Thanks Neeraj... I seriously didnt expect to see my name there.... When I completed I thought atleast a top 5 finish

PI Sudoku (Sequence) was the least solved one.
Was it just too difficult OR instructions were not clear?

It was clear but I presume people overlooked the fact that in every row even if grey cells are not connected, the numbers have to be in sequential order from the given sequence... in my discussions with players, they assumed every individual grey cell will have an individual number from the sequence.

Rishi

For me, it was clear, but I wasn't very comfortable with that grid. I filled sequence for second row, and then I thought I'll loose too much time, so I leave it for another grid.
Moreover, I didn't print the grid, and thought when I began the grid that it would be easier to solve it on paper. I only printed the last 3 grids: blackout because I wanted to write missing digits next to the grid; Incomplete killer and outside sudoku because there were some clues outside the grid.

Deb,

I didn't solve the Sequence Sudoku during the 2 hours, as I couldn't see a logical process. Afterwards, I solved it reasonably quickly by guessing some of the longer sequences.

David McNeill.

Finally, I loose just 1 place.

Interesting fact: the top 10 all come from a different country.

About grids.
Classics were fair and not too hard (I don't overcome technics to solve tough grids and I don't like bifurcation), but not uninteresting.

Variants were very interesting:

Incomplete killer was very fine to solve. It was the scarecrow of the tournament . I really liked it and was happy to be able to solve it during time.
Usually, I don't like when there are lot of rules for a single grid, but outside sudoku was so well constructed, that the way different rules interact was very interesting.You had to find the path to solve it, every extra-rule was significant !
Blackout sum is a nice discovery as variant of blackout !
I liked symetry of diagonal and greater sudoku.
Inequality was interesting, as it was not like "standard" inequality (which has every <> marked and no digit inside the grid). It was more about logic than routine to follow (place the 9th, the 8th, or the 1th, the 2th...).
I like bush variation. It was one of the easiest variant in the test.

I don't solved 1234+567+89 (I don't like these variants. All these mental calculations overheat my musician's brain ) and Pi sudoku. Perhaps this evening...

Edited by Fred76 2010-09-27 8:38 PM

The visual theme of pi sudoku was very nice, but as David mentioned it was a puzzle where it was much easier to solve by guessing the long sequences at the bottom than using logic to know what went where so I skipped over it in my first pass. I was two bifurcations deep (for the 3 and the 4 digit sequences on the bottom) in my notation, but the first things I tried worked probably because the number of usable sequences is so low. So I think the challenge of breaking into the puzzle may have been the biggest factor, but I could also see confusion about the instructions keeping others from trying it too.

Edited by motris 2010-09-27 8:54 PM

Agreed - I can't for the life of me work out how to solve these with anything approaching elegance and fluidity, or even without scribbling down lots of sums in what is essentially trial and error. I have a mess of notes and calculation by the side of my printed page, and I'm impressed by anyone who claims to solve these relatively cleanly. I'd like to know how it's done! Ditto calculo-doku or whatever the current Krtek cup is.

N.B. as a maths researcher you should take it as given that my arithmetic is lazy and prone to all sorts of errors ;)

Pi sudoku solved.
1234+567+89 solved too. Not very cleanly , but perhaps I didn't thought enough about logic of these puzzles (like: when the last digit of a sum is 5, sum of the 3 units is 15 (5 or 25 isn't possible),...)

I didn't like calcdoku, but I think I'm in progress .

Quite often the 1000's place column of 1234 gets solved immediately.

That is a very interesting observation indeed.
Thanks for pointing out.