Search found 252 matches

by gareth
Fri 01 Mar, 2024 11:56 pm
Forum: Puzzle Competitions
Topic: UKPA Hall of Fame
Replies: 12
Views: 39592

Re: UKPA Hall of Fame

Updated with 2024 results so far. (This post added purely to update the last-posting date on the forum)
by gareth
Wed 21 Feb, 2024 10:40 pm
Forum: Puzzle Competitions
Topic: UKPA Open Sudoku and Puzzle Tournament 2024
Replies: 13
Views: 632

Re: UKPA Open Sudoku and Puzzle Tournament 2024

Thanks Liane. That is not the answer I expected. It makes the constraint rather weak for long lines. Liane has emailed an update on this answer to those attending, as follows: "through contact with the puzzle author and puzzle type inventor they have confirmed that the constraint for that type...
by gareth
Sun 18 Feb, 2024 2:09 am
Forum: Puzzle Competitions
Topic: UKPA Open Sudoku and Puzzle Tournament 2024
Replies: 13
Views: 632

Re: UKPA Open Sudoku and Puzzle Tournament 2024

Looks great! A tiny note: the names of the rounds for round 4 and round 5 of the Puzzle event are the wrong way around on the schedule.
by gareth
Fri 08 Dec, 2023 10:06 pm
Forum: Announcements
Topic: 2024 UKPA Open Sudoku and Puzzle Tournament
Replies: 9
Views: 5328

Re: 2024 UKPA Open Sudoku and Puzzle Tournament

Just to note, to add to Alex's incredibly helpful list of hotels, that the prices are for someone staying for 2 nights - but it is the Saturday night that is more expensive so if you are only doing the sudoku and so stay only on Friday night it is currently £48.50 at the nearby Premier Inn, as oppos...
by gareth
Sun 25 Jun, 2023 10:21 pm
Forum: Puzzle Competitions
Topic: WSC and WPC 2023 in Toronto
Replies: 2
Views: 1376

Re: WSC and WPC 2023 in Toronto

Angus, that's great! There's also a thread in the Members' forum on this but I'll make a note there you're interested.
by gareth
Mon 20 Feb, 2023 8:35 pm
Forum: Announcements
Topic: 2023 UKPA Open Sudoku and Puzzle Tournament
Replies: 5
Views: 7570

Re: 2023 UKPA Open Sudoku and Puzzle Tournament

The two highest-scoring competitors in each tournament who are eligible to represent the UK (i.e. hold a UK passport, broadly speaking) will also be invited to join the UK 'A' team for the World Sudoku Championship (WSC) or World Puzzle Championship (WPC) as appropriate, which it has just been confi...
by gareth
Thu 09 Feb, 2023 9:33 pm
Forum: Puzzle Competitions
Topic: Upcoming international puzzle and sudoku events
Replies: 6
Views: 3912

Re: Upcoming international puzzle and sudoku events

Liane, the UK events have been on there since the first version. The dates are in US format and it is sorted by the order they were added to the spreadsheet, not date order. You must not have scrolled down far enough. We can volunteer dates on the relevant Discord channel, which I did a few weeks ag...
by gareth
Fri 03 Feb, 2023 4:11 pm
Forum: Puzzle Competitions
Topic: Upcoming international puzzle and sudoku events
Replies: 6
Views: 3912

Upcoming international puzzle and sudoku events

The WPF have compiled a spreadsheet which they plan to update to list upcoming puzzle and sudoku events:
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/ ... QLT9y2q6m5

There are already 52 events listed at the time of me posting this message, so it's off to a great start!
by gareth
Wed 11 Jan, 2023 11:59 pm
Forum: Puzzle Competitions
Topic: Sudoku Grand Prix 2023
Replies: 1
Views: 2050

Re: Sudoku Grand Prix 2023

If you plan to take part you might like to know that some people have posted practice puzzles to the WPF Discord server: https://discord.gg/NM9xn6Rm9k
by gareth
Wed 11 Jan, 2023 11:54 pm
Forum: Puzzle Competitions
Topic: WPF rankings
Replies: 0
Views: 4837

WPF rankings

The WPF have introduced solver rankings, taking into account active GP and WSPC solvers. You can find these at https://www.worldpuzzle.org/ - currently on the front page. Initial sudoku ratings are available, with puzzle ones to follow next week. At launch the UK's highest-rated sudoku solver is Sam...
by gareth
Fri 10 Jun, 2022 8:08 am
Forum: Announcements
Topic: UKPA Newsletter
Replies: 2
Views: 4432

Re: UKPA Newsletter

Do you mean the message that shows as being sent by you yesterday? I didn’t receive it, even in a spam folder.
by gareth
Thu 10 Feb, 2022 4:12 pm
Forum: Puzzle Competitions
Topic: Division D 2021-22
Replies: 16
Views: 8902

Re: Division D 2021-22

The instructions are slightly wrong, or at least incomplete. Where they say "cells with numbers" they should say "grey-shaded cells", given that there are some that have no numbers. This might be obvious in practice but it is nonetheless important because otherwise you might naiv...
by gareth
Mon 08 Nov, 2021 3:03 pm
Forum: Announcements
Topic: 2021 World Sudoku+Puzzle Convention
Replies: 13
Views: 15132

Re: 2021 World Sudoku+Puzzle Convention

Received this in the past hour from the WPF: Dear members, The awaited online World Sudoku+Puzzle Convention starts this Friday at 3 PM GMT at the Logic Masters India website. The event lasts 11 days and besides the competition part, you can attend a lot of panels with authors and top solvers via ZO...
by gareth
Sat 15 May, 2021 11:35 pm
Forum: Puzzle Competitions
Topic: UKPA Masyu Contest 14 May - 19 May 2021
Replies: 16
Views: 14015

Re: UKPA Masyu Contest 14 May - 17 May 2021

Registration is now working again.

Sorry for the problems registering over the past few weeks.
by gareth
Thu 04 Mar, 2021 4:39 am
Forum: Puzzle Competitions
Topic: UKPA Skyscrapers Contest 25 February - 2 March 2021
Replies: 14
Views: 17102

Re: UKPA Skyscrapers Contest 25 February - 2 March 2021

...it turns out the timer on the page was inaccurate and I ended up scrambling to put in my solution codes! Yes, it doesn't work properly. You need to refresh it regularly or use a separate timer. I sent Alan some replacement timer code when he first put the tournament engine online, years ago, but...
by gareth
Thu 11 Feb, 2021 10:16 pm
Forum: Puzzle Competitions
Topic: UKPA Skyscrapers Contest 25 February - 2 March 2021
Replies: 14
Views: 17102

Re: UKPA Skyscrapers Contest 25 February - 2 March 2021

detuned wrote: Thu 11 Feb, 2021 12:03 pm I love the idea for parkour - you have a wonderful eye for a variation David!
Wow - agreed! What a great idea.
by gareth
Sat 06 Feb, 2021 3:23 am
Forum: Puzzle Links
Topic: A Gogen Puzzle I Created Myself
Replies: 12
Views: 20040

Re: A Gogen Puzzle I Created Myself

I can't see why they would be hard to computer generate anyway, and the newspaper ones presumably are. Its easy to make a random solution grid and then you just need a simple brute force solver to allow you to remove given letters to the limit of uniqueness, or test for uniqueness with a fixed given...
by gareth
Wed 03 Feb, 2021 3:24 am
Forum: General Puzzle Discussions
Topic: Scrabble type puzzles
Replies: 8
Views: 11462

Re: Scrabble type puzzles

Thanks Tom. In which case, would you personally be happy with "not even at a corner" as a replacement for "not even diagonally"? As in "Shaded areas cannot touch, not even at a corner?" I agree that more technical language such as referring to cells, edges and so on has...
by gareth
Tue 02 Feb, 2021 9:03 pm
Forum: General Puzzle Discussions
Topic: Scrabble type puzzles
Replies: 8
Views: 11462

Re: Scrabble type puzzles

“Not even diagonally” is definitely top of my hit list But what is brief, equally clear and unambiguously translatable language that completely avoids mathematical concepts such as "edge", "vertex", "orthogonally" and so forth - so is suitable for a general, internatio...
by gareth
Fri 11 Dec, 2020 9:35 am
Forum: General Puzzle Discussions
Topic: Thermo miracle methods
Replies: 6
Views: 10713

Re: Thermo miracle methods

If you want people to help you'll need to explain the rules, since this clearly isn't just a regular thermometer sudoku. :)

I tried googling your link but it didn't bring up the video with the rules, and 'Thermo miracle' brought up a different cracking the cryptic puzzle.
by gareth
Mon 23 Nov, 2020 1:11 pm
Forum: Puzzle (incl. Sudoku) Rules & Tips
Topic: Four Winds
Replies: 8
Views: 12860

Re: Four Winds

@Gareth: Not necessarily. IMHO if a cell remains empty, it is not reachable at all. Or can you post a contra-example (which has only one solution)? The following puzzle has only one solution, and yet the square marked 'x' is reachable but not visited in the solution. It also has a second square not...
by gareth
Mon 23 Nov, 2020 1:03 pm
Forum: General Puzzle Discussions
Topic: Printing puzzles for contests
Replies: 3
Views: 8497

Re: Printing puzzles for contests

It's a good question. Until recently it had never occurred to me that people would solve on screen during a competition, because to me it seems self-evident that this gives a potentially big advantage for certain puzzle types. Even though on-screen solving may be a disadvantage in some cases, e.g. i...
by gareth
Sat 21 Nov, 2020 2:07 am
Forum: Puzzle (incl. Sudoku) Rules & Tips
Topic: Four Winds
Replies: 8
Views: 12860

Re: Four Winds

The two main things that I will look for is cells which can only join to one given number, and numbers which only have so many possible cells that they can join. It should probably be noted that the first rule only applies if the sum of the numbers is equal to the number of empty squares, which is ...
by gareth
Tue 16 Jun, 2020 12:07 am
Forum: Puzzle Competitions
Topic: UK Sudoku Championship 2020
Replies: 13
Views: 23395

Re: UK Sudoku Championship 2020

petpar55@gmail.com wrote: Mon 15 Jun, 2020 8:42 pm I can not found password to open puyyles!!!
Go to the contest page linked at the very top of the thread above, then click 'Open Page' to the right of 'Answer Submission Page'. Then click 'START NOW' to get the password. Your timer will begin at that point.
by gareth
Sun 22 Mar, 2020 9:53 pm
Forum: Puzzle Links
Topic: Extra free puzzles on puzzlemix.com
Replies: 0
Views: 9233

Extra free puzzles on puzzlemix.com

As a small assistance to help people get through these strange times, I'm adding two extra free puzzles to puzzlemix.com every day for the foreseeable future. The puzzles are a mix of mostly sudoku variants, plus kakuro, nurikabe, slitherlink, hitori, skyscraper, futoshiki, calcudoku and hanjie.