2014 WPF Sudoku Grand Prix

[PuzzleScot]

Sudoku Round 1 (Turkey) Instruction Booklet available

You can download it here: http://www.gp.worldpuzzle.org/content/i ... on-booklet

The first Turkish round starts on Friday January 17 and ends on Monday January 20, 2014.

This is the version 1 of these instructions, the final point values and possibly some changes in puzzle make-up will be added in a later version.

Any questions related to the puzzles will be discusses and answered in the GP forum

If you are not registerd yet, you can still do so:
http://www.gp.worldpuzzle.org/user/register

Thank you
Sincerely

Hana

--
Hana Koudelkova
World Puzzle Federation Director
http://www.worldpuzzle.org/
http://www.gp.worldpuzzle.org/

[detuned]

Round 1 is now under way!

I felt a bit rusty whilst solving, but I'm a big fan of this format format and think this is a nice set of puzzles well worth 90 minutes of your time!

[DavidC]

The results are now available at http://gp.worldpuzzle.org/content/offic ... p-sudoku-1 - there were 13 UK entrants headed by Mark, David, Tom and Neil.

[david mcneill]

Many congratulations to Mark for topping the UK list. A chastening experience for me. I found the classic puzzles absolutely horrible (especially puzzle 3). Also lost a lot of time on the Outside, Stars and Renban variations.

Looks like Nikola Zivanovic failed to claim his bonus.

[NikolaZ]

Yes, I missed that rule .

[Magoo]

Thanks David,

Your post is quite chastening for me, as while everything was a nightmare for you, that was almost the perfect experience for me. None of the three puzzles I didn't manage took me less than fifteen minutes when I tried them after the event, and the classics were the smoothest part for me. And we got pretty much the same score. Still I must have made a mistake somewhere so that's something. I'm sure normal service will be resumed in Round 2.

[detuned]

Well done Mark!

Typical that my mistake came on the 79 point puzzle. The classics were definitely tough, probably more so than the variants (although I find most outside puzzles to be fairly workmanlike) which was an interesting twist. It possibly opens the competition up to abuse via online solvers, although I'm sure the organisers will have taken that into account...

[Fred76]

Yes, I missed that rule .

oops

[dickoon]

Round two is taking place this weekend. Get the instruction booklet from our Serbian friends here and go here for the real puzzles. Some particularly intriguing-looking ones!

[Magoo]

Surprisingly, no email reminder this week, I think? Luckily I chose this week to check when the next round would be. I really have to diarise this stuff!

[Magoo]

Results now up for GP2 at http://gp.worldpuzzle.org/content/offic ... p-sudoku-2. Well done, Tom, with an excellent 510 out of 600 for a top-50 place! A pity that both Neil and David McN were absent - perhaps due to no email reminder - for a good set of puzzles. I was very lucky as: I finished the 66-pointer with 13 seconds to go; I raced to enter the solution and hit Submit; I hit Submit again and got a message saying I was out of time by 8 seconds; the organisers confirmed to me that my solution had got in under the bar. So I must have hit Submit once before the time ran out and once after (though there's no way there was an 8-second gap!). Not really sure what happened but delighted that puzzle counted as it means a difference of 30 places.

[detuned]

I'm glad I managed to go error free this time, but in good practice I really ought to have finished all of it in time.

I also ought to have submitted a dummy answer for the 90 point puzzle - was never going to get that done in 6 minutes I think, but the partial bonus that wrong answer would have given me would have won me a couple of places. I'm surprised the organisers have let this loophole stand - we've done something similar for UK contests but judged it fairest it to give partial bonus to anyone who solved n-1/n correctly. Having a declare button to claim bonus brings up the same sort of problems that were rightly moaned about after Zilina...

[Fred76]

I'm glad I managed to go error free this time, but in good practice I really ought to have finished all of it in time.

I also ought to have submitted a dummy answer for the 90 point puzzle - was never going to get that done in 6 minutes I think, but the partial bonus that wrong answer would have given me would have won me a couple of places. I'm surprised the organisers have let this loophole stand - we've done something similar for UK contests but judged it fairest it to give partial bonus to anyone who solved n-1/n correctly. Having a declare button to claim bonus brings up the same sort of problems that were rightly moaned about after Zilina...

The rule says:

Sometimes solvers claiming bonus may make a mistake on a puzzle entry. If, in the opinion of the competition judges, a solver has completed the test with all but 1 puzzle correct, and a typo or small mistake was made on that one puzzle, then that solver will receive 80% of the time bonus credit that they might have earned (8 points per minute). However, the solver will not receive credit for the incorrect puzzle.

I don't think that submit a dummy answer on a puzzle would give you partial bonus, as the answer has to be close to the right answer.

[detuned]

Yeah, the small print seems clear - I stand corrected!

[motris]

Tom: I have allowed some but definitely not all of the answers in an "n-1 correct" situation to get partial bonus. I review each of those wrong submissions individually when a solver claims bonus.

[sknight]

Bump: the 3rd round of Sudoku competition begins in about 10 hours, as I write this.
This is the Swiss round, with puzzles by Fred Stalder (Fred76).
I always enjoy his Sudoku rounds, personally, so I'm looking forward to it.

[Magoo]

Results for the 3rd round are up now: http://gp.worldpuzzle.org/content/offic ... p-sudoku-3. No UK heavyweights competing sadly. Puzzles not quite as easy as I suspected the experts would have found them - only 6 finished all-correct, but note Kota beating 2nd place (Rishi) by over 10 minutes!

[Fred76]

Puzzles not quite as easy as I suspected the experts would have found them - only 6 finished all-correct, but note Kota beating 2nd place (Rishi) by over 10 minutes!

20 players solved all sudokus without mistake. 2 players also solved all sudoku, but with one mistake.

Yes, Kota was very impressive. Note that Tiit solved all the set in 61 minutes, but forgot to claim bonus, like Nikola in the 1rst round

Fred

[PuzzleScot]

Yes, Kota was very impressive. Note that Tiit solved all the set in 61 minutes, but forgot to claim bonus, like Nikola in the 1rst round

Strikes me that a rule change is required. It really isn't acceptable to let the best solver drop so far on a technicality.
Although in a WSC, you would raise your hand to declare a bonus, that wouldn't be required if you were handing in your answer after each puzzle solved, so the scenarios cannot be compared.

[Edit: I have proposed to Hana, and the rest of the WPF board, that the rule regarding having to claim a bonus is reviewed]

[detuned]

I was intending to give this a go on Monday evening, but some food poisoning had other ideas! A pity really as Fred is one of the best Sudoku authors going...