UK Puzzle League Division C 2023-2024

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Division C is open to any puzzler who is not in Divisions A and B, even if they wish to join in the middle of a season.

Like Division D, the winner of each competition will receive 10 credits, second place will receive 9 and so on. In Division B, the winner of each competition will receive 5 credits, second place will receive 4 and so on.

The schedule is as follows (external competition dates will be finalised as they are released by LMI and WPF).

9th/10th December - Advanced Slitherlink and Dot to Dot
9th/10th March - Advanced Four Winds and Akari
30th/31st March - WPF Puzzle Grand Prix Round 3 - Hungary
20th/21st April - Advanced Nurikabe and TomTom
3rd to 9th May - LMI Puzzle Ramayan (5)
25th/26th May - WPF Puzzle Grand Prix Round 5 (USA)

Advanced competitions will involve the same standard types as Division D, as well as variants which will be announced in advance of the competition.

Should you wish to join Division C, please email adam@ukpuzzles.org

Current Members of Division C: Liane Robinson, Georgiy Kassabli, Paul Smith, Roderick Grafton, Nick Gardner, Emma Kingston, Jeffery Dick, Laura Baxter, Adam Sandhu

[pinkagape]

Hi everyone

The first round of this season is in a couple of weeks, so here is the Instruction Booklet for these puzzles. They are a mix of Slitherlink and Dot to Dot. There are a couple of unusual variants so do feel free to ask questions if the examples are insufficiently clear.

Edited to fix LITS Slitherlink example to make it unique. Thanks Alex!

[drsteve]

Just clarifying the timing rules - not done this style of comp before.

We time each puzzle individually - how do we check that we've got it correct? Are we uploading scans of solutions or are we trusting that as intelligent individuals, we know if we're correct?

[pinkagape]

There will be answer keys to try to make sure you’ve got something like the right solution. As non-beginners, I would expect that you have a good idea whether you’ve solved it right or not anyway, but the answer keys give us a backup idea.

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And yes, time each puzzle individually.

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The 2023-24 season begins now with Slitherlink and Dot to Dot

Please download and print the puzzles. You can complete them in any order at any point between now and Tuesday 12th December.

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 are not in Division C, 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 C, the solver with the most points in Division C 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 are new to the UK Puzzle League, you can join in Division C late.

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]

That's the end of Round 1. I had to check Puzzle 9 a few times, and even though I wrote it, I got so tangled up in it each time.

Anyway, a good few solvers made it through the full set and it's a successful return for Steve Barge who finished just under 3 minutes ahead of Liane Robinson to claim maximum credits in Round 1. Well done Steve!

Division C solvers are in red.

Steve Barge - 80 points - 32m50
Liane Robinson - 80 points - 35m38
Calum Mailer - 80 points - 52m05
Eva Myers - 75 points - 49m15
Emma Kingston - 59 points - 34m44

Round 2 will be the first round of the Puzzle Grand Prix, which is yet to be announced, so probably near the end of January in the end. I'll email round when I see the announcement.

[pinkagape]

Thanks Liane - it's on Facebook. The next round will be the first weekend of February.

[drsteve]

Just noticed that the Puzzle GP site is completely down - was this expected? Hopefully it'll be back up for February

[pinkagape]

Matus posted this on Discord:

Dear friends, we are sorry to inform you the WPF websites are temporarily down. Now, we are already working on restoring them. There is no change in the plan to launch a new WPF Sudoku GP series on Friday. In case of any change, we will inform you immediately. The Instructional booklet will be published on the renewed GP website then. We apologize for the inconvenience caused.

[pinkagape]

In a couple of weekends, it'll be Round 3 (which is very close to Round 2, but my travel plans don't really give me any other options for that, sorry). This will be shared on 7th February and open for a couple of weeks for you to submit. They will be advanced Four Winds and Akari puzzles. Here are instructions for the unusual types and examples. Please do take a look before 7th February in case you have any questions about any of the types.

[drsteve]

Sorry, confused by Round 3. Here are the instructions but where are the actual puzzles? Have they been emailed to the competitors? If so, I haven't received it

[puzzlemad]

They are normally posted on here. Not sure whether it's due to any gremlin problems with security certificates etc.

[pinkagape]

Sorry, yes, I sent out an email to say that I was hoping to wait for the forum security to be solved. I'll give it until after the Open to decide on the new timings for these missing rounds.

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Here we are then! Finally time for Round 3 (it's the second round so far as Round 2 was also postponed)!

Please download and print the puzzles. You can complete them in any order at any point between now and Tuesday 12th March.

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 are not in Division C, 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 C, the solver with the most points in Division C 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 are new to the UK Puzzle League, you can join in Division C late.

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]

Evening!

It's been pointed out that Puzzle 6 (Eight Winds) uses some unconventional rules that were not clarified in the IB.

Winds in this puzzle are allowed to cross at cell vertices. Looking more closely at the 2021 set, I see that this didn't happen last time and I didn't make this clear before or in the example.

If you don't like this rule, I'm happy to scrap the puzzle.

Sorry for the late clarification and the insufficient example.

Give us a shout here if you'd like to scrap the puzzle, and otherwise just do your best with it.

[drsteve]

A question about Whirlwinds - note this is only based on the IB, I haven't started the competition yet

Does the path need to be roughly circular? Could it zig-zag away from the clue? All of the solution paths in the example are roughly circular.

Also, slightly confused by the non-uniqueness - the top right hand three for example could go, from the example, down and then right and up. This might not affect the solution key, but should we expect such duplications in the actual puzzle.

Thanks in advance

[drsteve]

OK, ignore the first question - seen the "these" eight cells and understand that now.

Still concerned about possible non-uniqueness though.

[puzzlemad]

Still concerned about possible non-uniqueness though.

I've done my answer key thinking of the line becoming a loop and returning to the number (apart from for 1s). Then used V for 45 degree turn and L for 90 degree turn.

[pinkagape]

Apologies everyone, I definitely didn't spend enough time thinking about answer keys. Anything you try to submit to work for the unusual rules I'll do my best to interpret. Here's what I should have said in advance though.

Puzzles 1, 2 and 4: For any empty cells, use an X to signify these.
Puzzle 5: Absolutely, the direction of the whirlwind will mean that answer keys are non unique. To make it unique, I'd have asked for the clue number that each cell's whirlwind belongs to, giving an X to signify any empty cells. I'll take Liane's key if that's what people have used, but due to the non-uniqueness of it (depending on the wind direction) it'll mean I have to check each one anyway.
Puzzle 6: Use / and \ for any diagonal winds in addition to the usual V, H and E.
Puzzle 8: You don't need to tell me the value of T in your answer key.
Puzzle 10: Use a Four Winds answer key including O for cells containing lightbulbs.
Puzzle 12: Start numbering each first cell as column 1 each time, even though this means that "column 1" is not vertical, and is a V shape.

Sorry for the total lack of clarity on this part.

Steve, I hope this answers your question about non-uniqueness and I haven't missed anything. I thought originally about making all winds go anticlockwise to avoid this ambiguity but decided not to.

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That's the end of the round. It seems like it was a little fiddly, with all solvers coming unstuck on one puzzle each, but different ones each time, except Liane, who takes the win, and the fastest time to boot, so definitely deserved!

Liane Robinson - 101 points - 44m42
Steve Barge - 98 points - 49m37
Calum Mailer - 98 points - 56m31
Emma Kingston - 92 points - 107m52
Eva Myers - 86 points - 55m0

Liane takes the lead in Division C on the tie break of most recent round and we await the Puzzle GP at the end of the month for the next round!

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Another close contest here amongst our keen participants. This time Liane edged Steve by 24 points to take her second win of the year.

Liane Robinson - 203 points
Steve Barge - 179 points
Emma Kingston - 124 points

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Here are the instructions for the Advanced Nurikabe and TomTom to be held in a couple of weeks' time.

Please ask any questions required about any unfamiliar types.

[pinkagape]

Argh. Typo in the rules for Line Nurikabe. You wouldn't get far if you weren't allowed lines of 3. It's a maximum line length of 3 in this puzzle.

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Here's Round 4

Please download and print the puzzles. You can complete them in any order at any point between now and Tuesday 23rd April.

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 are not in Division C, 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 C, the solver with the most points in Division C 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 are new to the UK Puzzle League, you can join in Division C late.

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!