UK Sudoku Championship 2019 / WSC Qualification

[detuned]

This is the discussion thread for the 2019 UK Sudoku Championship. It will also act as the second qualifier for the UK A team competing at the World Sudoku Championships in Kirchheim, Germany to be held on the 29th September - 6th October 2019 (note that these dates also include time for the World Puzzle Championships).

Duration: 2 hours
Dates: Friday 7th - Monday 10th June 2019
Contest Page: http://www.ukpuzzles.org/contests.php?contestid=49
Instruction Booklet: http://ukpuzzles.org/file_download.php? ... 5b7a35c1a7

Please post any questions about the competition here.

[detuned]

Simon's been doing some cracking the cryptic video's that might be helpful - this one covers last year's Thermo Sudoku

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RRSFXCpBBek

[pinkagape]

Has there been any date set for the Puzzles?

[detuned]

It’s usually a couple of weeks afterwards (as a rule of thumb we aim for 2nd and 4th weekends in June), but I’ll leave Liane to confirm

[detuned]

Instructions with points distributions are now available:

http://ukpuzzles.org/file_download.php? ... 5b7a35c1a7

[Feadoor]

The instructions for Odd/Even Sudoku begin with the phrase "in each grid..." - does this mean there will be multiple grids, or is this a remnant from instructions originally written for a Linked 6x6?

[detuned]

The instructions for Odd/Even Sudoku begin with the phrase "in each grid..." - does this mean there will be multiple grids, or is this a remnant from instructions originally written for a Linked 6x6?

Yeah I'll fix that. To be absolutely clear, Puzzle #1 is a single 6x6 grid with Odd Sudoku rules, and Puzzle #2 is a single 6x6 grid with Even Sudoku rules.

[Feadoor]

After the contest, I've had a go at re-solving all of the puzzles in order to better appreciate them without time pressure, and have a go at finding a logical solving path to those that I guessed on.

So does anyone know how to solve the Odd-Even-Big-Small logically? I'm at this point, and guessing which way round the 2/8 pair in the second column goes resolves it fairly quickly but I'm looking for a "proper" way of doing it.

OEBS.PNG (83.59 KiB) Viewed 8994 times

[rakesh_rai]

r3c12 will be the same as r4c56. So only one place for 7 in c5 which is r5c5.

[Feadoor]

Thanks! I'd even already made the equivalent deduction with the odd/even clues in R34...

[Feadoor]

Or alternatively spot that the 2s in box 4 eliminate it from the rest of C5 which gets you through the rest of the puzzle without ever needing to spot the trick in rows 3 and 4.

I guess I had about of a blind spot with this puzzle!

[detuned]

It always makes me very sad to see OEBS presented without the kanji characters - I don't know why

It's fair to say the solving path for these puzzles can end up being quite linear. I did enjoy playing with the partition trick in rows 3 and 4 though!