Sampler Platter will feature a variety of sudoku clues all thrown together in a set of puzzles. The puzzles and designs for Sampler Platter have been created by me, David Millar.	Clue types include: sum sudoku clues odd pair clues adjacent digit clues greater-than symbols even digit markers digit difference markers	The test will consist of 18 puzzles, 12 of which are 6x6 sized and 6 of which are 9x9 sized. The test will be open for 48 hours, but solvers must finish within 100 minutes of beginning.
Please post here if you have any questions!

The link for August Sudoku Test - Sampler Platter is http://logicmastersindia.com/M201008S1

You must checkout the very interesting IB.

Many in the community might already know that David owns www.thegriddle.net . I came to know about this site 4 years back, and I follow his site regularly. He posts very interesting puzzles, almost on a daily basis. My personal favorite in the recent posts is Rotopath

David, Thanks for taking out time to create Sampler Platter. The puzzles and graphics are looking very distinct.

The IB indeed looks very beautiful.
Looking forward to the test.

I can assure you... its going to be very different and nice experience :)

Thanks Mr Pre-Tester.

Chinese translation of rules are posted at SudokuFans.org forum http://www.sudokufans.org/forums/index.php?showtopic=94

Thanks so much Leaf Card

I hope the rules for Stage4 and Stage5 are clear to everyone.
The puzzles will look similar, but there is big difference in rules.

Check page 4 and page 6 in the IB

Yes Deb, rules for 4th & 5th rounds are confusing.
Can you explain?

Without revealing too much about the puzzles, in some 3X3 boxes both odd-sum-circle and consecutive-bar are present.
In Stage 4 : Converse rule applies to those boxes.
That means, between 2 neighbours
a) if consecutive symbol is present, they have to be consecutive
b) if Odd-Sum-circle is present, their sum has to be Odd, but they can't be consecutive.
c) if no symbols are present, they can't be consecutive, their sum can't be odd

In Stage 5 : Converse rules don't apply at all.
That means, between 2 neighbours
a) if consecutive-bar is present, they are consecutive
b) if Odd-Sum-circle is present, their sum has to be Odd. But they still can be consecutive
c) if no symbols are present, they can still be consecutive or their sum can still be Odd.

Note that Converse rule applies to all puzzles in Stage1, Stage2 and Stage3

Is it clear?

@deb: Thank you for posting the excellent explanation.

@mjaipal: If you're still a bit unsure about the rules, wait a day or so - I'll be posting some puzzles similar to the stage 4 and stage 5 puzzles as additional practice.

Here's a set of puzzles using the same rules as the ones in Sampler Platter. Hopefully they help out a bit!

thegriddle.net/521

Edited by davmillar 2010-07-27 11:56 PM

David, In the pdf file the top 2 puzzles are Stage 4 type puzzles and the bottom 2 are Stage 5 type puzzles. Is that correct?

Thanks Deb & David.

Yes, that's correct.

Just now solved the IB puzzles.............it was really great fun............now let me try the ones in griddle.net........
@Deb thanks for making the instructions so clear....

Excellent and Interesting Puzzles Dave... :)

Rishi

The puzzle booklet is now ready to download on the submission page! The passcode for the PDF will be shown when you begin the test.

logicmastersindia.com/M201008S1

Edited by davmillar 2010-08-05 2:59 AM

In the submission site, there are 6 tabs. One for each of Stage 1 to Stage 5 and one tab for examples.
After you click on "Start", Stage 1 tab will directly be selected. At any point in time you can click on any other tab to go to the corresponding Stage.

As long as you don't close / refresh the browser, the state of sudokus in all tabs will be maintained.


Also, note that the Sudoku booklet has 7 pages (including the header page). Page 6 has one Sudoku from stage 4 and one Sudoku from Stage 5. All other pages have stage specific Sudokus.

Best of luck to all the participants!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

so many points to lose..aiyoyo...but overall i like ur puzzles.. thanks

Thankyou for these nice puzzles.

David thanks for this nice set. But anyone who wish to deal with it must be very careful. Otherwise he/she can make silly mistakes just like me In one of the puzzles I entered two same digits in a 3x3 region and lost points of a successfully soved puzzle while entering the solution. My other mistake was seeing a sign (greater that) wrong Anyway the whole set was fascinating. Where you're using different tools to obtain a solution. What can I say, this sampler platter really tastes good

Regards

Edited by zhergan 2010-08-07 6:15 PM

Zafer, Good points.
Comparatively, I see many scores between 400 and 500. But only a handful getting bonus points.

Many thanks for these very nice puzzles with a good mix of rules.
I ask: puzzle n° 13 (the first of stage four) has a double solution, even if out of answer area?
I think that two "3" can be exchanged with two "9", but it is not important for tha answer.