How Can This Possibly Solve?!

Amazing solve (as always) by Simon! You found the intended solve path almost exactly, which was really cool to see. The puzzle has a 4 star out of 5 difficulty rating on Logic Masters Germany, so it's definitely not intended to be particularly easy. I think 50 minutes is a pretty good time considering you spent quite a bit of that time explaining your thought process so we can all enjoy getting a glimpse into your reasoning!

Even when something goes wrong , you still manage to give us a video today Simon. Never enough thank yous for your continous dedication to the channel and community.

Those lightbulb moments when Simon sees his way out of a particularly difficult situation, it's like watching a carousel horse breaking free from its moorings and galloping off into the sunset! Another brilliant solve and all done whist explaining the complexities of thought.

15:45 The other way to fix which cell is doubled in the 11 cage is just to use bishop color - 6 * 2 = 12 so a 2-cell 11 cage cannot have a doubled high digit, therefore it must be the cell in that cage that can have a low digit on the loop.

This got me thinking, a situationally useful (but in those situations very useful) feature in solving software would be a single button toggle that let you turn on and off a shaded checkerboard overlay, save a lot of "let me run a long diagonal around the grid to figure out if these two are on the same bishop color"

I loved this puzzle. German Whispers is one of my favorite constraints, and I really like the way this one exploits the checkerboard-preserving nature of an orthogonal snake.

Whenever Simon says "high-low-high-low" I think of "Hi-Lili, Hi-Lo." He should do that as a guitar intro!

What a brilliant puzzle. I just lacked the confidence to believe I was going alright. So every now and then I watched Simon's solve, but all he did was confirm that I was going okay each time, so although I used him as a prop I actually worked out all the bits myself. Just need to believe - as Simon kept saying it just didn't look as though there was enough informatin to solve it.

I loved this. I am not a loop-puzzle-attempter, but I sure do love watching you do them, Simon, because you are so good at the thinking required. Thanks for this video!

I instantly thought about only one cell from 23 cage and 11 cage could be on the loop, but it took me much longer to realise even more simple thing that bottom cell of 11 cage and top cell of 23 cage can't be on the loop, lol. Still it was really fun to solve, I love that puzzle!)

1:07:14 - That was gorgeous. I’m not so quick at spotting some of the logic but I feel fantastic when I do.

Wow. Driving into a telegraph pole is one thing, but driving through a telegraph pole takes some effort! 🙂Hope your power is restored quickly.

Got it in 34 minutes. I think it helps a lot if you use two different colors for the loop (create checkerboard pattern of high-low).

Came specifically to see how both of you did on championship puzzles yesterday. Don’t have a subscription to Times so wouldn’t let me see the article. Maybe Mark will tell us later today? Sorry to hear about Simon’s power cut!! 🙁 Hope it is repaired quickly!! So grateful you had a puzzle in your “stash” for us! Win or lose, you’re both still our heroes!! ❤️

The one time I ever got off work early in 5 years at my last job was when a truck hit a pole. This must be the repayment for that. I was looking forward to hearing the post-mortem from Simon, but I'll take the karmic blame for this one all.

This was a very satisfying puzzle to work over a few days. Spotting and using the triples led to some great deductions.

Hi Simon, I wanted to thank you and Mark. During covid I found comfort in your videos. I don't think I ever commented back then. After the world opened up I rarely watched your videos. Recently I went back to watching your videos every day, again for comfort (I live in Israel). Thank you for providing comfort and wholesomeness at troubled times. It's helping, a lot. No need to give a shootout. I'm sure more people in Israel are watching, trying to distract themselves from the war. No need to remind them of the war in their moments of escapism. I'm skipping the shoutouts these days exactly to avoid the potential of encountering a shoutout related to the war. Thank you

Sorry to hear about the bad news, hope everything is restored soon!

Very difficult one. After your start I tried and I get it. Interesting these loops puzzles. See you tomorrow! 🤗

Great puzzle. It took me ages but it was absolutely exciting.