Puzzles at the Mind Sports Olympiad in London on Sunday

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dickoon
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Puzzles at the Mind Sports Olympiad in London on Sunday

Post by dickoon »

At last, a sequel to the long-running Puzzles at the Mind Sports Olympiad in London next Friday thread!

The 19th Mind Sports Olympiad is holding an Olympiad Championship in sudoku and kenken solving. They've held similar events for each of the last four years and normally UKPA members do very well at them.; see, for instance, Mark G.'s blog over the years for more details. This year, there's £140 in prize money up for grabs in the competition.

This year's Olympiad will take place at the JW3 cultural centre in north-west London, the same location as that of last year; according to the timetable, the puzzle event will take place at 10:15am on Sunday morning.
dickoon
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Re: Puzzles at the Mind Sports Olympiad in London on Sunday

Post by dickoon »

Who among us attended, please, and how was the event?
DavidC
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Re: Puzzles at the Mind Sports Olympiad in London on Sunday

Post by DavidC »

Neil and I were there - Mark was due to attend but didn't appear (not even part way through !) : Mark, hope you're OK. Around a dozen people (including some MSO regulars). 8 kenken and 8 sudoku. Single session of three and a half hours (actually slightly less because of a late start). Sunday rather than Friday for a change. Tony Corfe warned us they had asked for harder puzzles this year : Neil handed in first ... just after the five minute warning was given ! Another player had just one sudoku left to complete. I had the three largest kenken left. We're still waiting for the official result to be posted.

David
Nilz
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Re: Puzzles at the Mind Sports Olympiad in London on Sunday

Post by Nilz »

Yes, as David said, I attended for the first time, due to it not being a workday, and being held less than an hour from my flat, so I had no good reason not to. I stayed around for the results, so I can confirm that I won, fortunately no mistakes so a perfect score. Didn't recognise the other two names on the podium- not yours, I'm afraid David. And no Mark either, though he was expected to arrive by the organisers, so I hope everything's OK.
The puzzles were tough. Can't compare them to previous years since I didn't attend, but I'd be surprised if Mark could've completed them in an hour or so as he apparently did last year! I solved the 8 KenKen in about 75/ 80 mins. Puzzles ranging from 6*6 to 9*9, including a few large multiplication cages, which was fun. These were a good challenged, I got them all logically. Then 8 sudokus, and I took almost the entire rest of the time, so just over 2 hours. Can't say I really enjoyed these as much, had to trial-and-error at least half of them. But overall, I'm glad I went, obviously nice to get a medal, though I've not heard anything yet about any prize money...
DavidC
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Re: Puzzles at the Mind Sports Olympiad in London on Sunday

Post by DavidC »

Congratulations to Neil, Matthew and Andrew. Thanks to them I now have the full set of Gold, Silver, Bronze and ... er ... unplaced :-) Previously Matthew won Silver in 2014, and Andrew won Bronze in 2013 and Silver in 2011. The winners since 2011 have been Rodders, me, Mark, Mark and Neil.

KenKen and Sudoku
G Neil Zussman
S Matthew Hatthrell
B Andrew Robertshaw

http://www.msoworld.com/results/2015-results/

David
Magoo
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Re: Puzzles at the Mind Sports Olympiad in London on Sunday

Post by Magoo »

I'm fine. My wife deemed we were staying in the country at the weekend, and I was taking my youngest to a theme park on Sunday. Hmm. Well done Neil, and all.
Nilz
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Re: Puzzles at the Mind Sports Olympiad in London on Sunday

Post by Nilz »

This event is taking part again in a couple of weeks, on the 28th (Sunday of the Bank Holiday weekend). I'll be there!
http://www.msoworld.com/events/kenken-and-sudoku/
DavidC
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Re: Puzzles at the Mind Sports Olympiad in London on Sunday

Post by DavidC »

Congratulations to Neil on winning the Kenken and Sudoku contest for the second year running. This continues the UKPA sequence of winners since 2011 : Rodders, me, Mark, Mark, Neil and Neil.

G Neil Zussman
S David Collison
B Alain Dekker

http://www.msoworld.com/2016-medal-table/
detuned
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Re: Puzzles at the Mind Sports Olympiad in London on Sunday

Post by detuned »

Well done Neil. Sadly even if I'd remembered this I wasn't able to come down on the Sunday. How many people turned up?
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DavidC
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Re: Puzzles at the Mind Sports Olympiad in London on Sunday

Post by DavidC »

Eleven I think. Neil and I were there from UKPA but there was no sign of Mark or Rodders. Obviously a few of the MSO regulars were there (including Alain, who came third).
Nilz
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Re: Puzzles at the Mind Sports Olympiad in London on Sunday

Post by Nilz »

Well done on your second place, David. You'll now be aiming for Gold, Bronze and unplaced in some order in the next 3 years, I assume, to complete the double set? ;)

Puzzles were considerably easier than last year, in my experience at least. I hope they keep running this on Sunday rather than Friday for a while longer!
DavidC
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Re: Puzzles at the Mind Sports Olympiad in London on Sunday

Post by DavidC »

Thanks. Absolutely - the symmetry would be far more pleasing than a lop-sided straight run of golds :-)

I have mixed feelings about the Sunday : it's normally OK for me, but it does disrupt the Bank Holiday weekend.

Friday could always be a pain because of clashes with meetings at work, but I found it was amusing to turn up in a suit amongst the casually-dressed middle-aged perpetual students for just this single MSO session before putting on my tie as I headed back to work :-)

David
dickoon
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Re: Puzzles at the Mind Sports Olympiad in London on Sunday

Post by dickoon »

It's (just about) that time of year again. The Sunday in question is not tomorrow, but the MSO's traditional sudoku and KenKen tournament takes place on the morning of Sunday 27th August. Details, as in previous years, are available on the MSO web site.
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Re: Puzzles at the Mind Sports Olympiad in London on Sunday

Post by detuned »

Myself, Neil and David C from this parish were at the Sudoku / KenKen event this morning amongst a field of about 15 people.

The format was two papers: the first a set of 8 fairly easy classics, and the second a set of 8 kenkens, two each of 6x6, 7x7, 8x8 and 9x9. The smaller puzzles were quite easy, the larger ones a little more arduous. I handed in after about 1 hour and 15 minutes, with Neil 5-10 minutes behind me. Given the allotted time limit was 3 hours, we didn't hang around afterwards, and the results are still unknown at the time of writing (I think they are being announced this evening).

Anyhow, it seems unlikely that both Neil and I have mistakes, so after a run of wins for Mark and Neil in previous years I think we've kept up our collective record.
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DavidC
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Re: Puzzles at the Mind Sports Olympiad in London on Sunday

Post by DavidC »

Congratulations to Tom for winning on his first appearance and to Neil for another very strong result. This continues the UKPA sequence of winners since 2011 : Rodders, me, Mark, Mark, Neil, Neil and Tom.

The result is at the Puzzle Solving section of http://www.msoworld.com/2017-medal-table/

Gold : Tom Collyer
Silver : Neil Zussman
Bronze : Matthew Hathrell

(and I was fourth - five entrants had perfect scores and were separated based on completion time)
detuned
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Re: Puzzles at the Mind Sports Olympiad in London on Sunday

Post by detuned »

Interesting stuff David - I see the Olympiad has been around for a while, but is 2011 the earliest there has been a sudoku/kenken event? Perhaps we should add this (and also the times event) to our hall of fame?
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DavidC
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Re: Puzzles at the Mind Sports Olympiad in London on Sunday

Post by DavidC »

As far as I am aware, 2011 was the first event of "the modern era". Detailed results are available under the Results dropdown list at http://www.msoworld.com/ . There was a Puzzle Solving event in 1998 : I don't know the format but it sounds too early and I don't recognise any of the names involved http://www.boardability.com/game.php?id=puzzle_solving http://www.boardability.com/result.php?id=1998

Yes, I agree with the Times and MSO events being recorded. Alongside the UKPA weekend and online contests, they are the major UK events. The Independent did something briefly in the 2000s - I remember qualifying and going to Tate Modern where there were free sandwiches, which is probably why it soon stopped ! - but I'm not aware of any other enduring UK contests.
dickoon
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Re: Puzzles at the Mind Sports Olympiad in London on Sunday

Post by dickoon »

DavidC wrote:As far as I am aware, 2011 was the first event of "the modern era". Detailed results are available under the Results dropdown list at http://www.msoworld.com/ . There was a Puzzle Solving event in 1998 : I don't know the format but it sounds too early and I don't recognise any of the names involved http://www.boardability.com/game.php?id=puzzle_solving http://www.boardability.com/result.php?id=1998
Hello!

I helped behind the scenes in 1998 and went on to run, then help run, their web site for years afterwards. The dear old Internet Archive points to an article at the time about the two parallel sets of design and solving competitions and has marginally more detail about the results.

I was staying at the house of David J. Bodycombe and commuting in to work at the event, My brainteaser submissions were selected from the draft of my puzzle book at the time and I'm pretty strongly sure that the bronze medal I earnt was for a third-out-of-three finish.

I'd completely support the hall of fame including a secondary record of non-UKPA competitions.
DavidC
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Re: Puzzles at the Mind Sports Olympiad in London on Sunday

Post by DavidC »

Aha ! Hi, and my apologies for being so presumptious as to pontificate from a position of such relative ignorance ! http://www.boardability.com/profile.php ... _m_dickson
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Re: Puzzles at the Mind Sports Olympiad in London on Sunday

Post by detuned »

Perhaps a little off topic, but to accompany the MSO list, I have the Times list as:

2005: Nina Pell
2006: Rachel Roth-Huber
2007: Tom Collyer
2008: Nina Pell
2009: Tom Collyer
2010: George Danker
2011: George Danker
2012: Rishi Puri
2013: Stephen Gerrard
2014: Mark Goodliffe
2015: Tom Collyer
2016: George Danker
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DavidC
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Re: Puzzles at the Mind Sports Olympiad in London on Sunday

Post by DavidC »

And by coincidence* I have just noticed your name in relation to a fascinating website that I have visited about a loosely-related genre of TV programmes - thank you for that too :-)

* I didn't bother adding words like "weird", "strange", "remarkable" or "amazing" - even though I wanted to - because that's what a coincidence is
DavidC
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Re: Puzzles at the Mind Sports Olympiad in London on Sunday

Post by DavidC »

Thanks Tom - it's great to capture it here
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Re: Puzzles at the Mind Sports Olympiad in London on Sunday

Post by detuned »

Back to the MSO competition...

I have yet to hear any contact from the MSO people about collecting my prize. Did people have to wait long to get this sorted out? (Neil has already said that Tony Corfe was in touch with him a couple of days later when he won)

If anyone has any contact details (the gmail address on the site is thus far unresponsive) they could share with me via private message or e-mail, that would be much appreciated.
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Re: Puzzles at the Mind Sports Olympiad in London on Sunday

Post by DavidC »

PM sent
dickoon
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Re: Puzzles at the Mind Sports Olympiad in London on Sunday

Post by dickoon »

It's that time of the year again...

This year, Thursday is the new Sunday, and the MSO have scheduled contests for Thursday 23rd August - a week today from the time of posting. Excitingly, there are two contests this year: the afternoon contest features "various puzzles" as described on the schedule page, but nothing too unusual.
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