UK Puzzle Association

Also I would like to be on the B team for Sudoku please.

I would be honoured to take my place in Poland. Thank you.

Incredible competition for that fourth UK space! Well played gentlemen. Did anybody else find that 90 point Araf much easier than the 90 points suggested? I didn't attempt it in the time - too many broken Arafs in my past to consider it - but after the time, I spotted the trick very quickly and then...

Thanks James, that’s very helpful. I’ve not found a reliable technique with them yet - very slow going for me.

Hi Liane

Can you clarify whether for Pentopia it will be similar to the example that not all pentominoes must necessarily be placed, but there can be no repeats?

I struggled with puzzle selection, as has been a bit of a theme at Puzzle Ramayan this year for me. With the Country Road, I’ve just worked through them and found the 9 pointer much easier than the other two and the only one to solve smoothly without loads of guessing. Do I just solve Country Road o...

In the event of a tie, the score in the latest round is the tie breaker.

The season is now over. It's possibly been a bit too much of a procession with the same top three each round (that they competed in) but it was much more exciting with the race for fourth place, which was taken by Matthew. Congratulations should absolutely go to Freddie once again. Freddie - 129.22 ...

The season is now over! Division C ended up very close indeed. Liane just edged the final round, and came within one point of the title, but Thomas squeaked past Jeff to win the title. Liane - 28.5 points Paul - 26 points (faster time) Thomas - 26 points (slower time) Jeff - 16.9 points http://fuchs...

I agree. I thought the puzzle set was very enjoyable. I spent a frustrating final 15 minutes with the kurotto, but that was nicer without the time pressure on it. I agree, I found the kropki very enjoyable. I didn't need to guess to get started, which was nice.

Here are the results of Round 5. Very close for third place. Freddie Hand - 983 points Sam Cappleman-Lynes - 503 points Tom Collyer - 415 points Matthew White - 408 points Adam Bissett - 387 points In the overall standings, Freddie is uncatchable and Matthew and I are in an effective playoff for fou...

So, I looked into the Rating calculations that Puzzle Duel use. I decided to use all DNF during the median calculation. The first thing to note is that Puzzle Duel punishes errors heavily in Rating calculations, though this isn’t obvious on the scoreboards, and I didn’t punish them at all. Not sure ...

Evening all Round 5 is now closed. Thanks to Neil for test solving - we seemed to end up with a unique set of puzzles this time. The One Star Star Battle Nanro proved to be quite a test but there were plenty of puzzles which separated the group. Maurice managed to sidestep the problems and got them ...

Hi everyone

There was a copying error when I made the booklet for Puzzle 16, where one clue ended up in the wrong cell.

This puzzle booklet contains the correct Puzzle 16. Apologies.

Correct Jeff. Good news is that means you understand the rules properly! I’m confident the competition puzzle works. We checked that much more carefully.

Evening. Round 5 of Divisions B and C is now open. Please download and print the puzzles. You can complete them in any order at any point between now and Tuesday 10th May. For each puzzle, remember to time yourself honestly as to how long it takes. When you are finished all of the puzzles, or as man...

Interesting. I'll look into that, Tom. For now, David has finished, but Sam doesn't appear to have done any. I'll assume he's not going to, but if you do the Saturday puzzle before tomorrow, Sam, let me know and I'll give you the one credit. http://fuchsia.parallelepiped.co.uk/PuzzleDuel2022Total.PN...

I forgot that quick puzzles have the potential for larger gaps. David's time might make a difference on fourth place. I'll do a last update either once all rounds have been completed or the time runs out for timed solutions. At this stage, we can cheerfully congratulate Freddie, and Neil had some im...

With a small puzzle for Saturday, I suspect that unless Sam comes in and changes the scaling on the earlier days, there's limited changes to be had here, but here's the latest board. http://fuchsia.parallelepiped.co.uk/PuzzleDuel2022Sat.PNG http://fuchsia.parallelepiped.co.uk/PuzzleDuelComb2022Sat.P...

Neil did have a tough time with the sudoku too but was back on form with the Loops and Bounds. Matthew comes up the tables with two puzzles left.

Yes, some very useful ideas there. I like the comparison to Rassi Silai. I hope that will be useful. Thank you

It's much closer than last year between puzzlers. Tom is ahead of a tight group, behind Freddie. The tricky sudoku could catch out some of those yet to do it though. Outside of Division A, Maurice is having a great week! http://fuchsia.parallelepiped.co.uk/PuzzleDuel2022Thu.PNG http://fuchsia.parall...

Anyone with any ideas about techniques for Arboretum? Not seen it before and not sure where to start with the example.

Well, Wednesday's puzzle was pretty hard! Also, Neil recorded a great time on the No Touch Sums, so there might be a battle!

Here are the tables for up to Tuesday, so far.

At time of writing, Freddie has the fastest time of all comers internationally on both Monday and Tuesday, so the answer to how much he is winning by is lots. A few Division A puzzlers haven't started yet, but I saw a few Division B names so I made a combined table just for fun, to compare. Here are...