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Administrator
   
Country : India | |
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Administrator
Country : India | 2016 Points Structure
1) Fixed points (50) if the puzzle is solved.
2) Variable Bonus points if the puzzle is solved within 60 minutes.
3) No bonus points if solved after 60 minutes.
3) A player's bonus is dependent on his Rank and on his solving time.
DETAILS
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There are 3 score components if a puzzle is solved correctly.
1) Fixed: 50 points (the player will get this even if the puzzle is started on 1st and finished on 12th)
2) Rank Bonus for top 50 players
The top ranked player for the particular puzzle gets 25 points. Next best players will get 24.5, 24.0, 23.5, 23.0, ..., 0.5
More than 50 players are expected to solve each puzzle within 60 minutes.
However, if less than 50 players solve any puzzle within 60 minutes, only those players will get rank bonus.
3) Solving Time Bonus
The best player for the particular puzzle gets 25 points.
Lets say best solving time is B and Median solving time (of all players solving within 60 minutes) is M.
If a player's solving time is <= M, he will get 12.5 + 12.5 * ( M - player's solving time ) / (M - B) [A linear distribution from 25 to 12.5 between the best player and the player with median time]
If a player's solving time is > M, he will get 12.5 - 12.5 * ( player's solving time - M ) / (60 minutes - M) [A linear distribution from 12.5 and 0 between the player with median time and 60 minutes]. Minimum solving time bonus point will be 0.50, even if someone solves in exactly 60 minutes.
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Administrator
Country : India | Solution grid for Linked Poset Futoshiki modified to denote which tree is assigned to which grid. |
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Swagatam
Posts: 45
Country : India | In Pentopia, what do the clues indicate? Actually, I didn't understand "the direction(s) of the closest pentomino(s) when looking from that cell". |
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rob
Posts: 170
Country : Germany | rob posted @ 2016-03-29 1:55 AM From a clue, count the number of blank cells in each direction before the first pentomino. The arrows point in all directions where this number is the minimum among all four directions. |
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mihiryadav
Posts: 27
Country : India | Can we say that its the second solution for this puzzle? Confusion in B1 since the answer key is placed there.
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Administrator
Country : India | You are not following the 2X2 rule in some grids
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Administrator
Country : India | Swagatam - 2016-03-29 12:46 AM
In Pentopia, what do the clues indicate? Actually, I didn't understand "the direction(s) of the closest pentomino(s) when looking from that cell". You may want to look at gmpuzzles for a slightly different wording. Bram has lot of practice puzzles for Pentopia on his blog. |
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SilBer
Posts: 8
Country : Germany | SilBer posted @ 2016-03-29 11:25 AM Are there any practise puzzles for word search sudoku too? Or was it just invented? |
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debmohanty
Country : India | |
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kishy72
Posts: 419
Country : India | kishy72 posted @ 2016-03-29 1:48 PM Administrator - 2016-03-29 6:08 AM
You are not following the 2X2 rule in some grids
Hi Deb! I am sorry that I am not able to get what you mean by the 2x2 rule ?! There is no mention of it in the rules of the IB and why is his solution wrong ?
In the highlighted boxes , I see four different letters in all rows and columns .Why have you highlighted that as an error ?? |
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kishy72
Posts: 419
Country : India | kishy72 posted @ 2016-03-29 1:55 PM kishy72 - 2016-03-29 1:48 PM
Administrator - 2016-03-29 6:08 AM
You are not following the 2X2 rule in some grids
Hi Deb! I am sorry that I am not able to get what you mean by the 2x2 rule ?! There is no mention of it in the rules of the IB and why is his solution wrong ?
In the highlighted boxes , I see four different letters in all rows and columns .Why have you highlighted that as an error ??
Ahhhh....I get it now after staring at the grid and seeing the highlighted lines .The letters don't repeat in the 2X2 sub boxes within the 4X4 . I got confused a little bit by the rules. |
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debmohanty
Country : India | kishy72 - 2016-03-29 1:55 PM
kishy72 - 2016-03-29 1:48 PM
Administrator - 2016-03-29 6:08 AM
You are not following the 2X2 rule in some grids
Hi Deb! I am sorry that I am not able to get what you mean by the 2x2 rule ?! There is no mention of it in the rules of the IB and why is his solution wrong ?
In the highlighted boxes , I see four different letters in all rows and columns .Why have you highlighted that as an error ??
Ahhhh....I get it now after staring at the grid and seeing the highlighted lines .The letters don't repeat in the 2X2 sub boxes within the 4X4 . I got confused a little bit by the rules.
Right, it is Sudoku, not Latin Square. As mentioned in the IB, you need to put different digits in "every row, column and outlined block". The outlined blocks are 2X2 in this example. In the competition puzzle they could be 2X3 or 3X2 blocks.
May be you guys missed the outlined blocks because of the grey borders in the example. We will make the borders black in the competition puzzle.
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Swagatam
Posts: 45
Country : India | Thank you. Now it is clear. |
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forcolin
Posts: 172
Country : ITALY | When entering the coordinates of the cells in TWIN CO-ORDINATES, is there any particular order/format we must follow? |
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debmohanty
Country : India | forcolin - 2016-03-29 4:35 PM
When entering the coordinates of the cells in TWIN CO-ORDINATES, is there any particular order/format we must follow?
Order does not matter. We expect players to enter like J2 (i.e. first the letter and then the digit ). You have to strictly follow the letters/digits given around the grid to determine the co-ordinate.
There will be as many boxes as number of pairs. In each box, enter the co-ordinate of any cell in the pair. |
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debmohanty
Country : India | debmohanty - 2016-03-29 4:43 PM
forcolin - 2016-03-29 4:35 PM
When entering the coordinates of the cells in TWIN CO-ORDINATES, is there any particular order/format we must follow?
Order does not matter. By "order does not matter", I meant among the pairs order does not matter. For the example puzzle, any of the following keys will be accepted
J2, J4
H1, J4
J2, I6
H1, I6
J4, J2
J4, H1
I6, J2
I6, H1
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Fred76
Posts: 337
Country : Switzerland | Fred76 posted @ 2016-03-29 11:45 PM Right, it is Sudoku, not Latin Square.
I'm happy to hear that sudoku and latin squares became different again in 2016. |
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Administrator
Country : India | Twins Co-Ordinates - Any 5 pairsWe have decided to announce the number of pairs in Twins Co-Ordinates. While there will be exactly 6 identical pairs, only 5 pairs need to be found. The submission page will accept any 5 pairs. Players should submit as soon as they find 5 pairs.
Instructions Booklet is updated accordingly.
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SilBer
Posts: 8
Country : Germany | SilBer posted @ 2016-03-30 11:23 AM I still see no chance to get into one of the word search sudoku examples. Could anyone give me a hint how to start, maybe which word can be placed first? In the big one, I only got the "trivial" mini-sudoku-conclusions. In the 9x9 one, I only saw that "mocktest" has 3 possible positions and "sudokus" about 10 (I counted both directions seperate), both of course diagonal. Thank you... Silke
Edited by SilBer 2016-03-30 11:24 AM
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Para
Posts: 315
Country : The Netherlands | Para posted @ 2016-03-30 8:46 PM For the big puzzle, are you remembering that the whole grid is also a Latin Square? You should be able to assign all letters to the grids at which point the word search starts. |
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SilBer
Posts: 8
Country : Germany | SilBer posted @ 2016-03-31 12:39 AM Yes, I know for every 4x4 sudoku, which four letters it contains. But after this, now I have to find a word which has only one possible place, or something like that, I think? And this is the point were I can't find something to go on. |
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rob
Posts: 170
Country : Germany | rob posted @ 2016-03-31 2:06 AM SilBer - 2016-03-31 12:39 AM
Yes, I know for every 4x4 sudoku, which four letters it contains. But after this, now I have to find a word which has only one possible place, or something like that, I think? And this is the point were I can't find something to go on.
For example, there's just one way to place NORTH (and to get there, only one pair of 4x4 boxes with N and H where you can find ORT between them ). It helps to write down a 3x3 grid with the letters per box. Edited by rob 2016-03-31 2:07 AM
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SilBer
Posts: 8
Country : Germany | SilBer posted @ 2016-03-31 12:42 PM Okay, thank you, I try that. |
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SilBer
Posts: 8
Country : Germany | SilBer posted @ 2016-03-31 12:50 PM It works. :-) |
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debmohanty
Country : India | rob - 2016-03-31 2:06 AM
It helps to write down a 3x3 grid with the letters per box. Very useful tip! |
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debmohanty
Country : India | Puzzle grid sizes are displayed
Puzzle grid sizes are now displayed in submission page.
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debmohanty
Country : India | All password protected puzzle pdfs are zipped into a single file. The same can be downloaded from the submission page. Hope it is more convenient than downloading 12 different files. |
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Nikola
Posts: 103
Country : Serbia | Nikola posted @ 2016-04-01 2:02 AM One more short question. In Word Search Sudoku can a given word appear in the grid twice or multiple times?
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debmohanty
Country : India | Nikola - 2016-04-01 2:02 AM
One more short question. In Word Search Sudoku can a given word appear in the grid twice or multiple times?
Each given word has to appear at least once. |
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debmohanty
Country : India | Like every year, he finished all the 12 puzzles in a stretch. Congratulations to Gotroch. |
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Gotroch
Posts: 83
Country : Czech Republic | Gotroch posted @ 2016-04-01 8:04 AM | Your 3 most favorite puzzles of the contest. | Hex Slitherlink | | | Your 3 most favorite puzzles of the contest. | Hidoku | | | Your 3 most favorite puzzles of the contest. | Pentopia | | | How balanced do you think the puzzle types of this test were? | Perfectly balanced | | | What did you think about the puzzle quality of the test? | Very nice | | | What is your opinion about rules, points and scoring for this test? | Fair | |
I successfuly finished Marathon! (And I did it in quite Marathon way - solving all puzzles in one 8 hour session ) Thanks for very nice puzzles! |
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WA1729
Posts: 65
Country : United States | WA1729 posted @ 2016-04-02 6:53 AM | Your 3 most favorite puzzles of the contest. | Spiral Galaxy | | | Your 3 most favorite puzzles of the contest. | Akari | | | Your 3 most favorite puzzles of the contest. | Hidoku | | | How balanced do you think the puzzle types of this test were? | Perfectly balanced | | | What did you think about the puzzle quality of the test? | Very nice | | | What is your opinion about rules, points and scoring for this test? | Very fair | |
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EoHeongMat
Posts: 7
Country : South Korea | | Your 3 most favorite puzzles of the contest. | Linked Poset Futoshiki | | | Your 3 most favorite puzzles of the contest. | Word Search Sudoku | | | Your 3 most favorite puzzles of the contest. | Twin Co-Ordinates | | | How balanced do you think the puzzle types of this test were? | Fairly balanced | | | What did you think about the puzzle quality of the test? | Very nice | | | What is your opinion about rules, points and scoring for this test? | Very fair | |
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David McNeill
Posts: 63
Country : United Kingdom | | Your 3 most favorite puzzles of the contest. | Pentopia | | | Your 3 most favorite puzzles of the contest. | LITS+ | | | Your 3 most favorite puzzles of the contest. | Domino Loop | | | How balanced do you think the puzzle types of this test were? | Perfectly balanced | | | What did you think about the puzzle quality of the test? | Fairly Nice | | | What is your opinion about rules, points and scoring for this test? | Fair | |
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Eykir
Posts: 11
Country : United States | Eykir posted @ 2016-04-03 9:59 AM | Your 3 most favorite puzzles of the contest. | Spiral Galaxy | | | Your 3 most favorite puzzles of the contest. | LITS+ | | | Your 3 most favorite puzzles of the contest. | Pentopia | | | How balanced do you think the puzzle types of this test were? | Perfectly balanced | | | What did you think about the puzzle quality of the test? | Very nice | | | What is your opinion about rules, points and scoring for this test? | Fair | |
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Para
Posts: 315
Country : The Netherlands | Para posted @ 2016-04-03 12:41 PM | Your 3 most favorite puzzles of the contest. | LITS+ | | | Your 3 most favorite puzzles of the contest. | Neighbours | | | Your 3 most favorite puzzles of the contest. | Hidoku | | | How balanced do you think the puzzle types of this test were? | Fairly balanced | | | What did you think about the puzzle quality of the test? | Very nice | | | What is your opinion about rules, points and scoring for this test? | Fair | |
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Puzlifouk
Posts: 67
Country : France | | Your 3 most favorite puzzles of the contest. | Pentopia | | | Your 3 most favorite puzzles of the contest. | Domino Loop | | | Your 3 most favorite puzzles of the contest. | Hex Slitherlink | | | How balanced do you think the puzzle types of this test were? | Perfectly balanced | | | What did you think about the puzzle quality of the test? | Very nice | | | What is your opinion about rules, points and scoring for this test? | Fair | |
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TiiT
Posts: 139
Country : Estonia | TiiT posted @ 2016-04-03 9:56 PM | Your 3 most favorite puzzles of the contest. | Spiral Galaxy | | | Your 3 most favorite puzzles of the contest. | Linked Poset Futoshiki | | | Your 3 most favorite puzzles of the contest. | Pentopia | | | How balanced do you think the puzzle types of this test were? | Perfectly balanced | | | What did you think about the puzzle quality of the test? | Very nice | | | What is your opinion about rules, points and scoring for this test? | Very fair | |
The puzzles actually were all reasonable in terms of difficulty. They were comparable with each other. Last year you never knew how long it takes and it was hard to plan solving them. This year it was nicely done. I was also afraid a bit of the Twin Coordinates puzzle but it actually took about the same time as others - so perfect. Some got a jackpot with this but if you consider that you can throw 2 away, it's not a big problem if you fail this. Anyway, cheers to the organizers for such a great competition. It'll be interesting to watch where I end up. TiiT |
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rob
Posts: 170
Country : Germany | rob posted @ 2016-04-03 11:57 PM TiiT - 2016-04-03 9:56 PM
I was also afraid a bit of the Twin Coordinates puzzle but it actually took about the same time as others - so perfect. Some got a jackpot with this but if you consider that you can throw 2 away, it's not a big problem if you fail this.
Anyway, cheers to the organizers for such a great competition. It'll be interesting to watch where I end up.
TiiT
I think my copy of that puzzle was broken, it had just three twins. : )
Before the contest, I thought the scoring change which allowed authors to also skip two was unnecessary, but now I'm quite thankful for it! |
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Semax
Posts: 10
Country : Germany | Semax posted @ 2016-04-04 3:02 AM | How balanced do you think the puzzle types of this test were? | Perfectly balanced | | | What did you think about the puzzle quality of the test? | Very nice | | | What is your opinion about rules, points and scoring for this test? | Very fair | |
Great puzzles! Thank you. Now that I know the real rules of Poset Futoshiki, I am not very happy with the example. I thought that "X < Y" means I can only place numbers X and Y which are connected by an arrow. The fact that I can jump over numbers was not very clear. But that's just a minor remark. All in all it was a nice contest, I can't even choose my favorites, because each one of the puzzles was really cool. Edited by Semax 2016-04-04 3:04 AM
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ghirsch
Posts: 102
Country : United States | ghirsch posted @ 2016-04-04 10:22 AM | Your 3 most favorite puzzles of the contest. | Linked Poset Futoshiki | | | Your 3 most favorite puzzles of the contest. | Pentopia | | | Your 3 most favorite puzzles of the contest. | Domino Loop | | | How balanced do you think the puzzle types of this test were? | Perfectly balanced | | | What did you think about the puzzle quality of the test? | Very nice | | | What is your opinion about rules, points and scoring for this test? | Very fair | |
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kishy72
Posts: 419
Country : India | kishy72 posted @ 2016-04-04 11:39 AM | Your 3 most favorite puzzles of the contest. | Linked Poset Futoshiki | | | Your 3 most favorite puzzles of the contest. | Word Search Sudoku | | | Your 3 most favorite puzzles of the contest. | Hex Slitherlink | | | How balanced do you think the puzzle types of this test were? | Perfectly balanced | | | What did you think about the puzzle quality of the test? | Very nice | | | What is your opinion about rules, points and scoring for this test? | Very fair | |
Thanks to all authors for knitting together a beautiful contest . I greatly enjoyed the aesthetics and the solve path in all the puzzles with the exception of 1 or 2 puzzles which I hated. I also like this concept of slightly lesser difficult marathon puzzles enabling bonus. I hope this formula continues from next year .Thanks to Prasanna for helping me out with the example puzzles of Hex slitherlink and domino loop snake. These were new types to me and without solving the examples,I couldn't have solved the contest ones. The marathon is becoming better and sweeter each year and this year was no exception !! |
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RALehrer
Posts: 31
Country : United States | Is there a way to play this without it impacting my rating? I will only have time for a few of the puzzles... |
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debmohanty
Country : India | RALehrer - 2016-04-05 5:19 PM
Is there a way to play this without it impacting my rating? I will only have time for a few of the puzzles... There is no way to select this option from the submission page, but we will exclude your score from ratings calculations as per this request. |
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SKnight
Posts: 25
Country : United States | SKnight posted @ 2016-04-05 10:19 PM | Your 3 most favorite puzzles of the contest. | Hidoku | | | Your 3 most favorite puzzles of the contest. | Spiral Galaxy | | | Your 3 most favorite puzzles of the contest. | Akari | | | How balanced do you think the puzzle types of this test were? | Perfectly balanced | | | What did you think about the puzzle quality of the test? | Very nice | | | What is your opinion about rules, points and scoring for this test? | Fair | |
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chaotic_iak
Posts: 241
Country : Indonesia | | Your 3 most favorite puzzles of the contest. | Hidoku | | | Your 3 most favorite puzzles of the contest. | Spiral Galaxy | | | Your 3 most favorite puzzles of the contest. | Pentopia | | | How balanced do you think the puzzle types of this test were? | Perfectly balanced | | | What did you think about the puzzle quality of the test? | Very nice | | | What is your opinion about rules, points and scoring for this test? | Very fair | |
A wonderful set of puzzles (not counting mine; it's unfair to judge my own puzzle ). Mostly. Except for Twin Co-Ordinates, because I loathe visual puzzles. But that's about the genre; the puzzle itself is fine. Each puzzle has its own pros and cons. Those that are the most interesting for me are shown in the table above: - Hidoku: Still a wonder on how to make these so well. I still remember four years ago when Palmer said he wouldn't make more Hidato/Hidoku puzzles, though: https://mellowmelon.wordpress.com/2012/05/27/puzzle-pack-3/ :P - Spiral Galaxy: Totally not because my time is under 15 minutes. But as usual, nicely constructed Galaxies puzzles are always a wonder to solve, on how really unusual/large regions can span across the grid. - Pentopia: I'm not sure why, but I just find this one nice to solve. This is a close call, actually; fighting for this spot as well are Hex Slitherlink with its nice pattern (although impure, like this Pentopia ), LITS+ with interesting logic around, and Domino Loop that's also pleasant to solve. |
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chaotic_iak
Posts: 241
Country : Indonesia | Semax - 2016-04-04 6:02 AM
Now that I know the real rules of Poset Futoshiki, I am not very happy with the example. I thought that "X < Y" means I can only place numbers X and Y which are connected by an arrow. The fact that I can jump over numbers was not very clear.
Yes, this part is unfortunate. I was hoping that people would have tried the Poset Futoshiki fun contest that was just a month ago (mostly for its better example ), but I think I forgot to tell people to do that. On retrospect, I should have used a larger example (2x4x4 ). |
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cyberx60
Posts: 15
Country : United States | | Your 3 most favorite puzzles of the contest. | Linked Poset Futoshiki | | | Your 3 most favorite puzzles of the contest. | Pentopia | | | Your 3 most favorite puzzles of the contest. | Hex Slitherlink | | | How balanced do you think the puzzle types of this test were? | Perfectly balanced | | | What did you think about the puzzle quality of the test? | Very nice | | | What is your opinion about rules, points and scoring for this test? | Very fair | |
LPF just flowed so nicely. No big pauses. Just fill it in. Didn't really like Akari. I'm not a fan of Akari to begin with, but then I thought too much trial and error due to not much overlap between number clues. |
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blivet
Posts: 9
Country : Finland | blivet posted @ 2016-04-06 1:23 AM | Your 3 most favorite puzzles of the contest. | Hex Slitherlink | | | Your 3 most favorite puzzles of the contest. | Pentopia | | | Your 3 most favorite puzzles of the contest. | Hidoku | | | How balanced do you think the puzzle types of this test were? | Fairly balanced | | | What did you think about the puzzle quality of the test? | Very nice | | | What is your opinion about rules, points and scoring for this test? | Fair | |
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HuDu
Posts: 4
Country : Germany | HuDu posted @ 2016-04-06 2:30 AM | Your 3 most favorite puzzles of the contest. | Hidoku | | | Your 3 most favorite puzzles of the contest. | Domino Loop | | | Your 3 most favorite puzzles of the contest. | Pentopia | | | How balanced do you think the puzzle types of this test were? | Fairly balanced | | | What did you think about the puzzle quality of the test? | Very nice | | | What is your opinion about rules, points and scoring for this test? | Very fair | |
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kousek-nebe
Posts: 20
Country : Czech Republic | | Your 3 most favorite puzzles of the contest. | Hidoku | | | Your 3 most favorite puzzles of the contest. | LITS+ | | | Your 3 most favorite puzzles of the contest. | Pentopia | | | How balanced do you think the puzzle types of this test were? | Perfectly balanced | | | What did you think about the puzzle quality of the test? | Very nice | | | What is your opinion about rules, points and scoring for this test? | Very fair | |
Nice set of puuzles! I really like puzzle marathon :- ) |
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azrulnaut
Posts: 1
Country : Malaysia | Hi, I'm new to this and I'm a little confused by Linked Poset Futoshiki. I see that there are 4 rules to this puzzle:
1. Assign one of the 3 diagrams to a small grid
2. Solve each small grid so each number appears once every row/column
3. Make sure all >/< signs are complied
4. Digits separated by gaps must be identical.
I get 2,3 and 4. But I don't understand no.1. How does the diagram relate to the grids? What do the diagrams mean?
Sorry for the very newbie question, and sorry if this is in the wrong place. Found this puzzle via Reddit. |
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debmohanty
Country : India | azrulnaut - 2016-04-06 6:02 PM
Hi, I'm new to this and I'm a little confused by Linked Poset Futoshiki. I see that there are 4 rules to this puzzle:
1. Assign one of the 3 diagrams to a small grid
2. Solve each small grid so each number appears once every row/column
3. Make sure all >/< signs are complied
4. Digits separated by gaps must be identical.
I get 2,3 and 4. But I don't understand no.1. How does the diagram relate to the grids? What do the diagrams mean?
Sorry for the very newbie question, and sorry if this is in the wrong place. Found this puzzle via Reddit.
Lets look at the example below. By "diagram", we mean one of the trees (colored for your reference ).
So, each small grid (3X3 in the example and 6X6 in the actual puzzle ) will be assigned one diagram.
i.e. the "Inequality" rule in each grid will be governed by the "tree diagram" associated.
If you look at the solutions on the right, the top left and bottom right grids are assigned with tree diagram marked as "Maximum". Similarly, the top right and bottom left grids are assigned the tree diagram marked as "Minimum"
If something is still not clear, let us know.
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Kithyane
Posts: 49
Country : France | | Your 3 most favorite puzzles of the contest. | LITS+ | | | Your 3 most favorite puzzles of the contest. | Linked Poset Futoshiki | | | Your 3 most favorite puzzles of the contest. | Pentopia | | | How balanced do you think the puzzle types of this test were? | Fairly balanced | | | What did you think about the puzzle quality of the test? | Very nice | | | What is your opinion about rules, points and scoring for this test? | Fair | |
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xevs
Posts: 43
Country : Japan | xevs posted @ 2016-04-07 12:46 AM | Your 3 most favorite puzzles of the contest. | Twin Co-Ordinates | | | Your 3 most favorite puzzles of the contest. | Spiral Galaxy | | | Your 3 most favorite puzzles of the contest. | Akari | | | How balanced do you think the puzzle types of this test were? | Perfectly balanced | | | What did you think about the puzzle quality of the test? | Very nice | | | What is your opinion about rules, points and scoring for this test? | Very fair | |
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RALehrer
Posts: 31
Country : United States | Thanks! |
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An LMI player
| An LMI player posted @ 2016-04-07 2:44 PM | Your 3 most favorite puzzles of the contest. | Neighbours | | | Your 3 most favorite puzzles of the contest. | Hidoku | | | Your 3 most favorite puzzles of the contest. | Domino Loop | | | How balanced do you think the puzzle types of this test were? | Perfectly balanced | | | What did you think about the puzzle quality of the test? | Very nice | | | What is your opinion about rules, points and scoring for this test? | Very fair | |
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JayV
Posts: 1
Country : South Africa | JayV posted @ 2016-04-07 10:20 PM | Your 3 most favorite puzzles of the contest. | Domino Loop | | | Your 3 most favorite puzzles of the contest. | Spiral Galaxy | | | Your 3 most favorite puzzles of the contest. | Pentopia | | | How balanced do you think the puzzle types of this test were? | Fairly balanced | | | What did you think about the puzzle quality of the test? | Very nice | | | What is your opinion about rules, points and scoring for this test? | Very fair | |
I enjoyed basically every single puzzle except for the twin coordinates one - it didn't feel like a logic puzzle at all, although I seemed to have guessed correctly which squares "should" have doubles. Not sure if that was the idea? Might have missed the point of it. |
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An LMI player
| An LMI player posted @ 2016-04-08 4:33 PM | Your 3 most favorite puzzles of the contest. | LITS+ | | | Your 3 most favorite puzzles of the contest. | Domino Loop | | | Your 3 most favorite puzzles of the contest. | Word Search Sudoku | | | How balanced do you think the puzzle types of this test were? | Fairly balanced | | | What did you think about the puzzle quality of the test? | Very nice | | | What is your opinion about rules, points and scoring for this test? | Fair | |
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vopani
Posts: 739
Country : India | vopani posted @ 2016-04-08 6:48 PM JayV - 2016-04-07 10:20 PM
I enjoyed basically every single puzzle except for the twin coordinates one - it didn't feel like a logic puzzle at all, although I seemed to have guessed correctly which squares "should" have doubles. Not sure if that was the idea? Might have missed the point of it.
Different people have different strengths and weaknesses. Maybe you are better at spotting/guessing similar doubles.
Most of these puzzles are types that frequently occur at the World Puzzle Championships (WPCs ), and there have been visual-based rounds (like Screen Tests ) often in the past.
I disagree with you about TCO not having any logic. There are certainly cells/areas you can cross out and gradually get the pairs one by one by reducing the pool of potential cells, rather than randomly surfing through the grid.
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Yuhei Kusui
Posts: 42
Country : Japan | | Your 3 most favorite puzzles of the contest. | Hex Slitherlink | | | Your 3 most favorite puzzles of the contest. | Spiral Galaxy | | | Your 3 most favorite puzzles of the contest. | Word Search Sudoku | | | How balanced do you think the puzzle types of this test were? | Perfectly balanced | | | What did you think about the puzzle quality of the test? | Very nice | | | What is your opinion about rules, points and scoring for this test? | Very fair | |
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An LMI player
| An LMI player posted @ 2016-04-08 7:37 PM | Your 3 most favorite puzzles of the contest. | LITS+ | | | Your 3 most favorite puzzles of the contest. | Linked Poset Futoshiki | | | Your 3 most favorite puzzles of the contest. | Pentopia | | | How balanced do you think the puzzle types of this test were? | Fairly balanced | | | What did you think about the puzzle quality of the test? | Very nice | | | What is your opinion about rules, points and scoring for this test? | Very fair | |
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MrLiang
Posts: 44
Country : Thailand | MrLiang posted @ 2016-04-09 1:12 AM | Your 3 most favorite puzzles of the contest. | Akari | | | Your 3 most favorite puzzles of the contest. | Linked Poset Futoshiki | | | Your 3 most favorite puzzles of the contest. | Hidoku | | | How balanced do you think the puzzle types of this test were? | Perfectly balanced | | | What did you think about the puzzle quality of the test? | Very nice | | | What is your opinion about rules, points and scoring for this test? | Very fair | |
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SKnight
Posts: 25
Country : United States | SKnight posted @ 2016-04-09 3:22 AM azrulnaut - 2016-04-06 9:02 AM
Hi, I'm new to this and I'm a little confused by Linked Poset Futoshiki. I see that there are 4 rules to this puzzle:
1. Assign one of the 3 diagrams to a small grid
2. Solve each small grid so each number appears once every row/column
3. Make sure all >/< signs are complied
4. Digits separated by gaps must be identical.
I get 2,3 and 4. But I don't understand no.1. How does the diagram relate to the grids? What do the diagrams mean?
Sorry for the very newbie question, and sorry if this is in the wrong place. Found this puzzle via Reddit.
The word "Poset" is short for "Partially Ordered Set", which means that there is some sort of "less than/greater than" relationship,
but that not every pair of items can be compared.
Example: Let the set be the Simpson family: kids Bart, Maggie, Lisa, parents Homer and Marge, plus Homer's father Abe.
Let our "less than" stand for "is descended from".
Every child is "less than" each of the adults, but none of them can be compared to the other (neither Bart nor Lisa is less than the other ).
Homer is less than Abe, but Marge is not less than anyone in the family.
For Futoshiki purposes, that means that if you have a less than sign between two cells, they have to be a pair that is comparable (at all ) and in the order indicated.
In the diagrams, arrows lead up from lesser to greater, and the relationships are transitive (so A < B and B < C -> A < C, as is true in the Simpson example also ).
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greenhorn
Posts: 164
Country : Slovakia | | Your 3 most favorite puzzles of the contest. | Neighbours | | | Your 3 most favorite puzzles of the contest. | Pentopia | | | Your 3 most favorite puzzles of the contest. | Word Search Sudoku | | | How balanced do you think the puzzle types of this test were? | Perfectly balanced | | | What did you think about the puzzle quality of the test? | Very nice | |
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vopani
Posts: 739
Country : India | vopani posted @ 2016-04-09 11:41 AM SKnight - 2016-04-09 3:22 AM
Example: Let the set be the Simpson family: kids Bart, Maggie, Lisa, parents Homer and Marge, plus Homer's father Abe.
Let our "less than" stand for "is descended from".
Every child is "less than" each of the adults, but none of them can be compared to the other (neither Bart nor Lisa is less than the other).
Homer is less than Abe, but Marge is not less than anyone in the family.
LoL! Watching a lot of Simpsons lately? :- )
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gaurav.kjain
Posts: 52
Country : India | debmohanty - 2016-04-06 7:35 PM
azrulnaut - 2016-04-06 6:02 PM
Hi, I'm new to this and I'm a little confused by Linked Poset Futoshiki. I see that there are 4 rules to this puzzle:
1. Assign one of the 3 diagrams to a small grid
2. Solve each small grid so each number appears once every row/column
3. Make sure all >/< signs are complied
4. Digits separated by gaps must be identical.
I get 2,3 and 4. But I don't understand no.1. How does the diagram relate to the grids? What do the diagrams mean?
Sorry for the very newbie question, and sorry if this is in the wrong place. Found this puzzle via Reddit.
Lets look at the example below. By "diagram", we mean one of the trees (colored for your reference ).
So, each small grid (3X3 in the example and 6X6 in the actual puzzle ) will be assigned one diagram.
i.e. the "Inequality" rule in each grid will be governed by the "tree diagram" associated.
If you look at the solutions on the right, the top left and bottom right grids are assigned with tree diagram marked as "Maximum". Similarly, the top right and bottom left grids are assigned the tree diagram marked as "Minimum"
If something is still not clear, let us know.
What does this means
"Additionally, digits separated by a gap (between two adjacent small grids ) must be identical"
please clarify |
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Nilz
Posts: 29
Country : United Kingdom | Nilz posted @ 2016-04-09 5:13 PM | Your 3 most favorite puzzles of the contest. | Domino Loop | | | Your 3 most favorite puzzles of the contest. | Pentopia | | | Your 3 most favorite puzzles of the contest. | Hex Slitherlink | | | How balanced do you think the puzzle types of this test were? | Perfectly balanced | | | What did you think about the puzzle quality of the test? | Very nice | | | What is your opinion about rules, points and scoring for this test? | Fair | |
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rakesh_rai
Posts: 774
Country : India | gaurav.kjain - 2016-04-09 3:59 PM
What does this mean
"Additionally, digits separated by a gap (between two adjacent small grids) must be identical"
please clarify
In the example, look at the 3rd column of the first box and the first column of second box. They are separated by a gap and are identical. Similarly look at the 3rd row of the first box and the first row of the third box. Again they are separated by a gap and are identical. |
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nyoroppyi
Posts: 3
Country : Japan | | Your 3 most favorite puzzles of the contest. | Word Search Sudoku | | | Your 3 most favorite puzzles of the contest. | LITS+ | | | Your 3 most favorite puzzles of the contest. | Twin Co-Ordinates | | | How balanced do you think the puzzle types of this test were? | Perfectly balanced | | | What did you think about the puzzle quality of the test? | Very nice | | | What is your opinion about rules, points and scoring for this test? | Very fair | |
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gaurav.kjain
Posts: 52
Country : India | rakesh_rai - 2016-04-09 8:10 PM
gaurav.kjain - 2016-04-09 3:59 PM
What does this mean
"Additionally, digits separated by a gap (between two adjacent small grids) must be identical"
please clarify
In the example, look at the 3rd column of the first box and the first column of second box. They are separated by a gap and are identical. Similarly look at the 3rd row of the first box and the first row of the third box. Again they are separated by a gap and are identical.
Thanks Rakesh |
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bob
Posts: 59
Country : United States | bob posted @ 2016-04-10 12:06 AM | Your 3 most favorite puzzles of the contest. | Neighbours | | | Your 3 most favorite puzzles of the contest. | Domino Loop | | | Your 3 most favorite puzzles of the contest. | Linked Poset Futoshiki | | | How balanced do you think the puzzle types of this test were? | Perfectly balanced | | | What did you think about the puzzle quality of the test? | Very nice | | | What is your opinion about rules, points and scoring for this test? | Fair | |
The Marathon contest is always my favorite of the year and 2016 was no exception. I really enjoyed all of the puzzles and maily chose my three favorites based on what had stuck most in my memory. I really did not think I was going to like linked poset futoshiki and did it last in case I found it unsolveable. The instructions were a little confusing to me--the arrows in the poset diagrams go in the OPPOSITE direction as the inequality signs in the puzzle. Once I made that leap, the puzzle was not only solveable with logic, but very fun as well and it made my favorites list. I remember Neighbors from Breinbrekers puzzle magazine and really like it. I wish I could find more of these. Same with Pentopia. All of the puzzles had lots of delightful aha moments and generally linear solves for me. My fastest puzzle was about 40 min and my slowest about 70 so they all seemed "medium" to me. My least favorite was probably the akari, it seemed a little guessy to me and I never developed a good way to do trial and error with pencil and paper akari (I usually just do Nikoli ones online which are much easier ), I kept entering wrong solutions only to later find a single unlit cell somewhere. Oh well. Overall, 10-12 hours very well spent. Thank you LMI. |
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rob
Posts: 170
Country : Germany | rob posted @ 2016-04-10 12:57 AM | Your 3 most favorite puzzles of the contest. | Neighbours | | | Your 3 most favorite puzzles of the contest. | Hex Slitherlink | | | Your 3 most favorite puzzles of the contest. | Domino Loop | | | How balanced do you think the puzzle types of this test were? | Perfectly balanced | | | What did you think about the puzzle quality of the test? | Very nice | | | What is your opinion about rules, points and scoring for this test? | Very fair | |
Choosing favourites is impossible, I really enjoyed almost all of them. The exception being the Twin: I like that it was included, I just had a really rather frustrating experience with it. Didn't even think I was that bad at such puzzles before, but I found roughly one pair per fifteen minutes, and decided to shelve it after 45. I think it was fine as is, but perhaps having to find more but easier pairs would have helped (me ). Other than that, a few too many mistakes, but overall a very fun contest. It was great to be part of it. The Akari is solvable logically by the way, though I can see it being a bit painful if you miss the central deductions. |
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An LMI player
| An LMI player posted @ 2016-04-10 6:44 AM | Your 3 most favorite puzzles of the contest. | Spiral Galaxy | | | Your 3 most favorite puzzles of the contest. | Hex Slitherlink | | | Your 3 most favorite puzzles of the contest. | Pentopia | | | How balanced do you think the puzzle types of this test were? | Fairly balanced | | | What did you think about the puzzle quality of the test? | Very nice | | | What is your opinion about rules, points and scoring for this test? | Very fair | |
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deu
Posts: 69
Country : Japan | deu posted @ 2016-04-10 12:21 PM | Your 3 most favorite puzzles of the contest. | Word Search Sudoku | | | Your 3 most favorite puzzles of the contest. | Pentopia | | | Your 3 most favorite puzzles of the contest. | Neighbours | | | How balanced do you think the puzzle types of this test were? | Perfectly balanced | | | What did you think about the puzzle quality of the test? | Very nice | | | What is your opinion about rules, points and scoring for this test? | Very fair | |
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An LMI player
| An LMI player posted @ 2016-04-10 12:50 PM | Your 3 most favorite puzzles of the contest. | Word Search Sudoku | | | Your 3 most favorite puzzles of the contest. | Spiral Galaxy | | | Your 3 most favorite puzzles of the contest. | Hidoku | | | How balanced do you think the puzzle types of this test were? | Perfectly balanced | | | What did you think about the puzzle quality of the test? | Very nice | | | What is your opinion about rules, points and scoring for this test? | Very fair | |
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edderiofer
Posts: 8
Country : Hong Kong | | Your 3 most favorite puzzles of the contest. | Akari | | | Your 3 most favorite puzzles of the contest. | LITS+ | | | Your 3 most favorite puzzles of the contest. | Domino Loop | | | How balanced do you think the puzzle types of this test were? | Perfectly balanced | | | What did you think about the puzzle quality of the test? | Fairly Nice | |
I think that Twin CO is far less logical of a genre than I would have liked to see on an LMI test. I don't think that logic puzzles should be tests of visual acuity alone.
I'm quite surprised, as of the time of writing, that I've placed third on the LITS+ round. Had I been just 10 seconds faster, I'd have been first.
Had I known the Domino Loop and Hidoku were that easy, I would have done them earlier instead of trying to muster up the courage to plunge into them. I did however learn something from the Domino Loop about parity, and the breakins for the Hidoku, once spotted, almost made the puzzle solve itself.
The breakin into the Akari was well-hidden, and quite a bit of my time was spent wondering where it was.
Linked Poset Futoshiki is a pretty novel idea, but the rules were convoluted enough that I had to read the whole thing three times, and message Ivan about it in order to understand the rules.
Everything else was pretty ordinary but not noteworthy. Edited by edderiofer 2016-04-10 1:46 PM
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mackokajka
Posts: 5
Country : Slovakia | | Your 3 most favorite puzzles of the contest. | Pentopia | | | Your 3 most favorite puzzles of the contest. | Domino Loop | | | Your 3 most favorite puzzles of the contest. | Spiral Galaxy | | | How balanced do you think the puzzle types of this test were? | Fairly balanced | | | What did you think about the puzzle quality of the test? | Very nice | | | What is your opinion about rules, points and scoring for this test? | Very fair | |
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tnv
Posts: 22
Country : India | tnv posted @ 2016-04-10 11:18 PM | Your 3 most favorite puzzles of the contest. | Word Search Sudoku | | | Your 3 most favorite puzzles of the contest. | Spiral Galaxy | | | Your 3 most favorite puzzles of the contest. | Hidoku | | | How balanced do you think the puzzle types of this test were? | Fairly balanced | | | What did you think about the puzzle quality of the test? | Very nice | | | What is your opinion about rules, points and scoring for this test? | Fair | |
Enjoyed the contest. Congratulations to all the authors for creating a nice set of puzzles. I like the format: there is no time limit for each puzzle. |
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skywalker
Posts: 42
Country : Serbia | | Your 3 most favorite puzzles of the contest. | Hidoku | | | Your 3 most favorite puzzles of the contest. | Domino Loop | | | Your 3 most favorite puzzles of the contest. | Spiral Galaxy | | | How balanced do you think the puzzle types of this test were? | Fairly balanced | | | What did you think about the puzzle quality of the test? | Very nice | | | What is your opinion about rules, points and scoring for this test? | Very fair | |
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Deyan
Posts: 7
Country : Bulgaria | Deyan posted @ 2016-04-10 11:50 PM | How balanced do you think the puzzle types of this test were? | Perfectly balanced | | | What did you think about the puzzle quality of the test? | Very nice | | | What is your opinion about rules, points and scoring for this test? | Fair | |
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Richard
Posts: 191
Country : The Netherlands | Richard posted @ 2016-04-11 12:16 PM | Your 3 most favorite puzzles of the contest. | Pentopia | | | Your 3 most favorite puzzles of the contest. | Domino Loop | | | Your 3 most favorite puzzles of the contest. | LITS+ | | | How balanced do you think the puzzle types of this test were? | Perfectly balanced | | | What did you think about the puzzle quality of the test? | Very nice | | | What is your opinion about rules, points and scoring for this test? | Very fair | |
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An LMI player
| An LMI player posted @ 2016-04-11 6:09 PM | Your 3 most favorite puzzles of the contest. | Hidoku | | | Your 3 most favorite puzzles of the contest. | Neighbours | | | Your 3 most favorite puzzles of the contest. | LITS+ | | | How balanced do you think the puzzle types of this test were? | Fairly balanced | | | What did you think about the puzzle quality of the test? | Fairly Nice | | | What is your opinion about rules, points and scoring for this test? | Fair | |
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An LMI player
| An LMI player posted @ 2016-04-12 12:26 AM | Your 3 most favorite puzzles of the contest. | Hex Slitherlink | | | Your 3 most favorite puzzles of the contest. | Linked Poset Futoshiki | | | Your 3 most favorite puzzles of the contest. | Domino Loop | | | How balanced do you think the puzzle types of this test were? | Fairly balanced | | | What did you think about the puzzle quality of the test? | Very nice | | | What is your opinion about rules, points and scoring for this test? | Fair | |
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Swagatam
Posts: 45
Country : India | | Your 3 most favorite puzzles of the contest. | Neighbours | | | Your 3 most favorite puzzles of the contest. | Linked Poset Futoshiki | | | Your 3 most favorite puzzles of the contest. | Hidoku | | | How balanced do you think the puzzle types of this test were? | Perfectly balanced | | | What did you think about the puzzle quality of the test? | Very nice | | | What is your opinion about rules, points and scoring for this test? | Very fair | |
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wiiwierdo
Posts: 2
Country : United Kingdom | | Your 3 most favorite puzzles of the contest. | Spiral Galaxy | | | Your 3 most favorite puzzles of the contest. | Domino Loop | | | Your 3 most favorite puzzles of the contest. | Every Second Breakpoint | | | How balanced do you think the puzzle types of this test were? | Perfectly balanced | | | What did you think about the puzzle quality of the test? | Very nice | | | What is your opinion about rules, points and scoring for this test? | Very fair | |
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An LMI player
| An LMI player posted @ 2016-04-12 8:32 AM | Your 3 most favorite puzzles of the contest. | Pentopia | | | Your 3 most favorite puzzles of the contest. | Hidoku | | | Your 3 most favorite puzzles of the contest. | Neighbours | | | How balanced do you think the puzzle types of this test were? | Perfectly balanced | | | What did you think about the puzzle quality of the test? | Very nice | | | What is your opinion about rules, points and scoring for this test? | Very fair | |
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prasanna16391
Posts: 1801
Country : India | | Your 3 most favorite puzzles of the contest. | Spiral Galaxy | | | Your 3 most favorite puzzles of the contest. | Linked Poset Futoshiki | | | Your 3 most favorite puzzles of the contest. | Neighbours | | | How balanced do you think the puzzle types of this test were? | Perfectly balanced | | | What did you think about the puzzle quality of the test? | Very nice | |
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marred
Posts: 12
Country : Poland | marred posted @ 2016-04-12 10:43 AM | Your 3 most favorite puzzles of the contest. | Word Search Sudoku | | | Your 3 most favorite puzzles of the contest. | LITS+ | | | Your 3 most favorite puzzles of the contest. | Linked Poset Futoshiki | | | How balanced do you think the puzzle types of this test were? | Perfectly balanced | | | What did you think about the puzzle quality of the test? | Very nice | | | What is your opinion about rules, points and scoring for this test? | Very fair | |
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tojejedno
Posts: 4
Country : Czech Republic | | Your 3 most favorite puzzles of the contest. | Hex Slitherlink | | | Your 3 most favorite puzzles of the contest. | LITS+ | | | Your 3 most favorite puzzles of the contest. | Domino Loop | | | How balanced do you think the puzzle types of this test were? | Fairly balanced | | | What did you think about the puzzle quality of the test? | Very nice | | | What is your opinion about rules, points and scoring for this test? | Fair | |
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Bram28
Posts: 35
Country : The Netherlands | Bram28 posted @ 2016-04-13 2:38 AM | Your 3 most favorite puzzles of the contest. | LITS+ | | | Your 3 most favorite puzzles of the contest. | Domino Loop | | | Your 3 most favorite puzzles of the contest. | Pentopia | | | How balanced do you think the puzzle types of this test were? | Fairly balanced | | | What did you think about the puzzle quality of the test? | Very nice | | | What is your opinion about rules, points and scoring for this test? | Very fair | |
The Puzzle Marathon is always my favorite! It is so nice to be able to finish all the puzzles and get credit, and I love the big grids. The puzzles this year were very nice again, though nothing stood out as a particularly hard one .. I would rate most as easy or medium. And so I was mostly frustrated with myself for breaking each of the ESB, Galaxy, Futoshiki, Neighbors, Pentopia (I broke that one about 5 times, but it was one of my favorites nevertheless ), and LITS+. Sigh. But a big thank you as always to the puzzles makers!! |
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willwc
Posts: 12
Country : United States | willwc posted @ 2016-04-13 3:32 AM | Your 3 most favorite puzzles of the contest. | Word Search Sudoku | | | Your 3 most favorite puzzles of the contest. | Spiral Galaxy | | | Your 3 most favorite puzzles of the contest. | Twin Co-Ordinates | | | How balanced do you think the puzzle types of this test were? | Perfectly balanced | | | What did you think about the puzzle quality of the test? | Very nice | | | What is your opinion about rules, points and scoring for this test? | Very fair | |
Every single puzzle was excellently constructed, and even more impressively the difficulty seemed well-balanced between all twelve. I also thought that all of the rules changes for this year were for the best. Great job, everyone involved! |
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Administrator
Country : India | Puzzle Marathon for 2016 is over. Submission is no more allowed. |
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An LMI player
| An LMI player posted @ 2016-04-13 11:09 AM | Your 3 most favorite puzzles of the contest. | Word Search Sudoku | | | Your 3 most favorite puzzles of the contest. | Hidoku | | | Your 3 most favorite puzzles of the contest. | Neighbours | | | How balanced do you think the puzzle types of this test were? | Fairly balanced | | | What did you think about the puzzle quality of the test? | Very nice | |
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An LMI player
| An LMI player posted @ 2016-04-13 11:25 AM | Your 3 most favorite puzzles of the contest. | Pentopia | | | Your 3 most favorite puzzles of the contest. | Hidoku | | | Your 3 most favorite puzzles of the contest. | Word Search Sudoku | | | How balanced do you think the puzzle types of this test were? | A bit skewed | | | What did you think about the puzzle quality of the test? | Average | | | What is your opinion about rules, points and scoring for this test? | Fair | |
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debmohanty
Country : India | 
We thought it'd be nice to acknowledge some of the Marathon Solvers. There is some criteria for this list - We didn't consider solvers going more than 2 hours on a single puzzle, because they might have taken a break mid-puzzle. Also, the total accumulated break time in between solving is equal to or less than an hour.
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chaotic_iak
Posts: 241
Country : Indonesia | I guess I should post a few comments about my puzzle (Linked Poset Futoshiki ).
Congratulations for deu for solving Linked Poset Futoshiki the fastest at 12:29. Further congratulations for deu that has also won the entire Marathon. Also congratulations for Kota (15:50 ) and EKBM (16:03 ) as the podium finishers, along with those below 20 minutes.
Among the people so far that have posted their feedback publicly on this thread, 13 out of 49 liked Linked Poset Futoshiki. Since that's close enough to 1/4, I suppose I take it as good enough that my puzzle competes in the average. (I didn't actually count the others, so I'm not sure if there's any outlier ).
Semax - 2016-04-04 6:02 AM
Now that I know the real rules of Poset Futoshiki, I am not very happy with the example. I thought that "X < Y" means I can only place numbers X and Y which are connected by an arrow. The fact that I can jump over numbers was not very clear.
Yes, this is unfortunate, and I apologize for that. I did have NEW, HUGE, AND CHALLENGING! that was hosted a month ago (about a hellishly difficult 16x16 Poset Futoshiki, but it also contains 6 practice Poset Futoshiki puzzles ), but I think I forgot to remind people here to check it to practice Poset Futoshiki. (The linked part should be easier to understand. ) For this particular question, I should probably have made a 2x4x4 example instead of a 2x3x3 one.
azrulnaut - 2016-04-06 9:02 PM
Hi, I'm new to this and I'm a little confused by Linked Poset Futoshiki. I see that there are 4 rules to this puzzle:
1. Assign one of the 3 diagrams to a small grid
2. Solve each small grid so each number appears once every row/column
3. Make sure all >/< signs are complied
4. Digits separated by gaps must be identical.
I get 2,3 and 4. But I don't understand no.1. How does the diagram relate to the grids? What do the diagrams mean?
I suppose it's no longer useful now that the Marathon has ended, but the answer below that post is correct. In a regular Poset Futoshiki (see above link ), a puzzle is made of a grid and its associated diagram. In this puzzle, the diagrams haven't been associated to the grids; rule 1 in your numbering is to associate them (so each diagram is associated to one grid in each row/column ).
bob - 2016-04-10 3:06 AM
The instructions were a little confusing to me--the arrows in the poset diagrams go in the OPPOSITE direction as the inequality signs in the puzzle.
A poset is usually represented as a Hasse diagram, which is exactly what you see: if there is a path from a lower number to a higher number that is going strictly upward, then the lower number is smaller than the higher number (and if there is no such path, then the two are incomparable ). I chose to remain with this convention. On retrospect, it probably would have helped to remove the arrow heads and telling that lower number is smaller than higher number instead.
edderiofer - 2016-04-10 4:37 PM
Linked Poset Futoshiki is a pretty novel idea, but the rules were convoluted enough that I had to read the whole thing three times, and message Ivan about it in order to understand the rules.
Yes, I probably should have linked NEW, HUGE, AND CHALLENGING! as described above, so that people can familiarize themselves with Poset Futoshiki first before going into the linked part. |
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rajeshk
Posts: 542
Country : India | rajeshk posted @ 2016-04-13 2:48 PM Very nice set of puzzles. After missing last two years Puzzle Marathon, it was very nice and enjoyable experience for me. All the puzzles were very nice and has logical solution. Finding the same co-ordinates turns out to be very tough puzzle for me. Thanks to all the authors and LMI for this puzzle test. |
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An LMI player
| An LMI player posted @ 2016-04-13 7:22 PM | Your 3 most favorite puzzles of the contest. | Pentopia | | | Your 3 most favorite puzzles of the contest. | LITS+ | | | Your 3 most favorite puzzles of the contest. | Akari | | | How balanced do you think the puzzle types of this test were? | Fairly balanced | | | What did you think about the puzzle quality of the test? | Very nice | | | What is your opinion about rules, points and scoring for this test? | Very fair | |
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rajeshk
Posts: 542
Country : India | rajeshk posted @ 2016-04-14 12:22 AM | Your 3 most favorite puzzles of the contest. | Hex Slitherlink | | | Your 3 most favorite puzzles of the contest. | LITS+ | | | Your 3 most favorite puzzles of the contest. | Every Second Breakpoint | | | How balanced do you think the puzzle types of this test were? | Perfectly balanced | | | What did you think about the puzzle quality of the test? | Very nice | | | What is your opinion about rules, points and scoring for this test? | Very fair | |
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peretic
Posts: 1
Country : Croatia | peretic posted @ 2016-04-14 1:44 AM | Your 3 most favorite puzzles of the contest. | LITS+ | | | Your 3 most favorite puzzles of the contest. | Every Second Breakpoint | | | Your 3 most favorite puzzles of the contest. | Twin Co-Ordinates | | | How balanced do you think the puzzle types of this test were? | Fairly balanced | | | What did you think about the puzzle quality of the test? | Very nice | | | What is your opinion about rules, points and scoring for this test? | Very fair | |
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ghirsch
Posts: 102
Country : United States | ghirsch posted @ 2016-04-14 8:57 AM When will the solution booklet be posted? After looking through that Twin Coordinates puzzle for such a long time and only finding 3 out of 6 pairs, I'm curious as to where the last few were. |
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debmohanty
Country : India | ghirsch - 2016-04-14 8:57 AM
When will the solution booklet be posted? After looking through that Twin Coordinates puzzle for such a long time and only finding 3 out of 6 pairs, I'm curious as to where the last few were.
All authors have been kind enough to send me the solutions, so I should be able to compile them, hopefully soon. Here is the solution of Twin Co-Ordinates.
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debmohanty
Country : India | There were few comments about including Twin Co-Ordinates in Marathon. Here are my thoughts on that topic.
TiiT - 2016-04-03 9:56 PM
I was also afraid a bit of the Twin Coordinates puzzle but it actually took about the same time as others - so perfect. Some got a jackpot with this but if you consider that you can throw 2 away, it's not a big problem if you fail this. chaotic_iak - 2016-04-05 11:18 PM
A wonderful set of puzzles (not counting mine; it's unfair to judge my own puzzle). Mostly. Except for Twin Co-Ordinates, because I loathe visual puzzles. But that's about the genre; the puzzle itself is fine. JayV - 2016-04-07 10:20 PM
I enjoyed basically every single puzzle except for the twin coordinates one - it didn't feel like a logic puzzle at all, although I seemed to have guessed correctly which squares "should" have doubles. Not sure if that was the idea? Might have missed the point of it. edderiofer - 2016-04-10 1:37 PM
I think that Twin CO is far less logical of a genre than I would have liked to see on an LMI test. I don't think that logic puzzles should be tests of visual acuity alone.
I believe that visual puzzles are part of WPC-style puzzles, though they have been under represented in most contests / championships. If I have to pick couple of examples, the first one will be Puzzle GP finals 2015. There was a Find The Pair puzzle, which is similar to what we had here in Marathon. USPC has a visual puzzle every year worth 5 or 10 points, and similarly we have been trying to add visual puzzles in IPC for last 3-4 years. So I do not certainly feel Twin Co-ordinates puzzle was out of place in Marathon.
I also think Tawan did a wonderful job with the puzzle. While being less logical than others, you can also make step-by-step progress with this particular puzzle. Rohan has pointed that out in an earlier post. Have attached his partially solved solution to show what it means.
We also took extra precaution and asked for only 5 pairs, because we realized that it could sometimes be very frustrating to find all six. I would think that worked really well, which helped the puzzle be at almost similar difficulty as other puzzle. 185 players submitted this one successfully, out of which 112 got bonus. [ See statistics below to know which pair was the most difficult to find ]
When we (including Tawan ) decided to include this type in marathon, we didn't expect to receive all positive feedback for the puzzle. That is exactly what happened, but I am glad that it made to top 3 favourite puzzle of several solvers.
Tawan, feel free to add your thoughts.
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debmohanty
Country : India | willwc - 2016-04-13 3:32 AM
Every single puzzle was excellently constructed, and even more impressively the difficulty seemed well-balanced between all twelve.
The authors get lot of credit for this. All authors were very accommodating and designed / agreed to adjust the difficulty level as per our requirements. We had four authors who even decided to write completely new puzzles because the difficulty level did not match with other puzzles. We already have seen one of them here in NEW, HUGE, AND CHALLENGING. I would like to thank all the authors again.
One puzzle - I would like to highlight - that lost bit of it aesthetics is the Neighbours. It had a perfect 12 clues across the diagonal, but we realized it is little too tough, so 4 clues got added at the end. The original version is pasted at the end of this post. [ The pdf file already has both the versions now. ] Thanks James for agreeing to distort this one.
We also got to add couple of clues to Domino Loop and Spiral Galaxy. Their original versions will be uploaded.
It was not mentioned in the IB, but the test solvers for this contest were Palmer Mebane and Rohan Rao. Thanks both of you. It certainly helps to have a top solver like Palmer as a test-solver, we could be very confident about the difficulty level of the puzzles before finalizing.
Original Neigbhours Version
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tamz29
Posts: 225
Country : Thailand | tamz29 posted @ 2016-04-14 1:10 PM (Emerges from hiding)
Looking at early WPCs and USPCs, visual puzzles have always been there. WPCs aren't limited to just logic puzzles - as long as they're language-neutral its fair game right? Which is also why I welcome the Casual section of the Puzzle GP with open arms.
So even if I feel visual puzzles deserve their place in these competitions - I won't try to argue about them being logical, cause I feel they're not. With this specific puzzle though, I did attempt to make it more methodological by adding areas where you can cross out to narrow down to the solution.
Initially there was a choice between a word or a visual puzzle. I sent Deb a list of potential candidates (list included scrabble, word search, spot the differences etc) and given the marathon format and the online medium - we decided on the Twins. For this particular fairy tale-themed puzzle (not culture-neutral?) I spent 2 three-hour sessions drawing it up on MS Paint. This is probably the most time (just under 6 hours total) I've ever spent making one puzzle. (Bonus points: can you name the stories where all the characters came from?)
The puzzle had two versions: the black/white one (that you solved) and one with colours (actually just different shades of gray) which should be somewhat easier. After seeing one solver guessing 231(!) times, I felt like hiding from LMI until the marathon was over. Congrats to Nishinanntoka who amazingly finish in just over 10 minutes.
As a competitor, I'm glad to snatch one first place in Sudoku from the Japanese solvers :). Also enjoyed the Futoshiki, Slitherlink was surprisingly fun and impressed at how James managed the LMI theme on the heavily-constrained Neighbours puzzle. |
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Valezius
Posts: 66
Country : Hungary | | Your 3 most favorite puzzles of the contest. | Every Second Breakpoint | | | Your 3 most favorite puzzles of the contest. | Pentopia | | | Your 3 most favorite puzzles of the contest. | Neighbours | | | How balanced do you think the puzzle types of this test were? | Perfectly balanced | | | What did you think about the puzzle quality of the test? | Very nice | | | What is your opinion about rules, points and scoring for this test? | Fair | |
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BohemianCoast
Posts: 16
Country : United Kingdom | | Your 3 most favorite puzzles of the contest. | Linked Poset Futoshiki | | | Your 3 most favorite puzzles of the contest. | Hidoku | | | Your 3 most favorite puzzles of the contest. | Pentopia | | | How balanced do you think the puzzle types of this test were? | Fairly balanced | | | What did you think about the puzzle quality of the test? | Very nice | | | What is your opinion about rules, points and scoring for this test? | Very fair | |
I enjoyed the puzzles, but didn't have time to finish all of them. It felt slightly easier than previous marathon sets. |
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An LMI player
| An LMI player posted @ 2016-04-17 6:28 AM | Your 3 most favorite puzzles of the contest. | Neighbours | | | Your 3 most favorite puzzles of the contest. | Spiral Galaxy | | | Your 3 most favorite puzzles of the contest. | Hidoku | | | How balanced do you think the puzzle types of this test were? | Fairly balanced | | | What did you think about the puzzle quality of the test? | Fairly Nice | |
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chrisek
Posts: 1
Country : Poland | chrisek posted @ 2016-04-17 12:45 PM | Your 3 most favorite puzzles of the contest. | Every Second Breakpoint | | | Your 3 most favorite puzzles of the contest. | Hex Slitherlink | | | Your 3 most favorite puzzles of the contest. | Linked Poset Futoshiki | | | How balanced do you think the puzzle types of this test were? | Perfectly balanced | | | What did you think about the puzzle quality of the test? | Very nice | | | What is your opinion about rules, points and scoring for this test? | Very fair | |
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Nikola
Posts: 103
Country : Serbia | Nikola posted @ 2016-04-18 4:12 PM No congratulations for top solvers this time or I miss them?  I am very satisfied with my performances and I had a lot of fun. Almost in all puzzles somehow I didn't feel big size of the grid. Maybe the organizers being carefully too much to avoid hard puzzles and possible complications. Thanks to all who are involved in this contest and congrats to Hideaki and Ken. |
Puzzle Marathon 2016 - LMI April Puzzle Test - 1st to 12th April
