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Yes, Crunched's solution was the one I spotted and leads to a simple solution. I will have a look for the W wing though.

Marty,
If you go back to your first grid (posting), then I believe you can eliminate the 5 from R9 C7 to leave 68 (due to the 5's in box 3. Do you not then have an XYZ wing (46-468-68, boxes 8,9) tha ...

C'mon Earl, we all know you have stolen Marty's IP address and pretended to post under his name !

Crunched - unless I made a mistake, can you not solve the puzzle with just the 468 xyz wing ? [/quo ...

Thanks for the help guys. I will have a look at the fish. I enjoy eating it anyway.

Too hard for me. I spotted a couple of type 4 ur's that were helpful, but that was it.

There seems to be a very large number of solutions to these puzzles using xy or xyz wings . Presumably due to the way in which they are constructed ?

Yes, fairly easy today. I didn't see any other options other than the Ur and xy wing either.

I used the UR. I dare say there are several other options to solve it and I will have a look again at the puzzle after my Saturday chores are finished !

Just to 'stick my oar in' here, I am with Tracy in that I find looking for strong links a more instinctive technique than many of the others - perhaps I enjoy it more as well.

Anyway, it's great to ...

One set of strong links on 3's and an xy wing in blocks 8 and 9 solved the puzzle for me.

Yes, the xyz wing was fairly easy to spot as well because most of the cells were filled in.

All in all a fairly easy 'very hard'.

I think the fastest route to solving this one is the option chosen by Earl. Yes, it is called a 'skyscraper', although I normally refer to it as 'strong links'

In answer to the question as to why there is sometimes a big gap between the VH's, I think you will find that Sam has randomised the sequence of the puzzle difficulty, while maintaining the same 'weig ...

Peter S

If you look at r2c1 (56), r3c2 (25) and r7c1 (26) they form an XY wing and the two pincers can be used to eliminate the '2' in r9c2. This leaves you with a naked pair (79) in c2 which shoul ...

Is there any support out there for a daily very hard puzzle ? I don't know that I would necessarily have the time to do one every day, but it would be nice to have a VH more frequently than at present ...

I can see your finned x wing Marty, but not the UR, perhaps I had 'destroyed' it beforehand.

Anyway, thanks for posting the puzzle Keith

well this one looks quite formidable at the start with so few clues, but simple techniques take you quite a long way and then a 'skyscraper' (strong links) on 3's breaks it open.

How about using the type 4 UR at r7c2,4 and r9c2,4 ?

Well, it was a fun puzzle and it's nice to be able to use a range of techniques.

I reached the exact same grid as Mesmin, but fail to see how it can be solved from there using simple techniques.

However, there is a quick route without the X wing on the 8's. If you use simple co ...