UK Puzzle League Division D 2023-2024

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Hi everyone

Here is the schedule for the 2023/24 season

28th/29th October - Beginners Slitherlink
18th/19th November - Beginners Dot to Dot
16th/17th December - Beginners Four Winds
20th/21st January - Beginners Akari
17th/18th February - Beginners Nurikabe
16th/17th March - Beginners TomTom

The first round, in a month or so, will be a round of standard Slitherlink puzzles, the rules and examples for which will be on the Puzzle Rules board next week.

If you are competing in Division D this year, you will need to download and print the puzzles, then time yourself to see how long it takes you to complete each puzzle. If you make a mistake and want to start again, you should not restart the clock.

I hope that competitors will be able to find the time to complete all puzzles over Friday 27th October to Monday 30th October, but if competitors are only able to complete some of the puzzles, this will still allow them to score points towards the Division D standings.

Puzzlers who are not in Division D will also be able to download the puzzles and submit their times (for a separate leaderboard).

Upon completion of the puzzles, you will be asked to email the times and an answer key for each puzzle, but more details for this will be given when the puzzle booklet is ready.

A reminder that anyone interested in taking a place in the UK Puzzle League should email their interest to adam@ukpuzzles.org. New players can join Division D at any time up until Round 1 finishes.

[pinkagape]

Hello

Here is Round 1 of Division D of the 2023-2024 UK Puzzle League.

Please download and print the puzzles. You can complete them in any order at any point between now and Tuesday 31st October.

For each puzzle, remember to time yourself honestly as to how long it takes.

When you are finished all of the puzzles, or as many as you are able to, please email adam@ukpuzzles.org your times for each puzzle and the answer key for each puzzle (to ensure that you have understood how each solution is supposed to look).

If you have not yet signed up for a place in the UK Puzzle League, you may do so in the same email, giving your name and UKPA username. If you are not in Division D, your times will be entered onto an all-comers scoreboard, which will not score points in the UK Puzzle League. If you are in Division D, the solver with the most points will receive 10 credits, the second will receive 9 credits and so on. If two or more solvers score the same number of points, then the fastest total time (spent on completed puzzles) will score the higher number of credits.

If you have any questions, please ask via email (adam@ukpuzzles.org)

Please do not discuss the puzzles in the forum until the competition is declared closed.

Have fun!

[pinkagape]

Round 1 is complete. Apologies for the non unique puzzle in Round 6. However, it didn't seem to throw people too far as nine people submitted fully correct sets. In the end, some blistering times from Alex proved a great debut for her, but Liane was the overall champion.

As usual, red names are those in Division D.

Liane Robinson - 3m59
Alex Robinson - 4m52
Eva Myers - 10m17
Jack Lawrence - 11m16
Emma Kingston - 14m06
Hunter Brennan - 18m37
Desirée Wilson - 22m29
Calum Mailer - 25m34
Zoe Ashford - 41m0

Lots of players in Division D, with Alex taking an early lead ahead of 2022-23 runner up Hunter.

Round 2 will take place in a couple of weeks and will be Dot to Dot puzzles, as in the classic children's puzzle (e.g. https://www.dottodots.net/) Therefore it will be a bit of a sprint round where every second will count.

[puzzlemad]

For those that are new to slitherlink puzzles, this guide from Bram de Laat is great. (I know it's too late for this round, had I been thinking I'd have shared it earlier).

https://puzzleparasite.blogspot.com/201 ... de_23.html

[pinkagape]

Here is Round 2 of Division D of the 2023-2024 UK Puzzle League.

These are standard dot to dot puzzles. Puzzle 10 is not intended to make a picture of any kind.

Please download and print the puzzles. You can complete them in any order at any point between now and Tuesday 21st November.

For each puzzle, remember to time yourself honestly as to how long it takes. It is anticipated that these might be quite quick times for this set.

When you are finished all of the puzzles, or as many as you are able to, please email adam@ukpuzzles.org your times for each puzzle and the answer key for each puzzle (to ensure that you have understood how each solution is supposed to look).

If you have not yet signed up for a place in the UK Puzzle League, you may do so in the same email, giving your name and UKPA username. If you are not in Division D, your times will be entered onto an all-comers scoreboard, which will not score points in the UK Puzzle League. If you are in Division D, the solver with the most points will receive 10 credits, the second will receive 9 credits and so on. If two or more solvers score the same number of points, then the fastest total time (spent on completed puzzles) will score the higher number of credits.

If you have any questions, please ask via email (adam@ukpuzzles.org)

Please do not discuss the puzzles in the forum until the competition is declared closed.

Have fun!

Edited to update Puzzle file

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Annoyingly I made a mess of pasting Puzzle 9 into the document so I have updated the file to correct the image.

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Round 2 is over! I was delighted to see so many entrants and it was a real race to the finish, won by Alex Robinson, just ahead of Hunter.

Alex Robinson - 3m24
Hunter Brennan - 3m47
Liane Robinson - 5m00
Eva Myers - 5m04
Desirée Wilson - 6m05
Zoe Ashford - 6m37
Arabella Bissett - 9m05
Calum Mailer - 10m12

Alex has extended her lead at the top of the table, but consistency from Hunter and Desirée means they're not too far behind.



Round 3 is Four Winds, which is a puzzle type we've done before, so there's the past set in the Library (https://ukpuzzles.org/ukpl/library.php), as well as a Puzzle Guide and examples in the Rules and Tips forum (viewtopic.php?t=2258).