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Administrator
   
Country : India | |
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auroux
Posts: 145
Country : France | auroux posted @ 2015-10-27 2:21 AM I think the answer key for the sample Anglers puzzle is not quite correct (the last column should be 2).Similarly for multi-anglers, the first column should be 4.
Edited by auroux 2015-10-27 2:25 AM
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Administrator
Country : India | Fixed the answer keys for Anglers and Multi-Anglers
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tamz29
Posts: 225
Country : Thailand | tamz29 posted @ 2015-10-27 9:33 PM Is it required that all cells be used in Anglers?
Also, I think if that many rows/columns are marked, the answer keys of Anglers/Multi-Anglers is horrible.
Maybe mark about 4-6 cells and describe the orientation?
Or label each fish with a letter and ask which fish the cell lead to? |
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kishy72
Posts: 419
Country : India | kishy72 posted @ 2015-10-27 11:54 PM In Hashi,if un-numbered islands are present,do they need to be connected by bridges as well ? In other words ,do every given circle need to be connected by bridges regardless of whether it is filled with number or not ?I saw a puzzle where even un-numbered islands had to be used to make the system connected....
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vopani
Posts: 739
Country : India | vopani posted @ 2015-10-28 11:49 AM Is it required that all cells be used in Anglers?
The example has an unused cell, so I'm sure the answer is 'No'.
Also, I think if that many rows/columns are marked, the answer keys of Anglers/Multi-Anglers is horrible.
Maybe mark about 4-6 cells and describe the orientation?
Or label each fish with a letter and ask which fish the cell lead to?
I don't fully agree with you. We might have personal preferences which differ.
If 'many' rows are marked, I think most answer keys will be cumbersome. But, I still think 'number of turns' is better and faster than 'length of longest segment' or 'orientation in cells'.
Labelling a fish with a letter and asking which fish the outside clues lead to is a good idea, but won't work because many times you know the fish they connect, but the challenge is in drawing the paths.
Answer keys are not going to change, so I hope not many rows/columns are marked :- )
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rob
Posts: 170
Country : Germany | rob posted @ 2015-10-28 3:07 PM For Anglers, we asked for a couple of rows in the German qualification, with I=straight, L=turn, F=fish and -=blank (maybe X would be nicer there). That worked out quite well. Not that I'm suggesting you change the code now, just for future consideration. |
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debmohanty
Country : India | kishy72 - 2015-10-27 11:54 PM
In Hashi,if un-numbered islands are present,do they need to be connected by bridges as well ? In other words ,do every given circle need to be connected by bridges regardless of whether it is filled with number or not ?I saw a puzzle where even un-numbered islands had to be used to make the system connected....
All islands will be numbered in the test. |
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amitsowani
Posts: 349
Country : India | Rohan Rao - 2015-10-28 11:49 AM
Is it required that all cells be used in Anglers?
The example has an unused cell, so I'm sure the answer is 'No'.
Rohan is partially right as angler puzzles can be created without using all grid cells like in the IB.
You can always quickly check the sum of the anglers to check if all cells will be used or not : )
However to avoid unnecessary computation let me announce that all the angler puzzles in the test (including multi-anglers ) WILL USE ALL CELLS IN THE GRID.
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Administrator
Country : India | Points TableInstruction Booklet is re-uploaded with points table. Here it is for your quick reference.
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Administrator
Country : India | Structure of the puzzle bookletWe found that the cell sizes are little small in the IB, so we have increased them a bit in the puzzle booklet.
The puzzle booklet will have 8 pages
Page 1 - Hashi 1,2,3,4
Page 2 - Magnets 1,2
Page 3 - Magnets 3,4
Page 4 - Arrows 1,2,3,4
Page 5 - Anglers 1,2,3,4
Page 6 - Multi-Anglers
Page 7 - Dominos 1,2,3
Page 8 - Dominos 4, Missing Dominos
As usual, there will not be a cover page in the puzzle booklet.
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vopani
Posts: 739
Country : India | vopani posted @ 2015-10-31 12:37 AM | How well did the variants represent the theme of the test ? | variations represented the theme well | | | 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? | Dominos | | | Of the puzzles you solved/attempted, how well did the point values reflect the difficulty? | Many puzzles were worth too much or too little | | | What was your opinion of the booklet formatting and printing? | Just right | |
Puzzles were really nice. Enjoyed solving most of them. I felt the set is quite hard for PR. And the way our scoring system is set up, I won't be surprised if most players' worst performance discarded is this round. I felt the Hashi puzzles were under-valued and the Dominos were over-valued, but might be a personal opinion. Maybe we need to rethink on the scoring system, which is based on the assumption that all tests are 'similar' in difficulty, whereas this one is way off. Really liked the solving paths of Hashi. |
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Rubben
Posts: 20
Country : Romania | Rubben posted @ 2015-10-31 3:05 AM | How well did the variants represent the theme of the test ? | variations represented the theme well | | | 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? | Anglers | | | Of the puzzles you solved/attempted, how well did the point values reflect the difficulty? | Most puzzles were worth the right amount | | | What was your opinion of the booklet formatting and printing? | Just right | |
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An LMI player
| An LMI player posted @ 2015-10-31 2:47 PM | How well did the variants represent the theme of the test ? | variations represented the theme well | | | What was your opinion of the distribution of easy/hard puzzles? | Too many medium difficult puzzles | | | What did you think about the puzzle quality of the test? | Fairly Nice | | | Which set of puzzles did you like the most? | Arrows | | | Of the puzzles you solved/attempted, how well did the point values reflect the difficulty? | Most puzzles were worth the right amount | | | What was your opinion of the booklet formatting and printing? | Just right | |
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kishy72
Posts: 419
Country : India | kishy72 posted @ 2015-10-31 9:28 PM | How well did the variants represent the theme of the test ? | variations represented the theme well | | | 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? | Dominos | | | Of the puzzles you solved/attempted, how well did the point values reflect the difficulty? | Most puzzles were worth too much or too little | | | What was your opinion of the booklet formatting and printing? | Just right | |
Found this set really hard.I practised Hashi well before the test but found them too difficult and didn't gain much of an advantage on them.I completed all Hashis at close to 35 mins.Arrows too managed to stall me for quite some time.I found some comfort in dominoes where I managed to gain some quick points and which I never practised before the test....A very hard set .Would have preferred more easier puzzles..... |
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ghirsch
Posts: 102
Country : United States | ghirsch posted @ 2015-10-31 10:27 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? | Anglers | | | Of the puzzles you solved/attempted, how well did the point values reflect the difficulty? | Many puzzles were worth too much or too little | | | What was your opinion of the booklet formatting and printing? | Just right | |
This round felt far more difficult than previous ones. I did enjoy the puzzles that I solved though, and I thought the multi-anglers was very fun. Can someone explain the theme to me though? What does "evergreen" mean? |
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vopani
Posts: 739
Country : India | vopani posted @ 2015-10-31 11:10 PM ghirsch - 2015-10-31 10:27 PM
Can someone explain the theme to me though? What does "evergreen" mean?
They are just Classic puzzles that have been appearing in contests for a long time. We couldn't have too many standard puzzles in one test, so we split it across two (Classics and Evergreens ).
Also, a tribute to two really nice tests during the birth of LMI: Evergreens and Evergreens2 :- )
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peluri
Posts: 26
Country : Finland | peluri posted @ 2015-10-31 11:48 PM | How well did the variants represent the theme of the test ? | variations represented the theme well | | | 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? | Arrows | | | Of the puzzles you solved/attempted, how well did the point values reflect the difficulty? | Most puzzles were worth the right amount | | | What was your opinion of the booklet formatting and printing? | Just right | |
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bob
Posts: 59
Country : United States | bob posted @ 2015-11-01 12:50 AM | How well did the variants represent the theme of the test ? | variations represented the theme well | | | 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? | Magnets | | | Of the puzzles you solved/attempted, how well did the point values reflect the difficulty? | Many puzzles were worth too much or too little | | | What was your opinion of the booklet formatting and printing? | Just right | |
Puzzles seemed unexpectedly hard this round. I used to subscribe to CrocoPuzzle and always did the magnet puzzles. I was quite stumped by the harder ones in this set. Even the Hashi puzzles seemed hard and I have quite a bit of experience with these. I barely had time to look at the easy domino puzzles and completely skipped an entire category (anglers ). There is usually time to at least scan them. |
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swaroop2011
Posts: 668
Country : India | Puzzles were nice but I believe they were tough. Lot of new tricks in lots of puzzles. I continued Solving even after the time was over and took around 25 min more to solve few more puzzles. Only left ones were Magents 9 pointer and Arrows 3rd one. Thanks to deb for pointing out the start for Arrows 3rd one.
Really lots and lots of new tricks to explore in this round. Performance wise I believe my bad run is continuing after my below par performance in Numbers Round. Hopefully will improve in upcoming rounds.
Thanks Amit for Fantastic Puzzles.
Would appreciate if anyone can tell the path for Magnets last one. (I could place only 3 magnets in the entire grid after lot of struggle) ? |
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An LMI player
| An LMI player posted @ 2015-11-01 7:02 AM | How well did the variants represent the theme of the test ? | variations represented the theme well | | | What was your opinion of the distribution of easy/hard puzzles? | Just right | | | What did you think about the puzzle quality of the test? | Average | | | Which set of puzzles did you like the most? | Magnets | | | Of the puzzles you solved/attempted, how well did the point values reflect the difficulty? | Many puzzles were worth too much or too little | | | What was your opinion of the booklet formatting and printing? | Just right | |
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amitsowani
Posts: 349
Country : India | swaroop2011 - 2015-11-01 7:00 AM
Would appreciate if anyone can tell the path for Magnets last one. (I could place only 3 magnets in the entire grid after lot of struggle) ?
The fourth magnets puzzle uses minmax constraints.
Look at columns 3,4 and 5.
A column with few signs filled (2,2 ) is surrounded by two heavily filled columns (4,4 ) and (4,3 ).
This should give you a start |
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swaroop2011
Posts: 668
Country : India | amitsowani - 2015-11-01 8:21 AM
swaroop2011 - 2015-11-01 7:00 AM
Would appreciate if anyone can tell the path for Magnets last one. (I could place only 3 magnets in the entire grid after lot of struggle) ?
The fourth magnets puzzle uses minmax constraints.
Look at columns 3,4 and 5.
A column with few signs filled (2,2 ) is surrounded by two heavily filled columns (4,4 ) and (4,3 ).
This should give you a start
Thanks amit. But I guess you are explaining it for Magnets 8 pointer (3rd puzzle ). That I already got. I am asking for last one (4th Puzzle - 9 pointer ) ? |
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ghirsch
Posts: 102
Country : United States | ghirsch posted @ 2015-11-01 11:25 AM Regarding the booklet formatting, I somewhat prefer the bank in domino puzzles to be formatted as below (or flipped ) rather than the way they were in this test. The disadvantage is that it takes up more space, but for me it makes it much easier to think about which dominoes I have already found and which I have left. I don't know what other people's opinions about this are though, so maybe this is just me.
 Edited by ghirsch 2015-11-01 11:29 AM
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amitsowani
Posts: 349
Country : India | swaroop2011 - 2015-11-01 10:07 AM
amitsowani - 2015-11-01 8:21 AM
swaroop2011 - 2015-11-01 7:00 AM
Would appreciate if anyone can tell the path for Magnets last one. (I could place only 3 magnets in the entire grid after lot of struggle) ?
The fourth magnets puzzle uses minmax constraints.
Look at columns 3,4 and 5.
A column with few signs filled (2,2 ) is surrounded by two heavily filled columns (4,4 ) and (4,3 ).
This should give you a start
Thanks amit. But I guess you are explaining it for Magnets 8 pointer (3rd puzzle ). That I already got. I am asking for last one (4th Puzzle - 9 pointer ) ?
The fourth one is based on transfer of polarities across rows (transfer = number of unbalanced vertical magnets across the two rows ).
Look at the number of vertical magnets required across rows 4 and 5, 5 and 6. Also look at columns 6 and 7.
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Yuhei Kusui
Posts: 42
Country : Japan | | How well did the variants represent the theme of the test ? | variations represented the theme well | | | What was your opinion of the distribution of easy/hard puzzles? | Just right | | | What did you think about the puzzle quality of the test? | Fairly Nice | | | Which set of puzzles did you like the most? | Magnets | | | Of the puzzles you solved/attempted, how well did the point values reflect the difficulty? | Most puzzles were worth the right amount | | | What was your opinion of the booklet formatting and printing? | Just right | |
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TiiT
Posts: 139
Country : Estonia | TiiT posted @ 2015-11-01 7:08 PM | How well did the variants represent the theme of the test ? | variations represented the theme well | | | 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? | Anglers | | | Of the puzzles you solved/attempted, how well did the point values reflect the difficulty? | Most puzzles were worth the right amount | | | What was your opinion of the booklet formatting and printing? | Just right | |
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rakesh_rai
Posts: 774
Country : India | | How well did the variants represent the theme of the test ? | variations represented the theme well | | | What was your opinion of the distribution of easy/hard puzzles? | Too many medium difficult puzzles | | | What did you think about the puzzle quality of the test? | Very nice | | | Which set of puzzles did you like the most? | Hashi | | | Of the puzzles you solved/attempted, how well did the point values reflect the difficulty? | Most puzzles were worth the right amount | | | What was your opinion of the booklet formatting and printing? | Just right | |
Thanks Amit for a challenging set of puzzles. Definitely harder than normal. (And this set was difficult to solve without paper. ) Most puzzles would need some tricks and techniques - a good test from a learning perspective. |
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justinlam3
Posts: 8
Country : Hong Kong | | How well did the variants represent the theme of the test ? | variations represented the theme well | | | What was your opinion of the distribution of easy/hard puzzles? | Just right | | | What did you think about the puzzle quality of the test? | Fairly Nice | | | Which set of puzzles did you like the most? | Arrows | | | Of the puzzles you solved/attempted, how well did the point values reflect the difficulty? | Most puzzles were worth the right amount | | | What was your opinion of the booklet formatting and printing? | Just right | |
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Bram28
Posts: 35
Country : The Netherlands | Bram28 posted @ 2015-11-01 8:48 PM | How well did the variants represent the theme of the test ? | variations represented the theme well | | | 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? | Anglers | | | Of the puzzles you solved/attempted, how well did the point values reflect the difficulty? | Most puzzles were worth the right amount | | | What was your opinion of the booklet formatting and printing? | Just right | |
Got through most fairly quickly, but got completely stumped by the hard Hashi's and Magnets and ended up scoring no points in the last 15 minutes. Given the relative short test, and relative to the difficulty levels of the others, I thought those were a bit too hard. My favorite puzzle was Multiple Anglers: very nice! |
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rob
Posts: 170
Country : Germany | rob posted @ 2015-11-01 10:45 PM | How well did the variants represent the theme of the test ? | variations represented the theme well | | | 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? | Arrows | | | Of the puzzles you solved/attempted, how well did the point values reflect the difficulty? | Most puzzles were worth the right amount | | | What was your opinion of the booklet formatting and printing? | Just right | |
Great test, thank you! It turns out I have some things to learn about Arrows, and also some things to practice -- I missed so many of the "obvious" deductions at first.
Edit: I think I should retract my judgement on the point distribution. I just went through my results, and things seem pretty even:
* hashi: 1.6 points/minute
* magnets: 1.4
* arrows: 0.6
* anglers: 1.6
* dominos: 1.8
The low arrows score is due to a bad performance, not due to difficulty. I did think I got through the magnets very cleanly and found the somewhat tricky deductions immediately, so that one might be a little undervalued. The dominos felt quite easy, but were low-valued accordingly. Edited by rob 2015-11-01 11:03 PM
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swaroop2011
Posts: 668
Country : India | amitsowani - 2015-11-01 2:37 PM
swaroop2011 - 2015-11-01 10:07 AM
amitsowani - 2015-11-01 8:21 AM
swaroop2011 - 2015-11-01 7:00 AM
Would appreciate if anyone can tell the path for Magnets last one. (I could place only 3 magnets in the entire grid after lot of struggle) ?
The fourth magnets puzzle uses minmax constraints.
Look at columns 3,4 and 5.
A column with few signs filled (2,2 ) is surrounded by two heavily filled columns (4,4 ) and (4,3 ).
This should give you a start
Thanks amit. But I guess you are explaining it for Magnets 8 pointer (3rd puzzle ). That I already got. I am asking for last one (4th Puzzle - 9 pointer ) ?
The fourth one is based on transfer of polarities across rows (transfer = number of unbalanced vertical magnets across the two rows ).
Look at the number of vertical magnets required across rows 4 and 5, 5 and 6. Also look at columns 6 and 7.
Thanks. I did got those magnets. But found out what I was missing. Thanks. |
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auroux
Posts: 145
Country : France | auroux posted @ 2015-11-02 11:31 AM Hmph. Assuming that one will be able to finish a PR round within 90 minutes is the wrong strategy. I never figured out how to do Arrows #3 and by the time I decided to move on it was too late to catch up. |
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auroux
Posts: 145
Country : France | auroux posted @ 2015-11-02 11:35 AM | How well did the variants represent the theme of the test ? | variations represented the theme well | | | 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? | Magnets | | | Of the puzzles you solved/attempted, how well did the point values reflect the difficulty? | Most puzzles were worth too much or too little | | | What was your opinion of the booklet formatting and printing? | Just right | |
Arrows #3: I spent over 15 minutes on it and never found the solution or even a reasonable solve path. Hashi #2 and #3 (4 and 5 points ) took much longer than any of the Magnets puzzles (8 and 9 points ). I am not sure if the point values are aimed at beginners or at seasoned players; if the latter, then they are problematic (Magnets is easier than you seem to think it is ), if the former then the overall difficulty of the round is problematic. That said, it was still fun. Apart from Arrows #3. |
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Aruna
Posts: 1
Country : India | Aruna posted @ 2015-11-02 12:37 PM | How well did the variants represent the theme of the test ? | variations represented the theme well | | | What was your opinion of the distribution of easy/hard puzzles? | Too many medium difficult puzzles | |
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ghirsch
Posts: 102
Country : United States | ghirsch posted @ 2015-11-02 12:48 PM auroux - 2015-11-01 12:35 PM
Arrows #3: I spent over 15 minutes on it and never found the solution or even a reasonable solve path.
If you're still looking for how to start it, I think the break-in is meant to be the 3 in the middle. There are only four possible arrows that can point to it (no diagonals ), and you can quickly find that two horizontal arrows doesn't work, so you need to do two vertical arrows. From there I don't remember running into many difficulties. |
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amitsowani
Posts: 349
Country : India | auroux - 2015-11-02 11:35 AM
Arrows #3: I spent over 15 minutes on it and never found the solution or even a reasonable solve path.
That said, it was still fun. Apart from Arrows #3.
For Arrows #3, the "3" in the center is the starting point. |
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kiwijam
Posts: 187
Country : New Zealand | kiwijam posted @ 2015-11-02 2:32 PM I have learnt that I find it surprisingly difficult to (correctly) count the number of line corners in a row or column... :)
Thanks Amit! |
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kiwijam
Posts: 187
Country : New Zealand | kiwijam posted @ 2015-11-02 2:36 PM | How well did the variants represent the theme of the test ? | variations represented the theme well | | | 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? | Hashi | | | Of the puzzles you solved/attempted, how well did the point values reflect the difficulty? | Most puzzles were worth the right amount | | | What was your opinion of the booklet formatting and printing? | Just right | |
I liked the (new to me ) 5s interaction logic in the Hashis. I thought Magnets 3 was hard/undervalued. |
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An LMI player
| An LMI player posted @ 2015-11-02 3:25 PM | How well did the variants represent the theme of the test ? | variations represented the theme well | | | 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? | Dominos | | | Of the puzzles you solved/attempted, how well did the point values reflect the difficulty? | Most puzzles were worth too much or too little | | | What was your opinion of the booklet formatting and printing? | Just right | |
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Swagatam
Posts: 45
Country : India | | How well did the variants represent the theme of the test ? | variations represented the theme well | | | 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 | |
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rakesh_rai
Posts: 774
Country : India | ExtensionBased on requests from more than one player, this test is being extended till Tuesday 12PM IST. See submission page for exact timing.
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An LMI player
| An LMI player posted @ 2015-11-02 8:07 PM | How well did the variants represent the theme of the test ? | variations represented the theme well | | | 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? | Dominos | | | Of the puzzles you solved/attempted, how well did the point values reflect the difficulty? | Most puzzles were worth the right amount | |
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shankarsudhir
Posts: 6
Country : India | | How well did the variants represent the theme of the test ? | variations represented the theme well | | | What did you think about the puzzle quality of the test? | Very nice | | | Which set of puzzles did you like the most? | Magnets | | | Of the puzzles you solved/attempted, how well did the point values reflect the difficulty? | Most puzzles were worth the right amount | | | What was your opinion of the booklet formatting and printing? | Just right | |
A good set of puzzles ! |
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RameshLMI
Posts: 51
Country : India | | How well did the variants represent the theme of the test ? | variations represented the theme well | | | What was your opinion of the distribution of easy/hard puzzles? | Too many medium difficult puzzles | | | What did you think about the puzzle quality of the test? | Fairly Nice | | | Which set of puzzles did you like the most? | Magnets | | | What was your opinion of the booklet formatting and printing? | Just right | |
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An LMI player
| An LMI player posted @ 2015-11-02 8:45 PM | How well did the variants represent the theme of the test ? | variations represented the theme well | | | What was your opinion of the distribution of easy/hard puzzles? | Just right | | | What did you think about the puzzle quality of the test? | Fairly Nice | | | Which set of puzzles did you like the most? | Anglers | | | Of the puzzles you solved/attempted, how well did the point values reflect the difficulty? | Most puzzles were worth the right amount | | | What was your opinion of the booklet formatting and printing? | Just right | |
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auroux
Posts: 145
Country : France | auroux posted @ 2015-11-03 3:41 AM Thanks -- yesterday I just didn't see that 3 in the middle. I was obsessing over the 4's on the diagonals for exactly the same reason, but somehow didn't think of the 3 even though it's obviously a better place to start. Okay then, I have to take back some of my negative comments about the puzzle difficulties. I was just being stupid. (I still found Hashi and Arrows to be huge time sinks compared to other puzzle types for equal point values, but possibly it's because I'm just not good at those. My answering timeline doesn't quite reflect solve times due to my computer crashing partway through and needing to be rebooted twice). |
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devarajand
Posts: 114
Country : India | | How well did the variants represent the theme of the test ? | representation could have been better | | | 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? | Anglers | | | What was your opinion of the booklet formatting and printing? | Just right | |
Very good set of puzzles. I liked Multi Anglers most. |
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lenson
Posts: 57
Country : India | lenson posted @ 2015-11-03 9:59 AM | How well did the variants represent the theme of the test ? | variations represented the theme well | | | What was your opinion of the distribution of easy/hard puzzles? | Too many medium difficult puzzles | | | What did you think about the puzzle quality of the test? | Very nice | | | Which set of puzzles did you like the most? | Magnets | | | Of the puzzles you solved/attempted, how well did the point values reflect the difficulty? | Many puzzles were worth too much or too little | | | What was your opinion of the booklet formatting and printing? | Just right | |
This was a hard test, and my performance was terrible. But I really enjoyed solving the puzzles after the test. Even though these are 'standard' types, many of the techniques needed to solve the puzzles in the set were unfamiliar to me. Figuring them out was an enjoyable experience. |
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rajeshk
Posts: 542
Country : India | rajeshk posted @ 2015-11-03 11:13 AM | How well did the variants represent the theme of the test ? | variations represented the theme well | | | What was your opinion of the distribution of easy/hard puzzles? | Too many medium difficult puzzles | | | What did you think about the puzzle quality of the test? | Very nice | | | Which set of puzzles did you like the most? | Dominos | | | Of the puzzles you solved/attempted, how well did the point values reflect the difficulty? | Most puzzles were worth the right amount | | | What was your opinion of the booklet formatting and printing? | Just right | |
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An LMI player
| An LMI player posted @ 2015-11-03 12:43 PM | How well did the variants represent the theme of the test ? | representation could have been better | | | 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? | Anglers | | | Of the puzzles you solved/attempted, how well did the point values reflect the difficulty? | Most puzzles were worth too much or too little | | | What was your opinion of the booklet formatting and printing? | Just right | |
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amitsowani
Posts: 349
Country : India | Congratulations to Ulrich, Michael and Bram for topping the international chart, and to Rohan, Rajesh and Swaroop for topping the Indian chart.
Here is the result of voting for puzzle types : Anglers > Magnets > Dominos > Hashi > Arrows
The most consistent feedback is that the test contained a large percentage of hard puzzles. We had realized this before the test and in an attempt to balance the difficulty of the puzzles replaced one arrow and magnets puzzle with easier ones. The difficult ones might get used elsewhere (2017?) One option which would have helped is to reduce the grid sizes, especially for magnets.
Another concern was with regarding the distribution of points which becomes difficult when the puzzles have narrow solving paths. Also the fact that all the dominos were created by Deb and the rest of the puzzles by me added to the complexity. A little more extensive testing including solvers having varying levels of solving speed might have helped.
Thanks to Deb and Prasanna for helping with the organization of this test. Special thanks to Zrinka and Bram for test solving the puzzles at a short notice.
Thank you everyone for participating.
I will be posting a set of hints to help the beginners on some of the harder puzzles separately. |
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amitsowani
Posts: 349
Country : India | Hashi -1 : Use the "No islands" rule throughout the grid - inspired by a comment from Prasanna that very few Hashi puzzles use this rule extensively
Hashi -2 : Masyu like chain which goes from top left to bottom right
Hashi -3 : Interaction of two 5's near the center
Hashi -4 : Interaction of the 4 and the 5's at the center. This one was my personal favorite for the entire set
Magnets 1 : Easy puzzle used to replace a harder magnets puzzle
Magnets 2 : Existence of half the grid size (8/2 =4) in one of the polarities forces a few bars to be magnets
Magnets 3 : Min max - A less loaded column surrounded by two heavily loaded columns.
Magnets 4 : Transfer of polarities across rows
Arrows 3: 3 in the center gives good starting point
Arrows 4: Interaction of two large numbers in the corners (4 and 5) along with the smaller numbers int he remaining two corners (2 and 3)
Anglers 2: Parity - Only one angler can reach the fish on bottom left as it has different parity compared to all other fish
Anglers 4: Reach ability of top left fish to an angler
Multi-anglers- Count of total number of anglers and how many anglers can reach each fish. |
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prasanna16391
Posts: 1801
Country : India | | How well did the variants represent the theme of the test ? | variations represented the theme well | | | 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? | Hashi | | | Of the puzzles you solved/attempted, how well did the point values reflect the difficulty? | Most puzzles were worth the right amount | | | What was your opinion of the booklet formatting and printing? | Just right | |
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swaroop2011
Posts: 668
Country : India | | How well did the variants represent the theme of the test ? | variations represented the theme well | | | What was your opinion of the distribution of easy/hard puzzles? | Too many medium difficult puzzles | | | What did you think about the puzzle quality of the test? | Very nice | | | Which set of puzzles did you like the most? | Arrows | | | Of the puzzles you solved/attempted, how well did the point values reflect the difficulty? | Most puzzles were worth the right amount | | | What was your opinion of the booklet formatting and printing? | Just right | |
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Administrator
Country : India | |
Evergreens - 31st Oct - 2nd Nov - Puzzle Ramayan & IPC Qualifier