2011 UK Sudoku Championship (11-12 June 2011)

[PuzzleScot]

This special contest - the official 2011 UK Sudoku Championship - will be held on-line here on 11-12 June 2011.

You will have a 2 hour window of your choosing over that weekend to correctly solve as many puzzles as you can.

The top two eligible performers from the UK will be offered a place on the UK team for the 2011 World Sudoku Championship.

Instruction booklet will be available very soon. Any questions regarding the contest or puzzles should be posted here.

[PuzzleScot]

Instruction Booklet is now available on the contest page.

[leafcard]

chinese translation is available here http://www.sudokufans.org.cn/forums/index.php?showtopic=266

[euklid]

Question:

#10 - No Donkey Step Sudoku: Do I understand correctly that it is not allowed that two cells contain the same number if the cells are diagonally adjacent or if the cells are in a diagonal line and there is exactly one other number inbetween?

Stefan

[mikecolloby]

#10 - No Donkey Step Sudoku: Yes, you are correct. You can say that it is not allowed that two cells contain the same number if the cells are diagonally adjacent or if the cells are in a diagonal line and there is exactly one other number inbetween. But more than one number inbetween is allowed.

[Ours brun]

Fun to see my "baby" No Donkey Step Sudoku appearing here. It has encountered some success since its creation last year and I didn't expect it.

Unfortunately I will not be able to participate, but I would have liked to. But I cannot help to find a bit strange the presence of a Skyscraper, a Calcudoku and a Futoshiki in a sudoku championship. Why not a Skyscraper Sudoku, a "real Calcudoku" (with regions), and a Greater Than Sudoku, instead ?

Bastien

[mikecolloby]

The Skyscraper, Calcudoku and Futoshiki were included because they are familiar to new uk players and are a good test of some of the skills that are needed for WSC. I hope people will enjoy these puzzles and accept this small indulgence.

[Fred76]

Since I'll be with Bastien this weekend, and since he announced that he can't participate, I think I also can not participate.

I'll see if perhaps I'll find 2 hours to take part, but it'll be difficult...

Fred

[ronald]

But I cannot help to find a bit strange the presence of a Skyscraper, a Calcudoku and a Futoshiki in a sudoku championship.

I also find this odd, since it seemed that everybody else on the UK forum (apart from me) argued strongly that these were certainly not sudoku variants!

So it seems at least somebody agrees with me

[mikecolloby]

I will be happy to apply a tighter definition of what constitutes a Sudoku in future, if that is the consensus.

[detuned]

But I cannot help to find a bit strange the presence of a Skyscraper, a Calcudoku and a Futoshiki in a sudoku championship.

I also find this odd, since it seemed that everybody else on the UK forum (apart from me) argued strongly that these were certainly not sudoku variants!

So it seems at least somebody agrees with me

It's pretty much the consensus of the wider Sudoku community, I'd say. I've already independently raised this point, but this time round I don't think there's much harm done. In particular, some of these types are very familiar with those whose main diet of puzzles are newspapers. With any luck it'll drive up participation!

[Fred76]

But I cannot help to find a bit strange the presence of a Skyscraper, a Calcudoku and a Futoshiki in a sudoku championship.

I also find this odd, since it seemed that everybody else on the UK forum (apart from me) argued strongly that these were certainly not sudoku variants!

So it seems at least somebody agrees with me

It's pretty much the consensus of the wider Sudoku community, I'd say. I've already independently raised this point, but this time round I don't think there's much harm done. In particular, some of these types are very familiar with those whose main diet of puzzles are newspapers. With any luck it'll drive up participation!

These 3 puzzles are definitely not sudoku, I don't think you can find someone who argue they are. They are latin squares variations. As sudoku is also based on latin square rules, they are not far from sudoku, so it should not affect players too much. That said, I also would have chosen corresponding sudoku variations (skyscrapers sudoku is a well-known sudoku variation - or a skyscrapers variation, depending on your point of view -, for example) for sudoku contest.

I've seen that contest is open from friday evening, so there is a chance that I can participate .

Fred

[PuzzleScot]

I've seen that contest is open from friday evening, so there is a chance that I can participate

Great!
I've started a new thread on exactly this topic over in the General Puzzle Discussion area. All comments welcomed.

[PuzzleScot]

Puzzle Booklet is now available for download via the contest page.

One clarification has been made to the instructions for "#10. No-Donkey Step", that does not appear in the Instruction booklet.
"A digit cannot repeat within two cells of itself in a diagonal line." (The words of itself were added to avoid potential misinterpretation).

Remember, you choose your own 2 hour window to participate in this event between 9pm Friday and 3am Monday (UK time/GMT+1).
When you are ready, and click START NOW on the contest entry form, the password for the puzzle booklet pdf will be displayed to you. I recommend you copy/paste the revealed password from this page to the pdf password window.

If you do not have the free Adobe Reader, you should install and test it now. http://www.adobe.com/products/acrobat/readstep2.html

[ronald]

I still don't find that very clear. Does it mean there must be a gap of length 2 between two digits that are the same, or will a gap of length 1 suffice?

[detuned]

So it's a fiddly constraint to put into words, but easy enough to grasp when you do a couple of examples. I think you can just about get the gist of the idea from what's written there together with the example in the instruction book.

Also see for example my blog post today: http://blogs.warwick.ac.uk/tcollyer/ent ... zzles_108/ </shameless plug>

[PuzzleScot]

I still don't find that very clear. Does it mean there must be a gap of length 2 between two digits that are the same, or will a gap of length 1 suffice?

It's certainly clearer than it was! As I understand it, identical digits cannot be 1 or 2 diagonal steps away.
A chess knight's move away is fine, as they are not diagonally connected.

[rob]

I'm getting SQL errors when submitting the form. Is this happening to anyone else?

Edit: Looks like the submissions still got through. Thanks for the test!

[Fred76]

I'm getting SQL errors when submitting the form. Is this happening to anyone else?

Edit: Looks like the submissions still got through. Thanks for the test!

Me too ! , I'd a SQL error when entering tournament, and when I returned on the page, the clock was already running.
In the last 3 minutes, I just tried to submit, submit and submit again but I had everytime an SQL error. I thought my codes were not saved. Now, contest is finished and I see that my codes are well saved...

I was tired after a busy day when I started the tournament, maybe it affected my playing. I was not so fast, and made some mistakes (I also make mistakes when I'm not tired ). However, 19 grids is perhaps a bit much, let's see if someone is able to solve all puzzles in time.

Grids that I solved are nice, I recommend this tournament. I do not regret having participated even if I was not fit. I'll solve last grids tomorrow in the train (5h of train, it should suffice ).

Good luck to all players !

Now I can relax and go to sleep 4 hours (what a long night !)

Fred

[PuzzleScott]

In kid sudoku, can we rely on the digit sum clues being greedy? (i.e., maximal sum before starting a new sum). It seems desirable to have this point explicit in the rules statement. Thanks.

Example: for 62173..., greedy sums require clue 97... . Non-greedy sums would also allow clue 88... .

[PuzzleScot]

In kid sudoku, can we rely on the digit sum clues being greedy? (i.e., maximal sum before starting a new sum). It seems desirable to have this point explicit in the rules statement. Thanks.

Example: for 62173..., greedy sums require clue 97... . Non-greedy sums would also allow clue 88... .

Your 'greedy' version is correct. 62173... requires the clue to be 97... (the 'kid' can count up to 9, but not higher)

[PuzzleScot]

I'm getting SQL errors when submitting the form. Is this happening to anyone else?
Edit: Looks like the submissions still got through. Thanks for the test!

Fixed and tested. Missing ',' in one of my queries that logs the ongoing score.
No submissions were lost. Sorry for any confusion.

[dickoon]

Enjoyed it! I spent the last 40 minutes producing a near-but-not-quite solution to one of the medium-hard puzzles, then realising I wouldn't be able to crack it in time, I spent the last four minutes checking my answers - and completely failing to spot my number-swap typo on puzzle 1.

Thanks to all for an enjoyable test!

[PuzzleScott]

Nice contest! I like the top heavy variatiion, but finished just after the submission deadline. Frameless is nice, but too time consuming (for me) to even attempt in a timed test.
Kudos to the organizers and contributors.

[Para]

Had fun. Think I did okay. Forced myself to do all classics, not my strength, but wanted the practise. They still take up too much time I feel.
I especially liked solving the frameless sudoku. Nice to see my own idea pop up in a test. It helped that I knew the tricks. Sadly I made a typo in the answer key for that one. Also really enjoyed the top heavy variant.
Now going to do the ones i never got to.

Good luck to the UK solvers.