The 2019 season starts off this weekend, with Dutch authors taking their traditional 1st round spot.
http://gp.worldpuzzle.org
WPF Sudoku GP
Re: WPF Sudoku GP
Preliminary results for round 1 are out, top 3 UK are as follows:
31. Tom Collyer 576
62. Sam Cappleman-Lynes 456
64. Mark Goodliffe 452
http://gp.worldpuzzle.org/content/preli ... ?sort=stat
I was about a minute away from finishing a last classic, but couldn't quite manage it. Look's like a strong showing to start things off!
31. Tom Collyer 576
62. Sam Cappleman-Lynes 456
64. Mark Goodliffe 452
http://gp.worldpuzzle.org/content/preli ... ?sort=stat
I was about a minute away from finishing a last classic, but couldn't quite manage it. Look's like a strong showing to start things off!
Re: WPF Sudoku GP
Top 3 UK Round 2 according to the preliminary results are:
45. Sam Cappleman-Lynes 491
96. Mark Goodliffe 382
101. Heather Golding 371
Only 12 all-correct finishers this time, compared to 28 for Round 1, so a step up in difficulty! And 19 solvers (including myself) who were able to solve everything except the Sum-Product Killer...
I'd left myself with about 20 minutes at the end to solve the Sum-Product Killer and the first Classic; made a lot of progress with the Killer, but after 15 minutes realised I had no way to finish it without breaking the constraint on at least one cage. It's a neat puzzle but not a variant I particularly enjoyed.
Did anyone else find that the points values didn't match (at all!) their solving times for the puzzles? I thought that the Braille was severely overvalued, the hardest Classic was severely undervalued, the Irregular was much harder than 43 points and some of the other mid-range puzzles weren't deserving of quite as many points as had been given them. Maybe it's just me, but normally my times don't vary *quite* this much from what I'd expect given the points.
45. Sam Cappleman-Lynes 491
96. Mark Goodliffe 382
101. Heather Golding 371
Only 12 all-correct finishers this time, compared to 28 for Round 1, so a step up in difficulty! And 19 solvers (including myself) who were able to solve everything except the Sum-Product Killer...
I'd left myself with about 20 minutes at the end to solve the Sum-Product Killer and the first Classic; made a lot of progress with the Killer, but after 15 minutes realised I had no way to finish it without breaking the constraint on at least one cage. It's a neat puzzle but not a variant I particularly enjoyed.
Did anyone else find that the points values didn't match (at all!) their solving times for the puzzles? I thought that the Braille was severely overvalued, the hardest Classic was severely undervalued, the Irregular was much harder than 43 points and some of the other mid-range puzzles weren't deserving of quite as many points as had been given them. Maybe it's just me, but normally my times don't vary *quite* this much from what I'd expect given the points.
Re: WPF Sudoku GP
I knew Classic 5 was familiar to me! For those who have access, take a look at the final Classic from WSC 2017 Rd 5. Almost identical clue-layout, and the break-in step is the same as in that puzzle too, although less obvious here and not telegraphed as clearly.
In that puzzle, the crucial digits all fall on the main diagonal of givens, and here none of them do. They do, however, still have the following two properties:
1. They appear as givens three times, in three 3x3 boxes, of which no two are aligned either horizontally or vertically with each other
2. Among the three appearances as givens, two of them occur in corresponding cells of the 3x3 box.
With this clue layout, that is sufficient as a general rule to force a fishy friend to appear.
In that puzzle, the crucial digits all fall on the main diagonal of givens, and here none of them do. They do, however, still have the following two properties:
1. They appear as givens three times, in three 3x3 boxes, of which no two are aligned either horizontally or vertically with each other
2. Among the three appearances as givens, two of them occur in corresponding cells of the 3x3 box.
With this clue layout, that is sufficient as a general rule to force a fishy friend to appear.
Re: WPF Sudoku GP
I had a go at this earlier today. I think I'd have been amongst those who got all but the sum-product killer out. The repeating numbers within cages wasn't particularly nice to see.
Re the hard classic - making a well placed guess to get going wasn't particularly difficult. I guess it's a matter of taste about these appearing in competition, but I can understand it not having more points than it did as ultimately I think it's possible to solve these puzzles very quickly. Would be interesting to see Mark give it a "Cracking the Cryptic" treatment potentially!
Re the hard classic - making a well placed guess to get going wasn't particularly difficult. I guess it's a matter of taste about these appearing in competition, but I can understand it not having more points than it did as ultimately I think it's possible to solve these puzzles very quickly. Would be interesting to see Mark give it a "Cracking the Cryptic" treatment potentially!