2024 UK Results Thread

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Round 1 Results of Sudoku Grand Prix are out, and it's lovely to see Sam Cappleman-Lynes back with a #25 position. Beyond that, many of our usual suspects scored in the top 150 with their season opener, but the more notable performances were slightly further down the leaderboard. Zoe Ashford achieved her highest score ever with a big increase on last year's average in #192, and both Anthony Ford in #271 and Luke Pebody Pebody in #304 showed big increases on their recent averages too.

We also had 18 new UK participants! Welcome everyone! The best newcomer was Corey Baker in #266 and then Baz Warner in #309

In the UK ranks, anyone who did not post a score since 2021 has been removed due to inactivity (but a new performance will reawaken those old scores).

Anthony Ford's strong start to the year sees him rise to UK rank 18, and Dylan Gibbs' fourth GP performance sees him enter the ranks at UK rank 14.

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Well done for setting up a thread Adam! 1000+ people took part in round 1, but alas not me. Probably also worth highlighting that Sam managed to finish the set, which is always a nice achievement.

Top 3 UK:

25 Sam Capppleman-Lynes 613
71 Jack Lawrence 451
106 Matt Siegfried 402

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Also - Adam do you maintain these rankings anywhere where people can see them? Is it the sort of thing that could go up on a Google sheet for instance?

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I’ll have a think about a way to share the rankings that I’ve put together.

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Puzzle GP Round 1 - despite the ongoing technical difficulties with the website, it looks like a pretty good showing from the UK based on the preliminary results. Well done especially to both Freddie and Sam who finished the set within time!

Top 3 UK:

8 Freddie Hand 789.5 (this rank could go up if other bonus is removed)
16 Sam Cappleman-Lynes 670.5 (this rank could go up if other bonus is removed)
51 Neil Zussman 542

Just behind Neil, James McGowan also made the top 100, as did Adam Bissett and Tom Collyer a bit further back. Todd Davies and Maurice B were very narrowly outside that top 100 mark.

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Thanks Tom - impressive performances considering the website difficulties indeed.

Todd Davies' debut is indeed impressive and we also had five other new UK puzzlers amongst the 34 categorised UK solvers where in general this set was tough for us to get record scores. Aside from Sam's return, congratulations should go to UK friend Anthea McMillan who started the year strong beating her recent averages in #129, similar improvement from Howard Wilkinson in #274 and a huge improvement from Robert Gelosen, doubling his recent average in #283.

I'm still working on a way to show the rankings more clearly, but it was a good start to the year by our Australian friends, with Helen Arnold rising to #6 and Anthea rising to #15.

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Results from Round 2 of the Sudoku Grand Prix are out.

I had a horrible time, really struggled with the Skyscraper Sudoku. However, lots of other UK solvers had a great time! Matt Siegfried continued on his fine form with a personal high score of 463 points. Zoe Ashford got her highest position so far in #159. Ned Walker returned for his first performance since 2020 in #130, and newcomer Tom Hayton had a great start in #261, ahead of recent UK Open bronze medallist Calum.

Ned's return brings him into UK Rank 9, and Matt's good performance jumps him up to UK Rank 6. Lower down, Michael Walker has climbed up to UK Rank 22. I was also very pleased to see so many newcomers from Round 1 return for Round 2.

Puzzles quickly follow this weekend!

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Just to add to Adam's post on round 2 of the Sudoku GP - unfortunately this did happen to clash with the UK Open, which looks as if it's affected the UK participation for this round. The top 3 were:

82 Matt Siegfried 463
103 Mark Goodliffe 422
130 Ned Walker 374

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The results for the unusual Round 2 of the Puzzle GP are now out. The bumper high maximum total meant that many scored higher than average, and Dylan Gibbs scored particularly well amongst the high positions, while Pat Stanford (#194) and Desirée Wilson (#206) had particularly high scores in the main field, and Whei-Chang Kim seemed to enjoy the puzzles too with nearly triple his recent average and his first foray into the top 300 (#271) to enter the rankings in UK Rank 39

In the UK rankings, strong performances from Helen Arnold, Adam Bissett, Jeremy Kong and Dylan Gibbs all moved up a little but no major changes otherwise.

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A couple of updates:

Round 2 of the puzzle GP

36 Neil Zussman 633
57 James McGowan 545
83 Adam Bissett 475

Dylan Gibbs also made the top 100, with Jeremy Kong and Tom Collyer just outside.

Round 3 of the sudoku GP

63 Matt Siegfried 486
66 Adam Bissett 474
89 Tom Collyer 439

We also had Tom Hayton and Mark Goodliffe just outside the top 100.

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As Tom says, the results for Round 3 of the Sudoku Grand Prix are out.

Matt Siegfried and Adam Bissett both previously had a top position of #75 and broke this record with #63 and #66 respectively, with Adam also getting his highest ever score along the way. Beyond these two, Tom Hayton nearly got into the top 100 with his record of #105 in his strong debut season.

Beyond that, it seemed that many UK solvers found it challenging and struggled to beat their usual averages.

There were no major changes in the rankings though Adam Bissett used this strong round to consolidate his ranking up to UK Rank 11.

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Preliminary results of the puzzle GP round 3 out. Is it me, or is the standard of competition really heated up this year? I suspect there was an element of making the right puzzle choice in this one as well.

Top 3 UK:

4 Freddie Hand 766 (this might be 3rd depending on partial bonus being stripped out)
30 Neil Zussman 554
62 James McGowan 461

Also in the top 100 were Dylan Gibbs and Todd Davies, with Adam Bissett just outside.

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Puzzle GP Round 3 was harder to score points in than usual, with most of our top performers scoring fewer points than usual. This made Dylan Gibbs' uptick on his recent average especially impressive, and as Tom suggests, Todd Davies continues his strong debut season with his first result in the top 100. Below this, Calum Mailer also had a strong result in #147 with his first placing in the top 200. Further down, there were good performances from Liane Robinson, 35% up on her recent average and Robert Gelosen, 44% up on his recent average.

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Sudoku Round 4 seemed to really suit the UK solvers with a little clump of solvers just outside the top 100 all getting their best places ever, the pick of which is probably Pat Stanford, beating their top score by 50 points and placing #147, but it's also a good improvement on the average for Ned Walker in #92, Zoe Ashford in #110, Niranjan Vakil in #327, Liane Robinson in #420, so a real well done across the board.

Pat's strong showing sees them up to #17 in the UK Ranks, and Liane is the other big winner, up to #46.

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Top 3 UK for round 4 of the sudoku GP - unfortunately we didn’t manage to crack the top 50

70 Tom Collyer 441
84 Jack Lawrence 414
92 Ned Walker 394

As Adam mentioned, we also had a bit of a clump just outside the top 100, including Calum Mailer, Matt Siegfried, Tim Tom and Zoe Ashford

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Puzzle Round 4 had a beautiful set of round puzzles and points were generally easy to come by, with most solvers improving on their average score. Neil recorded his highest score since [my] records began (2018), but so did Maurice (by around 100 points), Dylan, AJ, Liane, Calum and Desirée, with Desirée also breaking into the top 100 for the first time, and generally delivering an incredible result in #77. Calum is having a great debut season in the Puzzles, having been impressing in Sudoku for a while, and this marks a particular peak so far in #104. Liane, Emma Kingston and Nick Edwards also warrant a mention as they roughly doubled their recent averages in strong performances.

In terms of rankings, it's the fourth round of the year, so new competitors get their rankings. Todd Davies enters at #10 and Calum at #14, with Sarah Knowles at #44. Desirée's strong showing moves her up to #20 and Dylan has cemented his top 10 placement in #8.

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Sudoku Round 5 was a good one for UK solvers, with many getting a good return, but some of the UK's traditional top 5 had a tougher time, with the rest of the top 15 making hay.

The pick of the crop was Zoe Ashford's first foray into the top 100 with #91 and her first score over 400 too. This is not to belittle Matt Siegfried and Calum Mailer's good performances, a solid 10% up on their recent averages too. Outside the top 100, both Maurice and Michael Walker got their high scores in #235 and #252, both nearly 50% up on their recent averages.

This latest performance moves Matt Siegfried up to #4 in the UK Rankings from #7, and the other big winner was Maurice, who rose to #20.

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And results in the alternative format:

Puzzle GP round 4:

30 Neil Zussman 752
37 James McGowan 697
77 Desirée Wilson 564

Honourable mentions for each of Maurice B, Calum Mailer, Adam Bissett and Dylan Gibbs who were all marginally outside the top 100

Sudoku GP round 5:

67 Matt Siegfried 463
82 Calum Mailer 421
91 Zoe Ashford 408

Tom Collyer and Jack Lawrence were both marginally outside the top 100

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Also, for what it's worth, here's a link to the experimental rankings system I described elsewhere. Very early days, and it only has 2024 GP data added to it, butIt seems to be making a vague amount of sense so far!

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/ ... =940783625

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An experimental round from USA for Puzzle GP5, and this suited some puzzlers more than others.

We had 6 UK solvers take their highest positions to date - Adam Bissett in #30, Desirée Wilson continues her recent hot streak in #71, Calum Mailer continues his strong debut season in #75, Jack Lawrence in #108, Liane Robinson in #157 and Emma KIngston in #200

Desirée, Liane and Emma all smashed their recent averages in achieving these high positions too.

Outside of these, there is a new UK name in Aleksei Daniliuk, who has been solving all year but previously under the nationality of Portugal. He achieved an impressive #34.

These scores have made a bit of a splash in the UK ranks, moving Neil up above Sam into #2, me above Helen and Tom into #5, Aleksei enters in #8, Calum up into #10, Desirée into #18, Jack into #22 and Liane into #33, with Emma entering at #36.

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And in the alternative format:

12 Neil Zussman 657
30 Adam Bissett 505
34 Aleksei Daniliuk 487

Just outside the top 50 was James McGowan, with Desirée Wilson and Calum Mailer also top 100. Just outside the top 100 were Matthew White and Jack Lawrence.

Re the experimental ratings I posted above: I've added in the results of the UK opens, and I think I'm almost settled on the methodology. The one thing I’ve recently changed is to better infer NA head-to-head matchups, rather than rely on a simply points average - I think it very roughly is working sensibly. I'll probably look to make the calculation a robust process for 2025 - and maybe even expand it beyond UK participants (though I think the calculation overheads will very quickly start ballooning from what a spreadsheet will be able to handle)

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Sudoku Round 6 was either a warm up or a cool down to the UK Sudoku Championship and seemed to suit UK solvers, with many achieving above their recent average. Tom Collyer edged out Matt Siegfried to be the highest UK solver, beating his recent average by 18% and continuing his consistent season. The other strong performances were Zoe Ashford in #112 and Ned Walker in #121, both improving on their recent averages by about a third, and Sam Boden in #322 increasing by 20%.

We've now got 63 "active" UK solvers by my definition, which is great to see. Sam Boden's strong performance moves them up to #25 and our latest player to reach the 4 rounds played milestone is Paul Pope-Mitchell who enters the rankings at #47.

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Puzzle Round 6 proved tricky for UK solvers on the whole, with many producing fewer points than usual.

There were a couple of exceptions. Desirée WIlson and Howard WIlkinson got about 50% higher than their recent averages in #72 and #231, and two of this year's new players, Emma Kingston and Sarah Knowles, beat their recent averages by about 33% in #223 and #269

Congratulations to these puzzlers!

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Sudoku Round 7 was very hard for me, and I had wondered if everybody thought so, but I wonder if my puzzle selection was just poor, because while points were slightly harder to come by than average, most were only just below their usual recent average.

There were exceptions! Matt Siegfried slightly bettered his recent average as he took his first top 50 finish, and Zoe Ashford also slightly bettered her recent average in #108. Robert Gelosen solved 7 sudokus as he achieved his best result by far in his fourth appearance in #190, entering the UK rankings at #27, and Benji Martin broke into the top 300 for the first time in #291. Robert Le Duc will also be pleased with his showing with 4 sudokus and 131 points in #412, enough to push his UK ranking up to #48.

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Puzzle Round 7 results are out, and many found points hard to come by, though many of the year's form puzzlers were in or around the top 100 again. Two performances stand out; Matthew White in #61 scoring 429 points, about 20% up on his recent average, and Ben Woodley in #139, also about 20% up on his recent average, with this being his first showing in the top 150 too. Maurice Blount also achieved his best finish to date, with #68.

Well done all of you.