UK Puzzle League Divisions A and B 2023-2024

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Divisions A and B have 7 competitors this year, and in each round, the winner gets 7 credits, second place gets 6 credits and so on. Players who do not compete in a round receive 0 credits.

This year, Divisions A and B will have the same schedule

Specific dates for each round will be added when they are released by the corresponding bodies.

23rd to 29th February - LMI Puzzle Ramayan (2) - it does overlap with the UK Open but it’s available for the following week so I’m hoping it’ll be ok
30th/31st March- WPF Puzzle Grand Prix Round 3
22nd to 27th April - Puzzle Duel contest
3rd to 9th May - LMI Puzzle Ramayan (5)
25th/26th May - WPF Puzzle Grand Prix Round 5
22nd/23rd June - WPF Puzzle Grand Prix Round 6


This year, the members of Division A are: Neil Zussman, Freddie Hand, Adam Bissett, Matthew White, Tom Collyer, Sam Cappleman-Lynes and Maurice Blount
The members of Division B are: AJ Moore, Eva Myers, David McNeill, Thomas Powell, Michael Collins, Emma McCaughan and Jack Lawrence

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Evening all

Unfortunately there was pretty low turnout for Round 1 this year, though I thought it was a nice puzzle set if you want to follow up on it.

Division B:

AJ Moore - 39.4 points
Eva Myers - 26 points

Division A:

Freddie Hand - 123.22 points
Adam Bissett - 73.6 points
Maurice Blount - 72 points
Matthew White - 56 points

A close contest for second in Division A, and there will be some big gaps to close from here!

The next round is Round 3 of the Puzzle Grand Prix at the end of the month.

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Again pretty quiet in Division B, but Jack Lawrence just edges it for the win.

Jack Lawrence - 256 points
AJ Moore - 248 points
Eva Myers - 203 points

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Division A is much closer to a full complement.

Freddie Hand - 766 points
Neil Zussman - 554 points
Adam Bissett - 368 points
Tom Collyer - 348 points
Matthew White - 300 points
Maurice Blount - 292 points

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The next round is at the end of the month, with some Puzzle Duel competition.

I'd like to set it up as matches rather than just scores this year, if I may. I'll highlight the rules nearer the time.

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The plan for next week is that each day there are some one-to-one matches each day where the best score gets the win. As with Puzzle Duel Leagues, the first deciding factor is a clean solve with no errors, then the time taken. It's 2 points for a win, 0 for a loss and 1 each in the unlikely event of a draw. If the league points are tied, then the deciding factor is the total time for all seven puzzles, including the one with no opponent.

Division A:

Monday: Neil vs Maurice, Matthew vs Sam, Adam vs Tom
Tuesday: Neil vs Matthew, Maurice vs Adam, Sam vs Freddie
Wednesday: Neil vs Sam, Maurice vs Tom, Matthew vs Freddie
Thursday: Neil vs Adam, Maurice vs Matthew, Tom vs Freddie
Friday: Neil vs Tom, Maurice vs Sam, Adam vs Freddie
Saturday: Neil vs Freddie, Matthew vs Adam, Sam vs Tom
Sunday: Maurice vs Freddie, Matthew vs Tom, Sam vs Adam

Division B:

Monday: Eva vs Emma, Thomas vs Michael, David vs Jack
Tuesday: Eva vs Thomas, Emma vs David, Michael vs AJ
Wednesday: Eva vs Michael, Emma vs Jack, Thomas vs AJ
Thursday: Eva vs David, Emma vs Thomas, Jack vs AJ
Friday: Eva vs Jack, Emma vs Michael, David vs AJ
Saturday: Eva vs AJ, Thomas vs David, Michael vs Jack
Sunday: Emma vs AJ, Thomas vs Jack, Michael vs David

As with Puzzle Duel in general, I'm happy for solvers to solve them after the given day, as long as they do it before the puzzle closes (they're open for 5 days), unless we'd prefer to set a tighter deadline than that.

Any questions?

[mwhite]

That seems pretty clear, and a fun alternative.

Personally, I think I would have preferred something similar for their league structure as it would give more of a sense of playing at a certain level.

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Quite a few of us have completed Monday's Slitherlink Knapp Deneben (not my first choice of a puzzle...) but no completed matches yet.

Here are the standings after Day 1

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We have our first couple of results after today's puzzles. Here are the results for the first two days so far.



This gives rise to the league tables as below.



If neither competitor solves a puzzle, I'm tempted to give 0 points to both, rather than a draw. Any objections?

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A few more results to add. It's a bit slow at the moment because we haven't quite got the critical mass solving the puzzles. Hopefully Neil will do a big catch up and the table will start to make sense. I've been very lucky with the draw so far, just edging my matches, and Matthew will be frustrated after posting a great time today but coming up against Freddie.



Again, the table is looking a bit patchy at the moment. I wonder how many of Division B we'll get to the site this week?

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Still no sign of our five friends. Tomorrow is the last day they can start this contest without penalty.



Freddie has had a good week and finally sees the reward for having the best time each day. Tom continues his run of bad luck.

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Division A is nicely poised. It looks like we are going to just have five competitors, and there's a couple of key matchups still to happen. Division B is interesting with AJ posting a respectable time for David to aim for. Again, it looks like we'll just have four competitors, which means that once David is caught up to today, it's probably nearly done, but the total times might be key.

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Hooray! Neil arrived!



Neil's error on the Thursday puzzle means that unless Sam suddenly arrives, I'm guaranteed a top 2 position with some amazing luck in my matches, but beyond that there's a few permutations. In Division B, the last active match is Eva vs AJ on Saturday's Dutch Snake, and unless any of the inactive players get involved, the remaining times will be irrelevant.

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Unbelievable! I guess this one wasn’t meant to be for me

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Yes Tom, it's quite impressive that you're top of Red League with two days to go and managed to lose all your matches this week. Sunday's game was just by a second! Meanwhile after I had to restart my sudoku today I've ended the week with the longest total time but 4 wins. Not sure if this is *better* but it's more exciting, I think.

We're still waiting on a couple of active players, basically AJ and David, to finish their puzzles. After that I'm happy to assume the non-attenders are done and I'll calculate the remaining walkovers.

[Nilz]

Hooray! Neil arrived!

Yeah, thanks Tom for the reminder.
And thanks Adam for organising, and for accidently arranging the fixtures so that I didn't have to do the time-consuming sudoku!

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I'm calling the Puzzle Duel round. If Sam, Emma, Thomas or Michael do complete a puzzle and want the credit, just shout.

Well done David and Freddie!





This leaves us with the following overall tables in the UK Puzzle League

Division B:



Division A:



The next round is this weekend's Puzzle Ramayan.

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In Division B it was a tight contest. AJ just squeaked it to extend his lead at the top.

AJ Moore - 37 points
Jack Lawrence - 34 points
Eva Myers - 32 points

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Division A was quite spread out in the end.

Freddie - 124.68 points
Adam - 75 points
Maurice - 61 points
Tom - 58.9 points
Matthew - 29 points



The next round for both Divisions is the Puzzle Grand Prix at the end of the month.

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This unusual Grand Prix round created an unusual leaderboard with a few no-shows.

Division A:

Neil Zussman - 657 points
Adam Bissett - 505 points
Matthew White - 352 points
Maurice Blount - 311 points

Division B:

Jack Lawrence - 345 points
Eva Myers - 233 points
AJ Moore - 189 points

Division B


Division A

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We await the next GP round for the final Puzzle League scores of the year.

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This season's UK Puzzle League came to a close with a tricky GP round.

In Division B, the scores were:

AJ Moore - 266
Jack Lawrence - 216
Eva Myers - 158

In Division A, the scores were:

Neil Zussman - 591
Matthew White - 344
Maurice Blount - 339
Adam Bissett - 336

This leaves the final tables are follows:

Division B



Division A



Congratulations AJ!

The UK Puzzle League is due a revamp, so await the new structure in due course.