Puzzles at the Mind Sports Olympiad in London on Sunday

[detuned]

Yeah I hope they get back to on-site competitions too. Vint is an impressive website and I’m glad they could enable the MSO to happen, but at the end of the day computer generated puzzles and no pencil marks isn’t the best format for a competition.

I had been practicing on the vint site on and off - the level of Estonian players is very good (they often get the better of world champion Tiit Vunk, for context) so I was fully expecting an Estonian win. I had a couple of good solves, but also a couple of bad ones - I think I’d have had to be absolutely perfect to have had a chance at the silver. Still, I’ll happily take a figurative bronze, though worth adding I haven’t physically collected any of my medals in previous years, nor followed up on the prize money

[detuned]

2022 Schedule is out - of most interest is the Sudoku and Killer Sudoku competition on Tuesday 23rd August. I can't see a puzzle event there however.

https://mindsportsolympiad.com/2022-schedule/

You can also buy tickets there.

[detuned]

Just a reminder of this one happening next Tuesday morning. Note that you will have to pay £10 for an entry ticket

[Nilz]

Congrats to Tom Collyer for winning the Gold Medal in this event for the 3rd time, finishing the full set of puzzles with about 15 minutes to spare.
Neil Zussman came 2nd on points (I was not close to finishing) for the Silver Medal.
Completing a clean sweep from the UKPA, David Collison finished 3rd. Sadly, as there were only 3 entrants, the organisers only awarded 2 medals, so let's hope for a bigger turn out next time, now that face-to-face competition has returned!

[DavidC]

This year's event took place on Tuesday 22 August at JW3. There were nine contenders, although the field lacked Neil, Tom and other familiar faces.

I won gold, Sunseong Kwon won silver and Chris Tucker won bronze - https://mindsportsolympiad.com/2023-medals/

[pinkagape]

Congratulations David.

[Nilz]

Congrats David. Always good to improve the record of UKPA winners even further

Surprised to hear about such a large turnout, especially given last year's event. When I decided not to go (and heard that Tom might not), a part of me thought you might be the only entrant!

What was the event like? In recent years it's been dominated by just a bunch of stupidly difficult standard/ irregular/ diagonal sudokus, followed by roughly the same number of killers or kenken (of varying difficulty). Was it similar this year? It looks like from the description that there were no kenkens, only killers?
I find that I spend about 1/3 of the time solving the killers/kenkens, which are fairly enjoyable, and then 2/3 of the time getting through (or trying to get through) the hard sudokus, which are just a slog. If they continue to use that formula for setting the competition, I'm not sure I'll attend next year either, I just don't find the really hard sudokus fun.

[DavidC]

Thanks both of you.

Yes, I was surprised - I briefly wondered too when I didn't see you or Tom! Some were from a South Korean team attending the overall event, one or two were first-timers and one or two were competitors in other MSO events.

This year involved 8 Classic, 6 Diagonal, 8 Killer and 8 Kenken, with the Kenkens ranging from 6x6 to 9x9. I started with the Kenkens and Killers - like you, I find them more enjoyable - and made it about half way through the Classics. With Kenken, for the rest of the year I only do 6x6s, so I struggle to remember the include the extra digits in calculations as the Kenken size increases (such as 8x potentially being 18 as well as 24 and 3/ being 39 as well as 13 and 26). Also, I wish / was used as the printed symbol for division, as the traditional division sign is too similar to + for my liking.

Some of it certainly feels like a slog, and also three and three quarter hours solid means I think everyone deserves a medal for endurance regardless!

Incidentally, last year's paper is available at https://mindsportsolympiad.com/product/ ... er-sudoku/

For those involved with sudoku tournaments over the years, I'll note that it was good to see Tony and Barbara Corfe looking after the sudoku tournament, but I was sad to hear that David Levy has had a couple of strokes recently.

[Nilz]

Thanks for the report David.
Sounds like the difficulty was similar to last year, so I don't regret not attending. If they're going to make the Killers different sizes, then it's a shame they don't make some 6*6s for the other types (but I suppose the risk is that too many people would finish... I'd rather they just shortened the competition tbh, nearly 4 hours nonstop is suuuuuuuper long).

[detuned]

Congrats David, I was just thinking about this. Great to see a few more competitors - maybe last year was bad luck with the scheduling or something. Yes, as it turned out I was away in Scotland last week with very little prospect of being able to get back to London in time - just the way of things I suppose. Hopefully I'll be back to have another go next year!

[detuned]

https://mindsportsolympiad.com/register ... in-london/

2024 details are out, the sudoku event is on the morning of Tuesday 20th August. I’ve signed up, definitely feels like it’s worth giving this event a little love!

[Calump]

I might make the journey down for this, as I would like to get a few more in-person competitions under my belt.

Just got to figure out the best way to get there for that early in the morning

[detuned]

I think there were three of us there from this parish on Tuesday - myself, Calum and David C. Looks like results are now ready:

Gold - Tom Collyer
Silver - Dusan Sobot
Bronze - Calum Mailer

The format I think was similar to the previous couple of years:
- Four different sets: Classics, Diagonal, "Killer" and KenKen
- The points between different sets didn't seem to have any consistency
- The "Killer" section had irregular grids this time, and also allowed the other arithmetic operations as well
- The Classics were brutally hard, and basically I had to guess at all 8, sometimes with multiple layers
- The Diagonals were also pretty hard but at least the easier ones seemed to have logical solves to me

The very sensible strategy for future years I'd say is to stick to the Killer and KenKen first, as (a) they all seemed logical and even enjoyable to solve; and (b) it's a far more efficient way of chalking up some points. I started on the classics and had had a stab at all 8 before realising I'd need to power through with some serious bifurcations. It was probably the best part of an hour before I had a single puzzle solved completely!

Apologies I couldn't stick around at the end, I basically had no annual leave left to take, only had the half day away from work and had to get back to the office in the afternoon. Good to see some familiar faces again nevertheless!

[Calump]

Congrats Tom!

I've never particularly liked the kind of classics that they used where there's no real pattern or flow to the solve, but I did enjoy the challenge in a way.

It was a good excuse for a day out in London anyway, not sure I'd do the same next year when I think they said the venue is moving to Mallorca!

[DavidC]

It was good to see you both - congratulations on your medal positions.

Great summaries - I'm glad it wasn't just me struggling with the Classics!

[detuned]

Schedule for this years MSO has gone up:

https://mindsportsolympiad.com/2025-sch ... istration/

The Sudoku and Killer Sudoku event is 10am on Thursday 21st August. Looks like the venue is the same one as previous years at the JW3 on Finchley Road.

Assuming a similar format to previous years (with kenken and diagonal to go alongside the classics and killers) I’m making a mental note now to go for the killers and kenken first! The points distribution never seems to be consistent between the 4 styles, with the diagonal and classics both being brutally hard (ie guess-fests) in previous years.

[DavidC]

The 2025 event took place yesterday. I am pleased to see from the website that I came first, continuing the UKPA tradition! There were ten competitors, including some attending the full MSO programme and some from a junior team from South Korea. Tony Corfe, the organiser, commented on your absence, Tom - I hope you're OK. It was a combination of Classic, Diagonal, Killer and KenKen of various sizes.

Gold: David Collison
Silver: Donna Tucker
Bronze: Joachim Hambros (Austria)

https://mindsportsolympiad.com/product/ ... er-sudoku/
https://mindsportsolympiad.com/2025-medals/

[detuned]

Well done David!

I couldn’t get away from work in the end, although it doesn’t help that the contest has a variable length, so you never know exactly how much time to take off. The puzzles in the last few years weren’t all that fun either.

How was it this year?

[DavidC]

Thank you. This year Tony imposed a hard stop at 1330 even though we didn't begin until noticeably after 1000 - I think last year the printing problems meant it virtually ran into the start of the afternoon sessions at 1400. The ability for people attending the full MSO to turn up on the spur of the moment always makes it difficult for room layout, printing enough copies, etc ... and then they haven't even brought a pencil or rubber ... and then they are shocked by how long it is going to be ... !

Anyway, things went pretty smoothly after that ... except when, by starting with KenKen and Killers, I soon noticed that a few Killers were missing. I alerted the invigilator ... after a couple of coughs and then waving my arm when she briefly glanced up from her phone ... and the missing sheets appeared for everyone a bit later, but I was surprised by how much it threw me off my stride.

The puzzles were the same format as 2022 - this year's event page has a link to those for reference and the underlying PDF is here https://mindsportsolympiad.com/wp-conte ... s-2022.pdf

I didn't manage all the KenKens as I don't practice enough at the bigger grid sizes beforehand, and also find it difficult moving between the sizes to remember which factors are applicable on this page (eg with 24 and 36). Maybe it's old age, but I struggle slightly with the font size and, in particular, distinguishing plus and divide - I would have preferred the use of slash for the latter.

Besides that, it was simply a case of ploughing through as many as possible, ideally skewing effort to the nominal higher points values. For some reason I always find the diagonals here more difficult than elsewhere. Anyway, after (almost) three and a half hours, the session ended and I headed off. Tony had said he would have failed if anyone managed to finish the lot. Well, we didn't, but maybe if you had been there ...! As always, it felt more of an endurance event than totally pleasurable solving!