UK Puzzle Association

It looks like there's two pages of results - the other one is here: https://gp.worldpuzzle.org/content/wpf-gp-puzzle-results-0 The difference seems to be that the above link makes some attempt at controlling for difficulty of rounds, with a "PGP score" for each round which is scaled on the...

Hello, We have an annual in-person event (the UK Open) which is held annually (dates TBC but from memory, around March/April), usually in London. Details get posted on this message board closer to the time, and previous contests can be seen in various threads - e.g this year's are here: https://foru...

Does anyone have any tips for working with the dice nets in the second half of the set? I've experimented with labelling the vertices to help quickly identify which edges map to each other (and whether they are flipped), and copying the face on the end of the 4x3 T-shaped net to make a 5x5 X shaped ...

I'm not sure where to start either, to be honest. There might be some mileage in thinking about the vertices of the grid, but there might also be a better way of looking at it. Depending on how the loop goes next to the border of the grid, it can be thought of as either right-handed (ie clockwise) o...

I think it's the same as James' notation - the main idea seems to be to put lines in before knowing which end of those lines has the arrow pointing into the grid. The recent Toketa has an article on arrows, it has a few examples of configurations that can give quick progress (e.g what I've called &q...

No, that wasn't me - I'm guessing the process of editing the puzzle booklet works by replacing puzzles from the previous round, and my name got left in from 2025 R8.

I also got through it by a lot of trial and error, though I don't have much intuition/understanding of how snake puzzles work. I don't know if there's much mileage in looking at the total cell count to get a feel for how wiggly a snake has to be, which might have worked here. After I spotted the unc...

Thanks for putting this together Tom, it looks interesting and I think the inferring of results using "common opponents" helps fill in gaps more reliably than trying something like using median/average scores to control for event difficulty. A couple of thoughts come to mind: - I'm not sur...

I think the cleanest start for the balance loop is the black 6 in R4C2. This needs to have 1 "leg" to have length at least 4, and this leg can't point to the right because it runs into the 4 clue. After that, the options for the 6 clue are 4+2 or 5+1, and where both legs are vertical or on...

A couple of things I found helpful were a) the total weight can be used as a constraint, and b) you can sometimes cut down on options if some of the balances imply factors. 2023 round 5 dropped out very nicely for me with these - if you label the total weights hanging off each pivot by A, B, C and D...

This hexagon rule could potentially also be useful in puzzles with missing clues (e.g. the difference in totals should remain unchanged if you shift the hexagon in the appropriate direction). Though for the cryptic arrows puzzle in 2022 GP R8 I think the better (and probably much quicker and less er...

Thanks for the tips above - they got me thinking about Arrows puzzles a bit more in advance of the recent GP round. I've stumbled on a "hexagon rule" that might be useful (it can give a few quick placements, though is otherwise a fairly brute force approach). I've knocked together a quick ...

I've had a bit more of a look at the "hexagon" configuration and it might be of some use. Below I've labelled 6 vertices A and B depending on parity. The only directions that don't cancel (i.e. which don't go through 1 shaded and 1 unshaded vertex) are horizontal through lines 1,2,4 and 5....

So Freddie's post on the "Arrows" topic mentions the "octagon rule" for puzzles without all given clues, which I've been having a think about (particularly how "regularish" a shape must be to work). If I understand correctly, the idea is that if you label corners as bei...

Trying to wrap this up soon, so similarly for the WPC team: can we please get initial indications from Maurice Blount, Maurice is joining us for the full week, but not taking part in the WSC. Rereading my email, I realise I might have been unclear, but I'm only planning to attend the WPC half of th...

For the example, at least, I found the following ideas helpful: - Separating out leaves (ie dead ends) - there are two of these in each of R1 and R6, and each pair must have one going to the 2 seed and one going to the 5 seed so as not to break the "no two leaves sharing a seed can be in the sa...

I couldn't see how to get a single foothold in the Skyscraper. For me, the starting point was row 3 and column 4 - R3C4 must be strictly greater than all other numbers in R3. This means that large shapes in rows 4-6 are "boxed in" by row 3. It also means that R3C4 can't be 1, nor can it g...

Thanks both - having tried it out on the GP last weekend I agree that it didn't seem to offer much/any advantage. It mostly came in handy for shading in at the end of the Statue Park, where I'd guessed and wanted to ensure I'd not inadvertently closed off any unshaded regions - but I could equally h...

When doing puzzle competitions, I often end up guessing, and the notation can get very messy if I need to use several "levels" of guessing and want to track the implications of those guesses. (For example, when doing yajilin I either shade or dot cells, then if I need to guess I use X or O...

Me too - though I'll probably be able to make other evenings if its organised for later in the week instead.

I might be missing something more obvious, but after (a lot of) head scratching I've realised the 9-cell cage must have ACEGI in the corner and centre cells and BDFH in the edge cells. I'm not sure what the etiquette is for spoilers here, so to be safe I've rot13 'd the detail of my solving method b...

I don't have much experience with the sudoku gp (or sudoku in general), but for what it's worth I notice "pairs" come up in the classic puzzles relatively often and have started keeping more of an eye out for them. For me, the "variant vs classic" comes down to two things - the f...

Could I join tonight's meeting? I'd definitely be interested in talking through some of the Puzzle GP puzzles

Maurice