LMI June Sukoku Test (30 Jun - 2 Jul 2012)

[PuzzleScot]

IB is now available from the contest page: http://logicmastersindia.com/M201206S/
The contest will last 2 hours.

UK WSC team - Ratings table qualification route Round 2 of 4. (Note round 3 is the following weekend!)

If you are interested in qualifying for the UK WSC team, and missed round 1, then it is imperative you do your best on this test.

Your best 3 from 4 results will determine your season's ranking. More information on the qualification pages (summary and detailed). Latest ratings table is here.

Good luck!

[debmohanty]

SudoClones has started.

[Magoo]

I greatly enjoyed the puzzles I could get to grips with in this competition.

It looks from the timings as though I am the only idiot who solves and solves until they notice there's about 5 minutes left, and then frantically tries to finish off and get the solution keys entered in before time runs out. This time I was very lucky, as I suddenly cracked through the last one I was doing with about 5m30s left, finishing it off in 2m, and JUST having enough time to get the answers entered and hit Submit for the first time with 0m25s left. Further luck in that I don't seem to have made a mistake on any of the keys entered. And only had to completely give up on one attempted puzzle.

This looks to be my best ever result finishing 10 points behind MichaelC999, level with the awesome detunedradio and unbelievably ahead of the beyond-awesome Nilz. I dare say some have horror stories to relate that I can set alongside my lucky-finish tale. There were still a couple of hours left last time I was able to look at the charts, so perhaps other UK competitors have nipped in ahead. As for the international solvers who finish the test and get bonus points, words as always fail me. For a time I thought it a bizarre coincidence to have exactly the same score from the same number of puzzles as detuned, but now I realise that various puzzle combinations could in fact have yielded this result.

[detuned]

It doesn't look like David McN participated, and Michael C claims the win. I thought I could crack out the 140 point puzzle in the last 20 minutes, but had something of a brainfart on it, which is annoying because there are lots of clever constraints which should have turned it into a 10 minute puzzle. I could probably say the same thing about the 120 point puzzle which I eventually got out.

Actually the same is probably true of all the other puzzles, and as you say magoo, these puzzles had lots of delightful deductions at the start that got you going. There was certainly only a couple of 5 minute or less puzzles in the set - and none which I'd say were below medium. To finish where you did I think is a pretty good effort and I'm not going to diminish it by claiming a horror story on my part. There are more than a few solid WSC solvers behind us on that list! I guess I'm disappointed by default when I'm out of the top 20-30, but perhaps that'll be better judged after Alan has applied all the normalisations.

I'm also amazed that we chose to solve exactly the same puzzles!

[PuzzleScot]

...perhaps that'll be better judged after Alan has applied all the normalisations.

Done. Sudoku ratings table updated.

[Magoo]

Thanks, Alan. I must admit, I'd be tempted to rank in order of average rather than total score, putting David McN ahead until he fails to participate in another leg...

Tom, I suspect we didn't actually complete the same puzzles, as I finally worked out that the scores could combine in quite a lot of different ways to give 535. I did 1,3,7,8,9,10 and 12. I only noticed when I fished out two puzzles to try them afterwards that they had exactly the same starting digits in the same cells - was that true throughout (just as for the instruction booklet)? How unbelievably brilliant! And I still broke Puzzle 5 (the Highest Difference one), I suspect with exactly the same mistake that applied during the timed solve.

[david mcneill]

Sorry guys. I couldn't compete as I was leading a 3-day botanical field trip to Rathlin Island! And my daughter was just back from a trip to South Africa.

Have solved the puzzles now. Absolutely beautiful set. I would have done well I think, but hard to judge when you're not under time pressure.

David.

[Nilz]

No horror stories from me- if you finished above me, Magoo, you did so on merit. I just couldn't really get into the test, I spent ages and ages on a couple of puzzles and never really had any 'Aha!' moments. In short, I found it a bit of a slog. That's not to say they weren't nice puzzles, they just weren't my kind of puzzles, I guess. My time would've been better spent on Rathlin Island I think (wherever that is...) .
Hoping for better next weekend.

[PuzzleScot]

My time would've been better spent on Rathlin Island I think (wherever that is...)

Remember Craggy Island, on Father Ted? A bit like that...