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Outside & Neighbours - 2nd-5th March - Sudoku Mahabharat & ISC Qualifier44 posts • Page 2 of 2 • 1 2
@ 2018-03-04 3:10 PM (#24415 - in reply to #24337) (#24415) Top

vijaya_rajan



Posts: 22
20
Country : India

vijaya_rajan posted @ 2018-03-04 3:10 PM

 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
 Which set of puzzles did you like the most? Consecutive Pairs Sudoku
 Of the puzzles you solved/attempted, how well did the point values reflect the difficulty? Most puzzles were worth the right amount


I look forward to these contests and generally feel satisfied if I manage to complete most of the classics and 2-3 of the variants. This time in SM this has not been the case and so feel quite discouraged. Evidently the level of practice required is very high. This is serious business, no longer a hobby :) !
@ 2018-03-04 5:09 PM (#24416 - in reply to #24337) (#24416) Top

Administrator



2000100050020
Country : India

Administrator posted @ 2018-03-04 5:09 PM

PB - Number of pages


Please note that the PB has 9 pages (not 8). If you are planning to solve on paper, we advise you to have a printer accessible with enough paper.

@ 2018-03-04 8:49 PM (#24418 - in reply to #24337) (#24418) Top

vopani



Posts: 739
50010010020
Country : India

vopani posted @ 2018-03-04 8:49 PM

 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
 Which set of puzzles did you like the most? 2-5-8 Outside Sudoku
 Of the puzzles you solved/attempted, how well did the point values reflect the difficulty? Most puzzles were worth the right amount


Too hard for an SM round, which made it a bit less enjoyable.
Sudokus were good, some of the 9x9 ones had narrow break-ins.

Thanks R and R!
@ 2018-03-05 12:11 PM (#24421 - in reply to #24337) (#24421) Top

Ziti



Posts: 42
2020
Country : United States

Ziti posted @ 2018-03-05 12:11 PM

 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
 Which set of puzzles did you like the most? Thermo Sudoku
 Of the puzzles you solved/attempted, how well did the point values reflect the difficulty? Most puzzles were worth the right amount


@ 2018-03-05 12:45 PM (#24422 - in reply to #24337) (#24422) Top

An LMI player



An LMI player posted @ 2018-03-05 12:45 PM

 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
 Which set of puzzles did you like the most? 2-5-8 Outside Sudoku
 Of the puzzles you solved/attempted, how well did the point values reflect the difficulty? Most puzzles were worth too much or too little


@ 2018-03-05 3:16 PM (#24423 - in reply to #24337) (#24423) Top

rajeshk




Posts: 542
5002020
Country : India

rajeshk posted @ 2018-03-05 3:16 PM

Very good logical Sudoku puzzles. It was bit harder than previous SMs but all the puzzles were having nice solving path. Totally enjoyed this test. Thanks to the LMI and authors Ramesh and Rakesh for this wonderful test.
@ 2018-03-05 4:48 PM (#24424 - in reply to #24423) (#24424) Top

Administrator



2000100050020
Country : India

Administrator posted @ 2018-03-05 4:48 PM

Contest Extension


Based on requests from some players, and due to the Holi festival weekend, the SM3 contest is extended till Tuesday 2359 hrs IST. For exact time as per your timezone, please refer to the contest page.

@ 2018-03-05 10:22 PM (#24425 - in reply to #24337) (#24425) Top

An LMI player



An LMI player posted @ 2018-03-05 10:22 PM

 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
 Which set of puzzles did you like the most? 2-5-8 Outside Sudoku
 Of the puzzles you solved/attempted, how well did the point values reflect the difficulty? Most puzzles were worth the right amount


@ 2018-03-06 4:02 AM (#24426 - in reply to #24424) (#24426) Top

bskbri



Posts: 34
20
Country : Turkey

bskbri posted @ 2018-03-06 4:02 AM

Administrator - 2018-03-05 2:48 PM

Contest Extension


Based on requests from some players, and due to the Holi festival weekend, the SM3 contest is extended till Tuesday 2359 hrs IST. For exact time as per your timezone, please refer to the contest page.



:(
@ 2018-03-06 11:00 AM (#24427 - in reply to #24337) (#24427) Top

Para



Posts: 315
100100100
Country : The Netherlands

Para posted @ 2018-03-06 11:00 AM

I thought the contest was extended, but it doesn't seem to allow me to start.
@ 2018-03-06 11:19 AM (#24429 - in reply to #24427) (#24429) Top

Administrator



2000100050020
Country : India

Administrator posted @ 2018-03-06 11:19 AM

Contest Over


In spite of extending the contest, the team encountered an unforeseen technical glitch late in the night and the test did finish at the originally scheduled time.

Sincere apologies to bskbri, Para and other participants who may have planned to take the test today. We could have extended the contest today morning but since the password and PB were already public, we decided against it.

We are looking forward to hosting the March monthly sudoku contest during March 9th- 12th.

@ 2018-03-06 11:40 AM (#24430 - in reply to #24337) (#24430) Top

rvarun



Posts: 268
100100202020
Country : India

rvarun posted @ 2018-03-06 11:40 AM

Oops. I had planned to take the test today. :(
@ 2018-03-06 11:41 AM (#24431 - in reply to #24337) (#24431) Top

Administrator



2000100050020
Country : India

Administrator posted @ 2018-03-06 11:41 AM

Congratulations to Kota Morinishi, Jakub Ondrousek and Michael Ley for taking the top three places.

Amongst Indian participants, Congratulations to Rohan Rao, Aashay Patil and Kishore Kumar for taking the top 3 places.

20 participants completed the set within the allotted time. The median score of the test was 40.6.

Thanks Ramesh and Rakesh for the puzzles!
@ 2018-03-06 1:03 PM (#24432 - in reply to #24337) (#24432) Top

Administrator



2000100050020
Country : India

Administrator posted @ 2018-03-06 1:03 PM

We did a post-test analysis of Top finishers' timings and found that skyscrapers were undervalued and classics overvalued by about 3-4 points. This is primarily due to our testers being relatively stronger at skyscrapers and relatively weaker at classics. This was a known fact and was adjusted for, but still the variation proved to be high enough in the end. Timings for all other variants roughly followed the points distribution pattern outlined in the IB.
@ 2018-03-06 1:48 PM (#24433 - in reply to #24337) (#24433) Top

rajeshk




Posts: 542
5002020
Country : India

rajeshk posted @ 2018-03-06 1:48 PM

 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
 Which set of puzzles did you like the most? Renban Sudoku
 Of the puzzles you solved/attempted, how well did the point values reflect the difficulty? Most puzzles were worth the right amount


Very nice test. Enjoyed this test a lot. Some of the Sudoku variations required good logical flow which was really nice.
@ 2018-03-06 9:40 PM (#24434 - in reply to #24337) (#24434) Top

Administrator



2000100050020
Country : India

Administrator posted @ 2018-03-06 9:40 PM

Solution Booklet is available now.

Also Puzzle Booklet (without password) can now be downloaded from the contest page.
@ 2018-03-07 10:18 AM (#24458 - in reply to #24431) (#24458) Top

RameshLMI



Posts: 51
2020
Country : India

RameshLMI posted @ 2018-03-07 10:18 AM

I would like to thank LMI for giving me the opportunity to co-author this round of SM contest alongside Rakesh. It was a great learning experience for me while creating Sudokus (both classics and variants) for the contest and I thoroughly enjoyed doing so.

Thanks to all the solvers for participating and providing their honest feedback on the grids. Although we got lot of mixed feedback, we will definitely work upon to improve the contents in future.

I know every solver has his/her personal liking which was obvious from the feedback but my personal favorites were Outside Sequence (9x9), Skyscraper (9x9) and 2-5-8 Outside (9x9) Sudokus.

Last but not the least, I would like to thank Rakesh for all the support and guidance provided by him to accomplish the task.
@ 2018-03-07 3:28 PM (#24461 - in reply to #24458) (#24461) Top

rakesh_rai




Posts: 774
500100100202020
Country : India

rakesh_rai posted @ 2018-03-07 3:28 PM

Thanks Ramesh for being the major contributor to the set, and Prasanna for testing the puzzles. I contributed Outside Sequence and Consecutive Pairs, and was aiming for approachable level of difficulty to balance out the set. Both the 6x6s were gentle ones and the 9x9s were moderate.

Classics and 6x6s did not have high points, all were easy to moderate. The Skyscraper 9x9 was one sudoku which solves logically but takes time also. A majority of the participants did spend a lot of time on this, some either breaking the sudoku or parking it for later. Thermo 9x9 proved to be a tricky one as we had some participants who just breezed through it as also others who spent 30+ minutes on it. Most of the top solvers did outside sequence 9x9 quickly, but some of them got stuck here too, perhaps, due to the variant being relatively new (introduced in WSC2017). 258 Outside was again new but similar logic/concept has been seen earlier in normal outside sudoku and 234 outside sudoku. Ramesh was able to come up with a grid which was not trivial and needed different pieces of logic. The other two - Renban 9x9 and consecutive pairs 9x9 were relatively easy with multiple starting points. As authors, we are satisfied with the overall set, although we knew that it is a bit on the harder side. Also, it was also interesting to observe different competitors finding different sudokus tougher.

Of course, we missed out on some top participants due to the contest ending earlier than anticipated. Some of the highlights of the test from our perspective -
(1) Tomasz Skalski finishing with 70 points, the first competitor on the scoreboard. Reassured us that PB is fine!
(2) Sinchai finishing the set, the first to do so, we waited a while for this!
(3) Kota finishing the set in less than 59 minutes, amazing!
(4) Rohan finishing the set with 7 seconds to spare, that was a tight finish!

On to the next test now.
@ 2018-03-12 8:43 PM (#24496 - in reply to #24337) (#24496) Top

An LMI player



An LMI player posted @ 2018-03-12 8:43 PM

 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
 Which set of puzzles did you like the most? Consecutive Pairs Sudoku
 Of the puzzles you solved/attempted, how well did the point values reflect the difficulty? Many puzzles were worth too much or too little


Outside & Neighbours - 2nd-5th March - Sudoku Mahabharat & ISC Qualifier44 posts • Page 2 of 2 • 1 2
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