2010 US Puzzle Championships

[ronaldx]

Does your claim of 180 include the 15 minutes required to type in the answer keys correctly? hehe, just teasing, that's an awesome score! Well done!

[drsteve]

Does your claim of 180 include the 15 minutes required to type in the answer keys correctly? hehe, just teasing, that's an awesome score! Well done!

On that point, was I the only person to type in each key as I solved it? It certainly didn't seem to take up an excess of time doing it that way, but I suppose if you're not actually doing it in front of a computer, then that's not an option...

[SimonAnthony]

Fair point! No it doesn't... Nor does it take into account the fact that I had no pressure, which is a big advantage. And I'd have probably typed one of the answer keys wrong!! So a fairer score is probably... Blimey... A lot less!
A totally unrelated question: I want to subscribe for the Logicmasters magazine - does anyone know if this is possible for UK based folk?

[drsteve]

A totally unrelated question: I want to subscribe for the Logicmasters magazine - does anyone know if this is possible for UK based folk?

Which magazine's that? I've got a subscription to the Turkish Akil Oyunlari, but could do with another appropriate magazine, apart from Sudoku Extra, of course

[PuzzleScot]

A totally unrelated question: I want to subscribe for the Logicmasters magazine - does anyone know if this is possible for UK based folk?

Which magazine's that? I've got a subscription to the Turkish Akil Oyunlari, but could do with another appropriate magazine, apart from Sudoku Extra, of course

The obvious one is the dutch Breinbrekers - I keep meaning to subscribe to that one...

Oh, and I typed in answers as I solved (which wasn't very often!!)

[drsteve]

Last time I checked, Breinbrekers wasn't around any more

[PuzzleScot]

Last time I checked, Breinbrekers wasn't around any more

Whe I spoke to Hans Eendebak in November it was alive and well, but my online searches aren't finding it.
It WAS published by Sanoma, but I think they changed publishers a while back.

[drsteve]

Last time I checked, Breinbrekers wasn't around any more

Whe I spoke to Hans Eendebak in November it was alive and well, but my online searches aren't finding it.
It WAS published by Sanoma, but I think they changed publishers a while back.

Last time I enquired, it was being published twice yearly by Tazuku, but their website links back to Denksport and there's no sign of it there.

Er... should we move this to a separate thread - we're getting a bit off-topic

[drsteve]

http://www.denksport.nl/default.aspx?id ... enkshop%26

That seems to be a link to a Breinbrekers subscription. If anyone tries it, let me know if it works...

[drsteve]

Back to the subject - the results are out. Only the top scores, but no evidence I'm afraid of fresh blood for the UK this time.

And on a personal note - I beat Wei-Hwa!!!!

[PuzzleScot]

Summarised here: (from http://wpc.puzzles.com/uspc11/results.asp)
As a reference point: Former 4 times World Puzzle Champion Wei-Hwa Huang = 140!

Code: Select all

Rank  Name 			  Score
1     Steven Barge 	  160
2 	 Gareth Moore 	  145
3 	 Ronald Stewart    135
4 	 Tom Collyer 	   110
5 	 Michael Collins   105
6 	 Alan O'Donnell     90
7 	 Frances Evans 	  90
8 	 Nick Deller 	    85
9 	 Hugh Proctor 	   75
10 	Murray Hughes 	  75
11	 Paul Slater	     65
12	 Kenneth Wilshire   40
13	 Chris Dickson	   35
*end*

[dickoon]

Many congratulations to Steven and Gareth! I'm delighted to see several very competitive scores from UK solvers; people should be proud of themselves. I'm less delighted to see some more modest scorers suffer the ignominious fate of not even having their finishing scores published; fingers crossed that I shall not join their number next year...

[GarethMoore]

Do they not list everyone then? Do we know how many entrants there were for the UK in total, if it's not 13?

[PuzzleScot]

I'm guessing there is a 25 point cutoff (that being the lowest score shown on the boards, and there's always someone with less, if not negative!)

Looking through my records, it appears we managed to whip up zip all interest in the USPC for all that effort!
Everyone with >=25 points (except detunedtom) has entered a USPC previous to this year. Pah!

[GarethMoore]

I guess it's true that anyone new who looked at it went away in horror! If you know you're not going to be winning from a glance at it, without (m)any obvious "fun" puzzles to a casual puzzle player I suppose there's absolutely no point taking part.

[GarethMoore]

By the way, can some kind soul please explain to me what the reference to counting concave vertices in the Count Me In puzzle solution means? The brevity of the note on the solutions implies it is obvious, but it's not obvious to me! I don't understand what the labelling on the solution diagram shows either.

[PuzzleScot]

can some kind soul please explain to me what the reference to counting concave vertices in the Count Me In puzzle solution means?

As I see it, there were no convex pentagons in the figure, and there were no pentagons with 2 concave vertices, so 'simply' counting how many pentagons can be made from each concave vertex will give you your answer! Easy huh? So these were marked in situ on the answer page. (I'm still not sure I can see them all!)

http://wpc.puzzles.com/uspc11/stats.asp
There is a nice little chart on the stats page of the guesses for this question. Appears practically no-one caculated an even number!
Of the 31.6% of people who were confident enough to have a stab, only 12.9% of those got it right.
But only 3% even entered an answer for Hex Equation, and 2.6% for PentaPath! Understandably only 2.2% attempted X-Agony. 100% of entries for Hex Masyu were correct.

It's official - that was hard!

[PuzzleScot]

Labelling the vertices of the shape L-R Top-Bot.
A B (top tips); C (centre); D E (crossovers); F G H (base). I can see (labelling clockwise round pentagons, with concave vertex marked):

1. ACBGH (N of C)
2. ACBHF (N of C)
3. ACBHG (N of C)
4. ADBGF (N of D)
5. ADBHF (N of D)
6. ADCHF (N of D)
7. AEBHF (N of E)
8. AEBHG (N of E)
9. BHFCE (N of E)
10. AEGFD (W of D)
11. ACDGF (E of D)
12. BHGEC (W of E)
13. BEHGD (E of E)
14. AEGDF (S of D)
15. AHGDF (S of D)
16. BHEGD (S of E)
17. BHEGF (S of E)

[Maxelkat]

This is the first chance I've had of reporting my (albeit unofficial) results. I was out Saturday evening, and on holiday from Sunday, taking a printout of the test with me.
Timing was a bit of a problem because of interruptions from my toddler daughter.

1: Battleships - solved in about 15 minutes
2: Sudoku - didn't attempt
3: Count Me In - didn't attempt
4: Islands - solved in about 15 minutes
5: Groundhog Day - I think I solved it (D4F3/C5B3/B5C1) in about 10 minutes
6: Hex Equation - didn't attempt
7: Mirror Mirror - didn't attempt
8: Masyu - solved in about 20 minutes
9: Rectangular Maze - spent about 5 minutes on it initially, and about 15 minutes after time-up, all to no avail
10: Digitile - lost about 10 minutes, didn't solve
11: Route - didn't attempt
12: Takeout - solved in about 20 minutes
13: Corral - didn't attempt
14: Sukoro - lost about 5 minutes - no solution
15: Constant Sum - solved in about 20 minutes
16: Criss Cross Sums - didn't attempt till after time-up, then solved in 40 minutes
17: Penta Path - didn't attempt
18: Sukazu - lost 5 minutes, didn't solve
19: Hex Masyu - got stuck after about 5 minutes - never came back to it
20: X-Agony - didn't attempt
21: Four Square - didn't attempt till after time-up, then spent about 10 minutes - didn't solve

And I think this works out at about 90 points, which I'm quite pleased with as a first attempt. Of course it wasn't under strict conditions, so I don't know how I would have fared on the night.

Elliott

[PuzzleScot]

Elliott, that is an impressive attempt for a first-timer! Maybe before next year you can get some practice in, and sit the test officially? I think you will do well! Well done!