croco-puzzle

[nickdeller]

...but it does appear that the UK contingent are broadly in pretty good form right now. Long may it continue!

In my case I'll be honest, it does wonders for your rating when you strategically avoid the puzzle types that you're relatively hopeless at *gives particularly evil eye to Hashi and Schlange*. I'm optimistic that I might be able to squeeze out at least one more kyu this way over the next month or three - I like to think that sensei would approve of his student selecting his battles wisely.

[puzzlemad]

Congratulations to Liane on making 8th kyu today! I haven't looked at people's ratings for a while, but it does appear that the UK contingent are broadly in pretty good form right now. Long may it continue!

Thanks, but then I managed to make a complete hash of both of them today!
As Nick says the ratings can be helped by avoiding the ones that you're not as good at. I keep having a try at them - thinking I'll get better eventually (doesn't usually work)!

[dickoon]

Wow, it looks like over 410 people tried each of the U-Ratsel puzzles today. Is this a record? I can't remember the ranking numbers getting up to 400 in the past! Congratulations to Berni for the continued growth of the site; I wonder if there is any particular event that has happened to increase its popularity?

Also, is this new Inslen (Islands?) prize puzzle another name for Nurikabe? (I'm guessing this from this entry at the LMD Puzzle Wiki...) Will they start to be featured as U-Ratsel puzzles within the next couple of months, and/or within the Croco-League?

[sknight]

Inseln is, in fact, Nurikabe.
I have mixed feeling about whether it should appear in the daily puzzles.
I like Nurikabe, and the weekly puzzle is a neat one.
On the other hand, the daily puzzles are computer generated, and I hate computer-generated Nurikabe.

[detuned]

I think I can deal with computer generated nurikabe in much the same way that I occasionally entertain a dirty computer generated slitherlink habit at kwontomloop - however what does get me with the interface is the fact I can't make broad sweeping mouse strokes to paint several squares at once. I think in fact I think it'll be quicker using the keyboard, something I already do with the croco tapa interface. I suppose it's an amusing reflection of my tapa skills that I never really felt slowed down by that sort of thing!

[berni]

Wow, it looks like over 410 people tried each of the U-Ratsel puzzles today. Is this a record? I can't remember the ranking numbers getting up to 400 in the past! Congratulations to Berni for the continued growth of the site; I wonder if there is any particular event that has happened to increase its popularity?

Taking both Ü-Rätsel together (i.e. all people who have tried at least one) we had 430 people. This is a new record. Up to now it was 417 at 2012-07-13. Why this increase? I don't know, but maybe the leaque playes a role...

Also, is this new Inslen (Islands?) prize puzzle another name for Nurikabe? (I'm guessing this from this entry at the LMD Puzzle Wiki...) Will they start to be featured as U-Ratsel puzzles within the next couple of months, and/or within the Croco-League?

It will enter the Ü-Rätsel in october and the league in season 2013/2014, because all puzzles for this season are allready made.

[berni]

On the other hand, the daily puzzles are computer generated, and I hate computer-generated Nurikabe.

This was indeed the reason, why I didn't wrote an applet for this puzzletype for years: I didn't manage to write a computer programm, which generated puzzles I liked. This summer I had an idea how to do this and at least it works for easy, medium and hard puzzles. Easy and medium are solvable without try and error and the hard ones (in the opinion of the computer) too. In practice, sometimes the used conclusions where not well suited for humans. But all in all, I think, the algorithm(s) can be used now.

I hope you'll like the computer generated ones better, than your comment suggests.

[sknight]

Anyone else having issues with their scores?
Yesterday my rating was up around 1860 after a month or so of steady increases.
Now it's got me in the low 1700s, claims that my all-time high was 1810, and that I've been sliding down hill all month.

[driv4r]

No.
And yours seems to be fine too as it's 1869.
I believe you checked it after 4 o'clock at night (GMT+1) when the ratings were being updated. I have noticed that at 04:00 every day ratings are updated in order of time (starting from the earliest results). So, probably by the time you checked your rating it had updated till the point in July or so. It takes a while (maybe half an hour or so) until it reaches the current point in time

[PuzzleScot]

So I've made it to 7th Kyu. It doesn't sound very magnificent, but I can't imagine going much higher (maybe 1 more step). shrug.

[sknight]

The good news: I finally cracked the top 100 (barely).
The bad news: I have a weak Easy as ABC performance ready to drag me down about 10 points.
So much for that

[driv4r]

Good news for me is that I have reached 95% solving percentage, which is better than 3 solvers from here!
And today I have also solved Stations with my best ever time in it, which is apparently still very poor though -- this puzzle doesn't suit me at all.

And what I'm happy about is that the 'Statistik der Fehlversuche bei einzelnen Rätselarten' stats have finally been corrected, wrong stats were displayed there for months!

EDIT: My 50-average rating has reached 200 points, wohoo! My 200-average is currently 69, which means I'm not very far from 20th Kyu any more!
I also have 10 different puzzle ratings above 200 and 18 (50%) above 100 now!
And another important stat: I haven't made mistakes in 19 different puzzles so far, which means I have made mistakes in 16 (flawless solving percentage is close to 80%).

[kiwijam]

I believe today is 25 hours long in Germany, being the last Sunday of October, and today's Hexagon Fences puzzle is particularly hard, so I'm really hoping someone will take between 24 and 25 hours to finish it, that would be a nice statistical anomaly...
@Berni: Perhaps you could offer a really hard puzzle on this day every year, because people have longer to solve it!

[PuzzleScot]

Never mind a >24 hr solve time, there's a couple of unique qualities to this particular entry:

115. salmo 1 std, 19 min, 6 sek (+23)

[edit:] Almost as astonishing:

6. PuzzleScot 12 min, 52 sek (+13)

[driv4r]

And I got my best ever time in Stations (Bahnhöfe)! It was only enough to beat 20 but as I beat 2 from here and my rating didn't drop it's not bad

[dickoon]

The Technische Daten for yesterday's U-Ratsel 2 will explain all. With fewer finishers than non-finishers, the rather hight slowest finishing time was regarded as the median time, so if you finished then even if you were absolutely slow, you didn't have too high a target to beat in order to get a 9D (2950+) or 8D (2850+) result.

I didn't touch the puzzle with a 64x50 puzzle bargepole.

[sknight]

I was actually the first one to finish the puzzle, and didn't think my time was going to be all that great. I'm usually pretty slow at Slitherlink, and spent a lot of time playing with color layers and playing hunches to scrounge my way to a solution. When I checked again a few hours later and I was still in first ahead of gorogoro, I knew the results were going to be a little crazy. Unfortunately, my surprise +9 on that puzzle is being erased by a crummy job on the current Tents puzzle.

I thought the Kropki a few days earlier was nastier than the Slitherlink, actually ...

[kiwijam]

Congratulations to Tom for reaching 1st kyu.
You've had a highly successful last fortnight on the ratings, long may it continue!

[detuned]

yeah it's not been too bad I wonder if part of it is a general rating inflation what with the the retirement of Thomas/Ulrich/Palmer (not to mention your semi-retirement James ) bearing in mind ratings are partly set based on the level of the very top of the ladder... but then again I'm not sure there are many types that those three would be consistently significantly faster than gorogoro and Hideaki... It's the same old chestnut of trying to compare the relative strengths of chess players across the ages based solely on their elo ratings!

It also feels like I'm making fewer mistakes than previously, and when I do make them I'm catching them to post a slightly less disastrous time rather than take a slightly more disastrous fehlver. With any luck I can push it up to 1st dan in the next few months - but I think that's as far as my tagesrating suggests I'm likely to get!

[dickoon]

A couple of other happy announcements: Dataman is now up to 8th kyu and apollo1001 has strapped on his first belt for 20th kyu! (They'll start to roll in much more quickly now, Adam...)

[PuzzlerNickG]

... Dataman is now up to 8th kyu ...

It's been a struggle. My recent solving form is patchy, but fortunately my red line is still playing catch-up.

Congratulations to detuned and apollo.

[detuned]

Wow - cracking effort from Steve on the doppelblock today! It's been a while since we had someone in those top 3 lists!

[apollo1001]

... apollo1001 has strapped on his first belt for 20th kyu! (They'll start to roll in much more quickly now, Adam...)

Thanks Chris! (and all). It's been a fun two months getting that red line off the ground, and I have really enjoyed being able to do so whilst watching some others' times in awe - very inspiring.

Congrats also to Tom/Nick - I'm sure they are much harder to earn up there!

[sknight]

Looks like today's Skyscrapers will be a close call on whether the median score is 24 hours or not.

[detuned]

it's a good UK day today! Hopefully I'm not jinxing it, but I don't think we've ever had two of us in the top 3 side-lists on any given day