It was probably a year after I started watching before I started attempting the puzzles myself. It started with Mark's videos that were under 45 min and Simon's that were under 30. Now I think my limit is under 90 minutes for Simon, except pencil puzzles, I'll try any of those. The video length can actually be a bad indicator of how difficult I find it. They both do math heavy puzzle really fast, and Simon has a knack with set theory.

[–] bionicjoey@lemmy.ca 3 points 1 year ago (1 children)

They both do math heavy puzzle really fast, and Simon has a knack with set theory.

That's a good point. Simon seems to have every killer cage committed to memory lol. Set isn't too bad if it's the Phistomefel ring (and clearly signalled by the clues), but some of the other sets I've seen him spot are damn near impossible for me to see.

[–] l_b_i@yiffit.net 3 points 1 year ago (1 children)

They both worked in banking, so the math makes sense. For the sums I have a feel for most of the extremes and common ones, the triangular numbers, the maximum numbers, the missing or extra "ones" (4 digits that add up to 14, 4 digits for 11...). I usually just use the killer calculator for the other ones. At least on the desktop site its under the advanced settings.
That too is about my limit for set, although I might see the expanded ones too. As soon as Simon highlighted the cells in yesterdays feature he immediately knew it was set. I don't know how he does it.

[–] bionicjoey@lemmy.ca 3 points 1 year ago (1 children)

To be fair he has done a LOT of set puzzles haha

[–] l_b_i@yiffit.net 2 points 1 year ago

I don't know if Simon has played set https://www.setgame.com/set/puzzle . Sorry. But yes he has experience.