2021 WPF Sudoku and Puzzle GPs

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Puzzle_Maestro
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Re: 2021 WPF Sudoku and Puzzle GPs

Post by Puzzle_Maestro »

Promising results for the UK again!

Unfortunately that was a horrible round for me; submitted 709 points worth of puzzles but had three errors, including one on the 105-point yinyang. Burnt a bit too much time on the puzzles without a clear logical path: the first arithmetic square and the two SPOLICY’s (which I found very bashy) may well have taken up 20 minutes altogether.
jupilogy
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Re: 2021 WPF Sudoku and Puzzle GPs

Post by jupilogy »

Not such a good round for me either. I guess I just wasn't feeling it, since I broke some puzzles and it was discouraging for the rest of the event. Not only that but my printer was starting to run out of ink, though I doubt that affected my times.
pinkagape
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Re: 2021 WPF Sudoku and Puzzle GPs

Post by pinkagape »

The SPOLICY was no fun for me at all. The Yin Yang was lovely, but I couldn't see it during the event, same with the Tapa. I definitely didn't choose the right puzzles this time.
detuned
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Re: 2021 WPF Sudoku and Puzzle GPs

Post by detuned »

Hmm interesting... I didn't really have any problems with the SPOLICY (SLICY OP?). Admittedly it was more intuition and tweak, but I gave one of them a go in the last couple of minutes and only narrowly missed out getting the key in before time. I solved the other in much the same way in a couple of minutes or so.

The yin yangs after time solved very nicely, but I wonder how quick they'd have fallen to bifurcation - I could easily see the 130 odd points in aggregate that they offered as being solved comfortably within 10-15 minutes. The tapa I found to be more fiddly, and perhaps more prone to a mistake under time pressure.
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Puzzle_Maestro
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Re: 2021 WPF Sudoku and Puzzle GPs

Post by Puzzle_Maestro »

I think you may have got lucky with the SPOLICY’s. My intuition ended up failing me so I had to go for a full casebash, which wasn’t particularly enjoyable. EKBM took 4 minutes on each of them though so I don’t feel quite as bad about it.
Nilz
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Re: 2021 WPF Sudoku and Puzzle GPs

Post by Nilz »

Put me in the 'Disliking the SPOLICY' camp! Definitely should've spent that time on the scrabbles instead, but I forgot they were there!
Weirdly I found the big Yin-Yang easier than the small one. As Tom surmises, I do feel like I could've bifurcated a bit earlier to get the small one out quicker.
Feadoor
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Re: 2021 WPF Sudoku and Puzzle GPs

Post by Feadoor »

Nilz wrote: Wed 03 Mar, 2021 6:02 pm Weirdly I found the big Yin-Yang easier than the small one. As Tom surmises, I do feel like I could've bifurcated a bit earlier to get the small one out quicker.
That makes two of us! The larger one took me no more than 4 minutes.

My biggest mistake this round was spending nearly 30 minutes of solving time on puzzles that I didn't eventually complete: the first Hungarian Numberlink, the first Shape Place and the Pentominous, all of which I repeatedly convinced myself had no solutions through overlooking one configuration in each case.
detuned
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Re: 2021 WPF Sudoku and Puzzle GPs

Post by detuned »

Puzzle_Maestro wrote: Wed 03 Mar, 2021 6:00 pm I think you may have got lucky with the SPOLICY’s. My intuition ended up failing me so I had to go for a full casebash, which wasn’t particularly enjoyable. EKBM took 4 minutes on each of them though so I don’t feel quite as bad about it.
Haha, maybe I’m just seeing something that all you speed demons aren’t :lol: it didn’t feel like there were many sensible places to place the Y in either puzzle, and the rest flowed pretty quickly from there
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Puzzle_Maestro
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Re: 2021 WPF Sudoku and Puzzle GPs

Post by Puzzle_Maestro »

I re-attempted the SPOLICY’s and indeed they presented little trouble to me (I don’t think I benefited from recollection). It might have been that I’d managed to convince myself of a particular incorrect placement in both puzzles.
detuned
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Re: 2021 WPF Sudoku and Puzzle GPs

Post by detuned »

In case anyone hasn’t seen, it’s sudoku GP weekend. A little bit late now but you can still take part up until 9.30 GMT tonight (the competition window shuts at 11pm)
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Puzzle_Maestro
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Re: 2021 WPF Sudoku and Puzzle GPs

Post by Puzzle_Maestro »

Preliminary results for round 3:

19. Sam Cappleman-Lynes 602.2
23. Tom Collyer 564
40. Freddie Hand 504

An unfortunate error from Sam, though one which costed only a single place. This felt like a relatively easier round, with a high number of scores in the low 500's.
detuned
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Re: 2021 WPF Sudoku and Puzzle GPs

Post by detuned »

Looks as if the bonus has been indiscriminately applied to all the claim bonus people with 15 submitted in thise preliminary results - I wouldn't be surprised to see me jump up a few places if some of those bonuses get wiped out!

I have to say I enjoy it much more when the round feels like it has a better balanced points distributions, rather than have it dominated by 2-3 big point puzzles. Maybe it suits my strengths a bit better. I also thought it felt a bit easier this time, but then again the winning times are consistently around the 60 minute mark and there weren’t abnormally many people with 15 submitted, so I guess not everyone agrees :)
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detuned
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Re: 2021 WPF Sudoku and Puzzle GPs

Post by detuned »

Ah bad luck Sam, never nice to have a mistake when you think you’ve finished a round :( although looks like you’re in fairly esteemed company with Seungjae and Takuya on the clone puzzle.

Also interesting news re a couple of Poles done in for cheating. Presumably they were collaborating, otherwise I’d have no idea how you’d pick it up in practise. Looks like the top 3 for the round 3 results are now:

20. Tom Collyer 564
23. Sam Cappleman-Lynes 559
40. Freddie Hand 504
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puzzlemad
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Re: 2021 WPF Sudoku and Puzzle GPs

Post by puzzlemad »

Well done all. Think this one passed me by.
Feadoor
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Re: 2021 WPF Sudoku and Puzzle GPs

Post by Feadoor »

detuned wrote: Thu 18 Mar, 2021 1:22 pm Ah bad luck Sam, never nice to have a mistake when you think you’ve finished a round :( although looks like you’re in fairly esteemed company with Seungjae and Takuya on the clone puzzle.
The most frustrating thing is that I filled the clones correctly, and then made a mistake resolving the last few digits - I have a few transposed pairs in columns 4 and 6. Such is life. There's always next time.
detuned
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Re: 2021 WPF Sudoku and Puzzle GPs

Post by detuned »

Puzzle GP round 3 instructions are out. 687 total points spread over 20 puzzles, with no puzzle worth more than 66 points. It could end up being a bit of a sprint for some solvers. Here’s a handy reminder to make sure you’re careful checking your puzzles and also your puzzle answer keys!
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Puzzle_Maestro
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Re: 2021 WPF Sudoku and Puzzle GPs

Post by Puzzle_Maestro »

I’ve constructed a Nurikabe battleships, if anyone wants to try. Probably quite tough (80 points?): https://git.io/JYeyw
detuned
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Re: 2021 WPF Sudoku and Puzzle GPs

Post by detuned »

Preliminary results for the round are out - Freddie is top of the pile for now, but I note that's with 20/19 sent/ok so hopefully that's only a minor error that lets him keep the bonus. I'll hold off on a top 3 for now.

I was feeling quite pleased about getting through the encoded slitherlink with about 6 minutes to spare. It turns out I missed one instance of a letter (ironically enough the F in WPF in the 4th row) and ended up with a slightly different loop.

Again, I thought having a format which wasn't dominated by a few big and/or difficult and/or time consuming puzzles was much more enjoyable under the time pressure, and has certainly made for an interesting results table!
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puzzlemad
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Re: 2021 WPF Sudoku and Puzzle GPs

Post by puzzlemad »

Mega stupidity on my part - battleships solved correctly - entering solution code and I managed to pick the big outside clue numbers instead of column numbers and domino search managed to enter the number of horizontal dominoes not the contents of them. 52 points wasted - not a huge amount but enough and just short of 70 places. Went wrong with the coded slitherlink, then did it straight away afterwards. Still got a few to finish off.
pinkagape
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Re: 2021 WPF Sudoku and Puzzle GPs

Post by pinkagape »

Has anyone ever met Jeremy Kong? I feel like he's regularly near the top of the UK ratings but I've never met him. Is he on the forum?
Feadoor
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Re: 2021 WPF Sudoku and Puzzle GPs

Post by Feadoor »

pinkagape wrote: Wed 31 Mar, 2021 6:42 pm Has anyone ever met Jeremy Kong? I feel like he's regularly near the top of the UK ratings but I've never met him. Is he on the forum?
Jeremy has an account here and participates in our regular online contests, but is listed under Singapore rather than the UK.
detuned
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Re: 2021 WPF Sudoku and Puzzle GPs

Post by detuned »

I stumbled upon his blog a while ago - occasionally he talks about puzzles on it: https://www.jkong.co.uk/blog/

I don't recall meeting him at any point...
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detuned
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Re: 2021 WPF Sudoku and Puzzle GPs

Post by detuned »

Forgot to mention it here (I only took part at 2115 last night) but we had round 4 of the sudoku GP this weekend. Looks like another healthy participation this time round!

Sam submitted all puzzles but again has a mistake so his final rank and score are TBC. They will in any case still be the best UK rank and score.

Edit: updated scores:

30. Sam Cappleman-Lynes 578
52. Tom Collyer 485
57. Freddie Hand 466

Mark Goodliffe and Jeremy Kong also weren't too far behind to round out UK representation in the top 100
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detuned
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Re: 2021 WPF Sudoku and Puzzle GPs

Post by detuned »

I realise scrolling up we didn't do an update to round 3 of the puzzle GP. Belated, we have:

17. Freddie Hand 679
30. Sam Cappleman-Lynes 606
32. James McGowan 603

The UK showing is definitely getting stronger, with Neil Zussman, Tom Collyer, and Jeremy Kong also inside the top 100, and Adam Bissett just outside at 102.
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eratosthenes
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Re: 2021 WPF Sudoku and Puzzle GPs

Post by eratosthenes »

Looking at the GP instruction booklet for this weekend. Does the Myopia have multiple solutions? I can't work out why the loop can't go 1 step from the top-left clue cell instead of 2 as pictured.
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