for. This is called an 'x-wing' deduction.
If you then follow through the inequality in the 4th column you find that row 4 must have '1', '2' and '3' in columns 2, 3 and 4, which means you must have '4' and '5' in columns 1 and 5 in some order - this is called a 'naked triple' deduction.
Now in column 5 you only have '4' and '5' as options in the 4th and 5th row, so you can eliminate them elsewhere in that column. At this point the only place a '1' can fit in that column is in row 2.
Sorry: You must log in (create a free user) in order to be able to post comments on this puzzle.
You can however view other players' statistics and comments in the tables above.
Post comment
Key
A yellow/light blue highlight in the time distribution charts highlights your time, where relevant.
Rating scores out of 10.0 show the average difficulty rating chosen by users, where 1.0 is "Easy" and 10.0 is "Hard".
If a puzzle is opened more than once, including by loading from a saved position, then this is potentially a significant aid so it is listed as being completed with 'multiple sessions' for the purpose of the best time/average rating displays above.
Minor aid is defined as no more than one use of 'Check solution' when incomplete and/or no more than one use of 'Check solution' when wrong; and/or using highlighting aids (show repeated digits, show broken inequalities and show valid/invalid placements [slitherlink] only). Major aid is any and all other use of the solving aids except for 'show wrong'.
Columns 3 and 4 each can only have a '5' in their 2nd and 3rd rows, so you can eliminate a '5' from other columns on the 2nd and 3rd rows since you know these are already accounted for. This is called an 'x-wing' deduction.
If you then follow through the inequality in the 4th column you find that row 4 must have '1', '2' and '3' in columns 2, 3 and 4, which means you must have '4' and '5' in columns 1 and 5 in some order - this is called a 'naked triple' deduction.
Now in column 5 you only have '4' and '5' as options in the 4th and 5th row, so you can eliminate them elsewhere in that column. At this point the only place a '1' can fit in that column is in row 2.
And so on.
You can however view other players' statistics and comments in the tables above.