Thomas Snyder (aka Dr. Sudoku) is a three-time World Sudoku Champion and six-time US Puzzle Champion, as well as the author of several books of puzzles. His puzzles are hand-crafted, with artistic themes, serving as a kind of “cure for the common sudoku.” Almost every day he posts a new puzzle on his blog, The Art of Puzzles. This week’s prescription shrinks the sudoku formula a bit, creating a different kind of challenge from the classic style.
The "story" behind the creation of Tight Fit Sudoku goes something like this. One day in lab, Dr. Sudoku was boiling his sudoku solution and left it unattended for a bit. By the time he got to pouring the solution out on paper, it had gotten so concentrated that the grids had shrunk.
The "reality" behind Tight Fit Sudoku is that by shrinking the puzzle, and adding the new twist that smaller numbers go over bigger numbers in the split cells, a new challenge is formed. In this Tight Fit Sudoku, the odds are all hiding out on the left side, separate from the evens. Try to bring the numbers back together to form the answer.
Rules: Insert a number from 1-9 into each cell so that no number repeats in any row, column, or region. In the cells containing slashes, the smaller number must be entered above the larger number.