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Outside & Math (SM 16/17) Author
Posts: 4
Location: Czech Republic | | How balanced do you think the puzzle types of this test were? | Perfectly balanced | | | What was your opinion of the distribution of easy/hard puzzles? | Just right | | | What did you think about the puzzle quality of the test? | Very nice | | | How did you feel about the length / time limit for this test? | Just right | | | Of the puzzles you solved/attempted, how well did the point values reflect the difficulty? | Most puzzles were worth the right amount | | | What was your opinion of the booklet formatting and printing? | Just right | |
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Posts: 102
Location: United States | Does anyone have any tips for the second XV sudoku? The upper left block is pretty straightforward, but after that I couldn't find anything. |
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Classics & Regions (PR 2016/17) Author
Posts: 170
Location: Germany | ghirsch - 2015-12-20 1:33 PM
Does anyone have any tips for the second XV sudoku? The upper left block is pretty straightforward, but after that I couldn't find anything.
There's a triple in the corners of the middle box: 16 is clear, and then the 2, due to the placement of 2s in the left, top and right outer middle boxes.
Edited by rob 2015-12-20 1:58 PM
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Posts: 102
Location: United States | Thanks rob, that helped a lot. |
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WSPC Organizer
Posts: 739
Location: India | rob - 2015-12-19 11:09 PM
Rohan Rao - 2015-12-19 3:08 PM
The Neighbours puzzles look a lot like there is some nice logical path, but I'm staring at it filled with pencilmarks. Would love to know how to put in some digits.
For the small one: The L in the bottom right corner falls into two pairs. It follows that R5C46 are the same digit, hence not 1. So the second 1 in row 5 must be in R5C5. Next, R4C5 can't "escape" left, since R4C3 and R5C4 are 2 and 3, both different. So R34C5 is a pair, which must be 3s. Then you've got a 2 in R34C6, hence 3s in R56C6, ...
For the large one: 1s in C5R46 are clear. Then there must be a 2 at the top of C5, hence the top of C4 is a pair of 3s. It follows that the bottom of C5 is 2 then 3. Then R9C4 needs to be a 3 (2 can't escape ), 1s in R89C6, 2s in R9C12, 3 in R8C7. So R3C7 can't be a 3. Can't be 1, either: The 1 in R5C3 needs a horizontal neighbour, so the 1 in R5C7 needs a vertical neighbour, so there's no 1s left in C7. ...
Nice, completely missed these. Thanks!
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Posts: 24
Location: Poland | | How balanced do you think the puzzle types of this test were? | Fairly balanced | | | What was your opinion of the distribution of easy/hard puzzles? | Too many hard puzzles | | | What did you think about the puzzle quality of the test? | Very nice | | | How did you feel about the length / time limit for this test? | Just right | | | Of the puzzles you solved/attempted, how well did the point values reflect the difficulty? | Most puzzles were worth the right amount | | | What was your opinion of the booklet formatting and printing? | Just right | |
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Posts: 45
Location: India | | How balanced do you think the puzzle types of this test were? | Perfectly balanced | | | What was your opinion of the distribution of easy/hard puzzles? | Too many medium difficult puzzles | | | What did you think about the puzzle quality of the test? | Very nice | | | How did you feel about the length / time limit for this test? | Way too many puzzles (too little time) | | | Of the puzzles you solved/attempted, how well did the point values reflect the difficulty? | Many puzzles were worth too much or too little | |
Enjoyed the puzzles. Mathrax1 was my favourite. Enjoyed to solve Mochikoro from practice-set. Thanks a lot for the practice-set before the test. |
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Posts: 139
Location: Estonia | | How balanced do you think the puzzle types of this test were? | Perfectly balanced | | | What was your opinion of the distribution of easy/hard puzzles? | Just right | | | What did you think about the puzzle quality of the test? | Very nice | | | How did you feel about the length / time limit for this test? | Just right | | | Of the puzzles you solved/attempted, how well did the point values reflect the difficulty? | Most puzzles were worth the right amount | | | What was your opinion of the booklet formatting and printing? | Just right | |
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Location: India | -
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Fixed bonus points |
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| | How balanced do you think the puzzle types of this test were? | A bit skewed | | | What was your opinion of the distribution of easy/hard puzzles? | Just right | | | What did you think about the puzzle quality of the test? | Very nice | | | How did you feel about the length / time limit for this test? | Just right | | | Of the puzzles you solved/attempted, how well did the point values reflect the difficulty? | Most puzzles were worth the right amount | | | What was your opinion of the booklet formatting and printing? | Just right | |
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Posts: 35
Location: The Netherlands | | How balanced do you think the puzzle types of this test were? | Perfectly balanced | | | What was your opinion of the distribution of easy/hard puzzles? | Just right | | | What did you think about the puzzle quality of the test? | Very nice | | | How did you feel about the length / time limit for this test? | Just right | | | Of the puzzles you solved/attempted, how well did the point values reflect the difficulty? | Most puzzles were worth the right amount | | | What was your opinion of the booklet formatting and printing? | Just right | |
That was a great test, thanks Hns and Richard!!
Thought I got that Snake with 1 second to spare ... but had a small mistake. Adding insult to injury, I forgot to submit the Neighbors-1 solution: Argh!! But I always do love the 2 hour time span: much preferred over the 60 or 90 minute tests.
I see that some felt that the point distribution was a bit skewed, and personally I was a bit frustrated as well to struggle with some lower point ones, and have a fairly straightforward solve for some higher point ones. For example, I was kicking myself for not attempting the real-high-point Ripple-2 and Japanese Sums-2, as afterwards I found these to be fairly straightforward, while during the test I was mightily struggling with both Pentomino puzzles and Skyscrapers-1, all worth much less.
But this sort of thing is to be expected for two reasons:
1. Obviously, some puzzlers do better with puzzles of type X than of type Y, while for others this is the other way around.
2. For beginning or average puzzlers, spotting 'the next step' is more difficult than for experienced players, hence their solve times, as well as their perceived difficulty, will be more variable between puzzles, even of the same type. So I bet that the perceived difficulty of puzzles is much more consistent between experienced players, and hence is much more likely to correlate with the point distributions as indicated ... while beginning and average players are more likely to be more frustrated with perceived discrepancies. |
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| | How balanced do you think the puzzle types of this test were? | Fairly balanced | | | What was your opinion of the distribution of easy/hard puzzles? | Too many hard puzzles | | | What did you think about the puzzle quality of the test? | Fairly Nice | | | How did you feel about the length / time limit for this test? | Just right | | | Of the puzzles you solved/attempted, how well did the point values reflect the difficulty? | Many puzzles were worth too much or too little | | | What was your opinion of the booklet formatting and printing? | Just right | |
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Posts: 59
Location: United States | | How balanced do you think the puzzle types of this test were? | Perfectly balanced | | | What was your opinion of the distribution of easy/hard puzzles? | Too many hard puzzles | | | What did you think about the puzzle quality of the test? | Very nice | | | How did you feel about the length / time limit for this test? | Way too many puzzles (too little time) | | | Of the puzzles you solved/attempted, how well did the point values reflect the difficulty? | Most puzzles were worth the right amount | | | What was your opinion of the booklet formatting and printing? | Just right | |
Very nice, beautifully constructed hard puzzles; nowhere near enough time for average solvers...I shall enjoy these without the stopwatch, like I do most of these contest puzzles. |
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SM 2020 (Converse and Odd Even) Author
Posts: 87
Location: India | Very good puzzle set. Thanks to the authors.
Deeply sorry to read the news of Florian. My sympathy for his family and loved ones.
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Typed Logic Author
Posts: 241
Location: Indonesia | | How balanced do you think the puzzle types of this test were? | Perfectly balanced | | | What was your opinion of the distribution of easy/hard puzzles? | Just right | | | What did you think about the puzzle quality of the test? | Very nice | | | How did you feel about the length / time limit for this test? | Just right | | | Of the puzzles you solved/attempted, how well did the point values reflect the difficulty? | Most puzzles were worth the right amount | | | What was your opinion of the booklet formatting and printing? | Just right | |
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| | How balanced do you think the puzzle types of this test were? | Perfectly balanced | | | What was your opinion of the distribution of easy/hard puzzles? | Just right | | | What did you think about the puzzle quality of the test? | Very nice | | | How did you feel about the length / time limit for this test? | Just right | | | Of the puzzles you solved/attempted, how well did the point values reflect the difficulty? | Most puzzles were worth the right amount | | | What was your opinion of the booklet formatting and printing? | Just right | |
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Posts: 315
Location: The Netherlands | Thanks, that was fun. I just can't solve Mathrax puzzles in competition. I seem to always mess them up repeatedly. I don't know what is up with that. Surely it will go the same as always, where I will sit down later and solve them in one go without problems. |
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PR 2020 (Shading and Loops) Author
Posts: 668
Location: India | Excellent Test. Beautiful set of puzzles. Really enjoyed the set.
Nothing much to regret except that 1 puzzle went wrong. But didn't waste much time except 10 minutes on Neighbors 2nd and Ripple Effect 2nd one.
Even I missed those steps of Neighbors which rob explained. Haven't solved yet Japanese Sums 2, Snake 2 and Mathrax 2.
It would be helpful if anyone can tell the steps/start for Ripple Effect 2nd, really, just all pencil marks is what I can put (Except few 1s and 2s in bottom left).
Rest all experience was good, down until last second. I submited 2nd Pentominoes at 1:59:59 (hand shivering while moving mouse pointer to submit button :p , because just had 2 seconds, but fortunately could submit it) :)
Thanks again for wonderful test. |
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PR 2020 (Shading and Loops) Author
Posts: 668
Location: India | | How balanced do you think the puzzle types of this test were? | Perfectly balanced | | | What was your opinion of the distribution of easy/hard puzzles? | Just right | | | What did you think about the puzzle quality of the test? | Very nice | | | How did you feel about the length / time limit for this test? | A bit too many puzzles | | | Of the puzzles you solved/attempted, how well did the point values reflect the difficulty? | Most puzzles were worth the right amount | | | What was your opinion of the booklet formatting and printing? | Just right | |
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Posts: 315
Location: The Netherlands | swaroop2011 - 2015-12-21 1:37 PM
It would be helpful if anyone can tell the steps/start for Ripple Effect 2nd, really, just all pencil marks is what I can put (Except few 1s and 2s in bottom left).
Start with the 2's in the right top. |
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PR 2020 (Shading and Loops) Author
Posts: 668
Location: India | Para - 2015-12-21 2:36 PM
swaroop2011 - 2015-12-21 1:37 PM
It would be helpful if anyone can tell the steps/start for Ripple Effect 2nd, really, just all pencil marks is what I can put (Except few 1s and 2s in bottom left).
Start with the 2's in the right top.
Thank you.
Actually did that, but missed 1 step , after which the solve was smooth.
I focused only at that area after you mentioned, and found the step I was missing.
i.e. I got 2 pair in R2R3-C7C8. And eliminated 2 from R2R3C9, but somehow failed to use same logic to eliminate it from R4C7C8.
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Posts: 315
Location: The Netherlands | swaroop2011 - 2015-12-21 11:06 PM
i.e. I got 2 pair in R2R3-C7C8. And eliminated 2 from R2R3C9, but somehow failed to use same logic to eliminate it from R4C7C8.
That was exactly the bit I thought that you might be missing. |
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Posts: 225
Location: Thailand | Loved the test.
Nice to see international authors' contributions (other than SM and PRs, not that they are bad) slowly returning.
I hope this rise continues for 2016. |
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WCPN Author
Posts: 191
Location: The Netherlands | WCPN-test is now officially over for more than 24 hours, so it is time to finish it in the forum too. :)
Congratulations to Kota, Hideaki and Nikola for the top 3-spots. I could not believe my eyes when I saw Kota needing a bit more than an hour and a half to submit all solutions. My expectations were round 110 minutes for the fastest solver. Incredible job!
Hans and I are happy to see over 200 players and the high rating for the test! Thanks for that!
Florian's decease is a sad coincidence; only three weeks ago we received his feedback from test-solving the set. Given the circumstances we are happy that we could dedicate this test to him, it is the least we could do for him and his family. |
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WSPC 2017 • Schedule • Participation • Location • WSC • WPC • Contact •Search •Recent
WCPN — LMI December Puzzle Test — 19th to 21st December
