Is the iterative method in Sudoku cheating?

-a small discourse in applied ethics

So I´m a tad addicted to Sudoku, the Japanese number puzzle. Not obsessed or anything, but sometimes it seems the hours just fly by with numbers 1 to 9 buzzing about in my head, especially when on vehicles of public transport.

I don´t think I´m more stupid than the next person, but sometimes it just seems like it´s all stuck. You go through it time and again, but the chain of thinking simply gets to long. If you´re not Kasparov you´ll recognize this. I used to go into head ache mode or eventually go amiss and realize it to late. Well, there´s always another one to solve...

Until I realized there´s a shortcut available. No, wait, a friend of mine realized. In any one of the boxes with two possible numbers, he (this other person) simply picks either number and go ahead solving. If you get corrupt results, it was the other number; if you run through the entire Sudoku, congratulation on guessing correctly. He (a distant friend of mine) uses pen and pencil to distinguish between secure numbers and “guessed”. Naturally, if you would need to do a second guessing iteration, things become more complicated. However, it gives the schmucks out there a much needed teeny-weeny bit of an edge.

And all would be well with this, I guess. But then comes the memories from the mathematics in school, of a distinct feeling that iteration was actually cheating. I mean the teachers presented it as correct mathematical method, but for us simple minds in the audience it sure seemed as just trial-and-error. It lacked the sophistication of “real” problem solving with all those nice algebraic and derivative methods. Guessing and hoping for the best was not the image of genius in action, at least not in my head. This is of course is more of an aesthetic view than an ethical. For those of you in to the Sudoku thing, how do you feel about it?

PS. So this is out of character, tough luck. I entertained the thought of elevating the matter to a discussion on the relation between aesthetics and ethics, but decided sleep was more needed. As it stands, this is strictly “un bagatuelle”. Helps keep my intellect down to earth, I guess.