Just scribble really. It might waste a couple of milliseconds, but it's less exact that putting a X or an O. Besides, I'd probably forget which was which with X and O.

I heard more times that the examples are too hard. This is true, hence i wrote about the test on UKPA forum. I copy it here:

"Don't forget, there are 33 puzzles and 120minutes. The average difficulty cannot be too high.
The first puzzle from every type is really easy, I promise ;-). And more easier than the sample. In many cases the medium puzzle is easier than the sample. Finally, you can see from the points in most cases the 3rd puzzle has same difficulty than the 2nd."

Don't panic :)

A new puzzle pdf file was uploaded at 20:30 GMT on 29th July (02:00 IST on 30th July). Please download the new pdf again.

We found a problem in Slalom 2. It has been fixed and a new puzzle pdf is uploaded at 17:45 (IST) / 12:15 (GMT) on 30-July. Please download the new pdf.

Note the new pdf password is different from old pdf.

Thanks for a "WPC Preview" contest!
Slalom 2:
I erased all twice, and in the 3rd trial, I assumed that I had fixed my mistake.
Can I (and other participants) get 30 points for this puzzle?

Yes, of course, you can (and others). But just later. Dont worry :-)

I hope you will have better memories about the test and not just the Slalom2 ;-)

A great test; really hoping I qualify for Hungary now. I can't believe I screwed THAT type up though...

With regard to the oops on the slalom, is there any decision on what will be done with the ratings? Will this one just be excluded?

Edited by MellowMelon 2011-07-31 5:05 AM

Thank you. I checked your solution during the test. I dont think it can be good :)

We have discussed the situation with Deb. We wont cancel the Slalom-2.
There were 15 solutions when we detected the mistake. 2 submission are same with the offical solution and 11 submissions contain just 1 "wrong" digit.
In my opinion who could type a solution with 5 correct digit, spent enough time and could solve the puzzle.
Hence all 15 solver will get the points. (I wrote this previously)

I know there are some people who trid to solve the puzzle but couldnt and he typed nothing.
But just 20 people solved the Slalom-1 and I think maximum 2 people started slalom-2 instead of slalom-1.

I would like to apologize to everybody who spend time because of this puzzle.

I started slalom-2 (after slalom-1) and noticed about 2/3 through that an area had become fully enclosed. I assumed it was my mistake and moved on. Easier to start with a new puzzle than to erase everything and try again.

But no apologies needed; everyone knows this happens even to the best of puzzle authors from time to time.

Great set of puzzles overall!

Great puzzles! If the WPC is of this quality, it will be a real treat for those competing :)

Yes, my wrong solution had two goofs on the page. I would be suspicious of getting credit for it. Very, very unfortunate for me though. I've got a habit to kick in the next three months...

My original query about the ratings comes from the fact that there's someone in this thread who evidently threw a lot of time at it; I am not used to beating them and am currently edging them out by a bit. Still, I guess even at the last WPC they didn't throw out a round where I fortuitously waited until the end to work on the puzzle with no solution and tied for the top score as a result.

Excellent set of puzzles..........not very happy with my performance as I did two more puzzles in just 7 mins after finishing the test........Thanks to the authors for exposing ordinary players like me to World Championship level puzzles.....waiting for 1 claim on typo I have made......

Thanks for these really fun puzzles. The cube theme reminded me of the last WPC in Eger a lot; I hope I can come out to compete this year to see more great Hungarian designs.

----------------------
The Art of Puzzles

Edited by motris 2011-08-01 2:10 AM

I'd just like to add my thanks to that of everyone else who has competed so far. I thoroughly enjoyed these puzzles and for once did not make any errors on submission or waste too much time on any to find out I'd gone wrong.

Magic Cube is over.

Congratulations to motris (Thomas Snyder) who completed all puzzles with 14 minutes in advance.
xevs (Ko Okamoto) and MellowMelon (Palmer Mebane) submitted all 33 puzzles as well, but had one puzzle wrong. MellowMelon had a chance to top again but he had THAT puzzle wrong.
They complete the podium.

It is also important to mention about deu (Hideaki Jo) who definitely had a chance to complete all puzzles. But he lost some time because he was, unfortunately, solving with the pdf with wrong Slalom 2.

We are still looking into some of the wrong submissions - the results will be public after a chat with Zoltan.

Sorry, didn't respond regarding Slalom - 2 vs ratings while the test was running. I didn't want much focus on 1 wrong puzzle.

I assume your question is about LMI ratings, and we'll include the results in the ratings. When there is wrong puzzle in a test running for 48-hours, there are not many options which is fair to all.
One option we discussed is to "Not announcing about the puzzle / neither to change the pdf". This way all players would have hit the road block in Slalom - 2. But we quickly discarded this option because we wanted to make sure that the 75% players who were going to participate shouldn't face the same frustration that the initial players faced.

In any case, as Zoltan mentioned, all players who have submitted Slalom - 2 before it was fixed get 30 points. This is close to being fair, but I realize there are some more players who solved Slalom - 1, spent some time on Slalom - 2 but didn't submit because they couldn't solve and assumed that they were making a mistake.

I posted this in a hurry.
I rechecked the database, and found that MellowMelon took more than couple of minutes to crosscheck all his answers before clicking on "Claim Bonus". So even if he had got all 33 correct, he would have been placed 2nd.

One more point to note is that MellowMelon didn't get any benefit for completing before 15 minutes. We probably should have had partial bonus in this test, given that there were way too many puzzles.

I think on a test with 33 puzzles, there should certainly be diminished time bonus if a person submits early with a single mistake. But that bonus would only start after the solver hits claim bonus obviously. I found that end test button a good addition but it will really only get tested on a contest where many more people finish early.

It would probably also be good to add the "claim bonus" time into the rollover info on the score sheet because time to last correct submission can be misleading.

Edited by motris 2011-08-01 12:10 PM

Yes, we'll get it added in the next test.

Regarding number of players completing the test, I think the test was well timed (although there were lot of apprehensions because of example puzzles' difficulties). 3 players completed it and 2 more were close to complete it.

I think you have to consider deu like one of the original participants. His English is not much better than my Japanese, and would not have seen any errata. That was clearly the case in one of the UKPA recent contests, so I urge you to reconsider his result.

I could have finished all puzzles without that wrong puzzle, as I wasted 4 or 5 minutes on Slalom 2 and needed 1 more minute to finish Star Battle 3. But this is not a big thing for me, because the test was very good as a whole. I especially liked Heyawake 2, 3, Slalom 3, Hitori 3 and all Star Battles.

Dear puzzlers!

With this message the test has finished officially. The scores are available.
I'm very happy that more than 170 people started the test and 5 hungarian puzzlers.

Congratulations to motris, xevs and MellowMelon.

I would like to mention three more solvers: ppeetteerr and deu also solved 32 puzzles. And uvo with 30 solved puzzles has finished on the 6th position.


Thank you for the ratings. They are very useful us.
The puzzles with the highest rating were Star Battle-3, Cave-3, Slalom-3. (I realy happy because 2 of them are my puzzles :) )
The top 6 rated puzzles are special. This show me that it was a good idea to make an easy, medium and special puzzles from each type.

Thanks again to all participants, LMI, Deb Mohanty, Gyorgy Istvan, who provided me a lot of help.

I hope everybody could find some enjoyable puzzles :)

Best, Zoltán

It was perfect this way. Many thanks for having considered this.

A very good test indeed. I didn't have enough time to try all of the puzzles but the ones I solved were really fun. In particular, I "forgot" to try the third Star Battle, but n°1 and 2 were excellent. I am going to do this last one in the afternoon and expect it to be at least as good as the two others.


It was certainly a good idea. It reminds of Thomas' Decathlon in 2010, another much appreciated test.

Three months to wait until Eger... It will be long.

Thanks to all puzzle authors for this nice test. The concept of standard puzzles in cube shapes was nicely planned and executed.
Can we hope to see some more 'preview' tests before WPC/WSC?

Special thanks to Zoltan who coordinated the whole stuff and also for administering the test during the weekend while I was away.

just as a suggestion can after every test from now a pdf file that contains solution to the puzzles be uploaded.
(by solution i dont mean step wise but the final filled grids)