WPF Puzzle GP

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The 2019 season is up and running next weekend, but this instructions are already out. http://gp.worldpuzzle.org/sites/default ... nd1_IB.pdf

The first round is by India.

Main website is here: http://gp.worldpuzzle.org/content/puzzle-gp

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Preliminary Results are now out (seems to be a delay compared to the Sudoku GP). Top 3 UK:

12. Neil Zussman 594
41. Saul Glasman 456
54. Adam Bissett 422

[Nilz]

Round 2, Germany, is this weekend:
https://gp.worldpuzzle.org/content/inst ... -booklet-2
Given Germany are hosting the WPC this year, it may be good practise.

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Preliminary results for round 2:

17. Neil Zussman 545
23. James McGowan 527
49. Tom Collyer 403

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Round 3, by Serbia, is happening this weekend

[Feadoor]

If you didn't do the Compass during the contest, I highly recommend it to be solved at your leisure. Beautiful puzzle.

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Preliminary results from round 3. Great to see a top 10 result from James!

8. James McGowan 645
21. Neil Zussman 535
50. Tom Collyer 412

I personally felt like I left a lot of points on the table - after hours the compass didn't really feel that hard, although perhaps the tweaking at the end under time pressure might have been another another story

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Round 4 is happening this weekend, if you haven’t already seen

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Some really lovely puzzles in this round, I think it might be my favourite so far!

[Nilz]

Just to add balance, I actually hated it! But that's likely down to me, rather than the puzzles.

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Did you do many of the number puzzles then Neil? I only noticed the massive 150 point whale at the end, kind of glad I didn't do that during the test as I had plenty to keep me occupied, and what I did do I enjoyed a lot. The unequal length Slitherlinks solved very nicely, the Doppelblock with the Fibonacci numbers had some very good combinations which made use of the repeated 1s without ever departing too far from the feeling of the original variation - and after time the Goats and Wolves puzzle was very cute. Also I do enjoy clouds puzzles wherever I see them, even if I spent far more time on them than they were worth.

Preliminary UK results:

17. James McGowan 613
36. Saul Glasman 470
47. Tom Collyer 424

[Nilz]

I spent probably over half an hour getting most-but-not-all of the massive pointer at the end. I subsequently broke the slalom as well, plus both snakes (although by that stage I was largely guessing). Of the puzzles you mentioned, I did solve the Fibonacci Doppleblock and the Unequal Slitherlink- both of which did have some nice logic- and I also solved the Goats and Wolves, though not completely logically (I agree the solution is cute, but given that I didn't find a totally logical solving path, I can't comment on that).

Slightly frustrating also that overall point tallies are a bit higher than previous rounds, which means my failure to do well is even worse for me, as very few others will be dropping this as one of their worst two (at least, as far as I could see from a quick-ish glance of those near me in the overall standings). However, I did say I disliked the round even before I was aware of that!

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Preliminary UK results (not that these tend to change all that much)

37 James McGowan 444
45 Sam Cappleman-Lynes 424
52 Neil Zussman 398

Quite a strange looking set of results - I haven't yet solved the test but I imagine a fair amount of it came down to puzzle selection

[Feadoor]

For me, both a higher points total and a higher place in Puzzle GP 5 than in Sudoku GP 5. Alan did promise that joining the UKPA would turn me into a "proper" puzzler

[kiwijam]

Nice work Sam!
I had a bad start, I'd practised for the big Slitherlink at the end, but after 25 minutes I'd broken it 5 times, printed it twice, and made myself move on to start getting some points elsewhere.
During my guessing start I thought I'd proved that the bottom-right cell must be in the loop - frustratingly this allowed me to solve a third of the whole (large) puzzle before reaching a contradiction, and then I thought it quite likely that I'd made a small mistake during all that, so I went and solved that third of the puzzle (wrongly) again...

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After the absolute shambles with the answer keys, the preliminary results are now available. I cannot understand how these are not being checked and verified properly BEFORE the round starts, let alone after it finishes. All's well that ends well I suppose.

Top 3 UK:

17. James McGowan 549
33. Saul Glasman 481
60. Tom Collyer 377

I'm assuming Neil skipped this one. Also a remarkable round of puzzles where Ken Endo wasn't even close to winning!

https://gp.worldpuzzle.org/content/prel ... -puzzle-6a

[Feadoor]

Round 7 will happen this weekend and the Czech and Slovak authors appear to have prepared a themed round - only 7 distinct puzzle types, but each one appears three times in standard, isometric and hexagonal variants.

https://gp.worldpuzzle.org/content/inst ... -booklet-2

[Feadoor]

The preliminary results are supposedly out, but I would take them with a pinch of salt, because the points attributed to each puzzle, in most cases, do not match the points values from the instruction booklet...

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They look a bit more sensible now.

35. James McGowan 452
58. Tom Collyer 390
63. Adam Bisset 381

Those top scores are a little disappointing from a UK perspective, but good to see 15 UK competitors in total!

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Overall UK standings with 1 round left to play: (I'll go as far as the top 100-ish)

18. James McGowan 3230 - 6 scoring rounds
46. Neil Zussman 2479 - 5 scoring rounds
54. Saul Glasman 2362 - 6 scoring rounds
56. Tom Collyer 2355 - 6 scoring rounds
77. Adam Bisset 2028 - 6 scoring rounds
85. Sam Cappleman-Lynes 1923 - 6 scoring rounds
97 Jeremy Kong 1754 - 6 scoring rounds
102 Matthew White 1722 - 6 scoring rounds

James has to improve his worst result by c. 500 points to make the top 10. However, given that c. 15th place has made the play-offs in previous years, that might only mean improving his worst result by c. 50-100 points.

Neil has to play an absolute blinder from here to catch James.

Saul is a mere 7 points ahead of Tom, so this will be a very interesting head to head. Saul is looking to improve on his 2nd worst round, Tom is looking to improve on his worst round. Both are looking to sneak into the top 50, however neither is likely to catch Neil unless Neil skips the last round.

There's an outside chance of Sam catching Adam round about 80th in the rankings, and a closer scrap between Jeremy and Matthew round about 100th.

[kiwijam]

it's almost like watching a world cup semifinal!

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Quick reminder - if you haven't had a go at the delayed final round you can do so until this evening

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Preliminary results for the final round:

14 James McGowan 625
31 Freddie Hand 513
47 Tom Collyer 419

Leaving the preliminary overall standings at:

17 James McGowan 3411
53 Neil Zussman 2479
56 Tom Collyer 2425

Ken Endo came in as an unsurprising winner, 4837.3 points, 400 points clear of Thomas Snyder in second