Indian Puzzle Championship - 2024

Summary:

Ashish Kumar won his 2nd Indian Puzzle Championship, having come in as the defending champion. He had a strong lead with the base points from his online performances, but even on the day he top scored across the 4 rounds for a well deserved victory. Kishore secured the 2nd spot and Nityant survived some errors to hold on to 3rd spot even though Amit did better across the 4 rounds on the day.

There were two solvers in the Under-21 category, and while Nityant was the runaway winner, Puwar Dhruvarajsinh is developing well at the age of 13, with a respectable 15th place finish overall.

There were two solvers in the Above-50 category, and Daniel Victor edged out Anil Khosla to the top spot.

We hope to see more female competitors in the future. At this event, there were two, Priyam Bhushan and Shubhi Sareen. It was Shubhi's first time solving at this level so she found things a bit tough, and Priyam emerged as the best female solver after a very strong showing across rounds 2-4.

LMI extends sincere gratitude to authors Chandrachud Nanduri, Chiel Beenhakker, David Altizio, Jeffrey Bardon, Madhav Sankaranarayanan, Mark Sweep, Martin Ender, Prasanna Seshadri, Swaroop Guggilam, Tawan Sunathvanichkul and Wessel Strijkstra, and to all the test solvers, volunteers, etc. who helped put this top-quality event together.

Now, some notes about the remainder of the event.

Instructionless Mini-Hunt:

After the IPC main rounds, there was a fun event with 2-player teams solving an instruction-less challenge. The players had to decipher the meaning of information across two pages, using some information that was present on the screen.

The team of Nityant and Harsh finished first, narrowly beating the team of Priyam and Tigran. Most teams finished the round, and it was very well received as a change of pace from the regular proceedings.

Puzzle Ramayan Playoffs:

Once the checking was done for the IPC main rounds, it was time for the Puzzle Ramayan Playoffs. The Sudoku Mahabharat concept came to be in the year 2015 with a vision to provide a stepping stone to the players who are below the usual qualifiers, and encourage them to go further and become contenders for the team. A year later, Puzzle Ramayan was introduced with the same aim. There are strict eligibility criteria to achieve this end, and the top 3 is decided in a playoff contest based on the rankings in IPC among the eligible participants.

The PR Playoffs have two stages, first choosing the 3rd place contender from among the 3rd, 4th and 5th best eligible solvers from the IPC rankings and then holding another playoff to determine the top 3 rankings.

At the 2024 edition, the 3rd-5th place playoff was contested by Kartik Reddy, Priyam Bhushan and Tigran Wadia. All three participants got to the final puzzle but Kartik Reddy used his head-start and kept 3rd position. He went on to face Harsh Poddar starting at 2nd and Harmeet Singh leading the pack. Kartik struggled on the second puzzle, a Geradeweg, due to his lack of experience with loop puzzles. Harsh and Harmeet were matching each other solve for solve until they got to the 3rd and final puzzle, where Harmeet made an error that he took a long time to fix. Harsh on the other hand, had a smooth run through to the end, clinching the 1st spot.

Harsh Poddar is a 2-time Puzzle Ramayan winner, with back to back titles in 2023 and 2024. By the rules, he has now 'advanced' and won't be eligible for this award going forward. Harmeet managed to hold on to 2nd place while Kartik finished 3rd.

Conclusion:

The Indian Puzzle Championship was held successfully and led to the selection of a good team of Ashish Kumar, Kishore Sridharan and Nityant Agarwal to join wildcard entrant Prasanna Seshadri, to represent India at the World Puzzle Championship. The event also provided a platform for other solvers to shine in their respective categories and gave a chance for the Indian Puzzle community to get together and celebrate their shared interest. Here are the full results.