Logic Masters India announces January'11 Puzzle Test — Puzzle Jackpot

Date : 8^th-9^th January 2011

Puzzle Types : 5 main category of puzzles

Skyscraper and Variations

Snake and Variations

Math Puzzles

Tapa and Variations

Word Puzzles

Also, 5 puzzles from each type. So total 25 puzzles.

Author : Serkan Yurekli

Length : 120 minutes + 5 minutes grace period

IB and Submission Link : http://logicmastersindia.com/lmitests?test=M201101P

Very nice puzzle types Serkan
I'm sure everyone will have some of their favorite variants there.

The "Jackpot" concept is very genuine (first time at LMI tests), hope everyone will like it.

What's going on if more than 300 people solve a 30 points puzzle?

How I wish you were true...
We never had more than 191 players. In fact the puzzle which was correctly solved by most players is Simple Loop (Easy) by 175 players in Decathlon.

Anyway, if more than 300 players solve a 30 points puzzle correctly, we'll probably reduce the jackpot factor for each puzzle or increase the points for each puzzle.
Well, Serkan might have some other interesting approach for this problem!

This could destroy my strategy to invite 300 new players to LMI and let them solve only puzzles I do not finish during my try.

That is indeed a great strategy! I had not thought about it :-)
I wish I hadn't revealed my strategy

:) Yes, my wife asked me same question. But before deciding the jackpot points we looked at some statistics about previous LM contests. So i dont think it is possible. But if it happens as you said, i think we can decide new ratio, like 0.09 for 300 people:)

Serkan

Maybe we can set a minimum for each category...eg 30 pointers cannot go down below 10, 60 pointers cannot go down below 40, and 90 pointers cannot go down below 70.

Chinese translation of IB is available in sudokufans.org.cn forum http://www.sudokufans.org.cn/forums/index.php?showtopic=161

Concept is amazing. Looking forward to this test...
2011 is starting with another new dimension at LMI! :-)

The scoring system is so exciting! I hope I spend some time on the puzzles too ;-)

a question on Tapa ?: every time there is a question mark this will have to be replaced always bay the same digit or digits can be different? and within the same cell?

There is no rule about digits identity or difference. So question marks in one cell can represent different digits, or same digits.

Happy new year

Thank you Serkan
all the best to you and your wife too
and to all the logic masters India crew.

Interesting concept, I hope I will be able to participate. There are lots of puzzles I haven't tried yet, so it would probably be a good learning experience.

Note about - Grace Period

The test is for 120 minutes. Additionally there will be a grace period of 5 minutes. So players can submit upto a total of 125 minutes.
Note that penalty per minute during grace period submission is 8 points.

Penalty Points = Max(0, (Last puzzle timestamp - 120 minutes) * 8)

Password protected booklet is uploaded.
The booklet has 16 pages

Each page has 1 or 2 puzzles, along with the Instructions, Answer Key, Initial Points and Estimated Time.

Is the penalty charge based on last submit or last correct submit? I tried to enter B4 answer but copied it wrong - on answer B I entered the last 4 of solution from the row with the snake head :( Therefore lost the points and also paid the penalty. Any consideration on the answer/penalty would be welcome. On afterthought should not have attempted as points possible were not worth the penalty. Should have watched the clock better.

This is first time in monthly tests we are having grace period. After a discussion with Serkan, we decided to compute penalty based on last submitted puzzle ( as posted in couple of posts back).
We might have to revise this formula for future tests based on players' feedback.

Point Claims -
Serkan has been manually checking all incorrect answers for possible overrides. If anyone thinks they should get points for any particular puzzle, they should post here OR send Serkan a PM.

Very nice puzzles Serkan. It is going to be interesting to see the scores after the test.
I enjoyed the Tapa variants. They were really beautiful!

More comments after the test.

Oh, I didn't realise there was a penalty for posting during the grace period, or that you could submit answers multiple times. This was my first puzzle comp and I worked on everything up to the last minutes and then entered all answers at the same time.

If I had known, I would have entered each puzzle as I finished it and saved a bit of paper and brain shuffling.

Great puzzles. Thanks, Serkan! I especially liked group C.

Nikola

Very poor performance for me, but not really surprising as I had hardly read the instruction booklet before the test and there were almost only types of puzzles I had never solved before. Anyway, the puzzles I could solve were great and I will attempt to do the others in the coming week. But, just as Rohan said,

Lovely set of puzzles, some of them very cleverly constructed.

I don't suppose you'd take pity on an idiot who entered the column first followed by the row in the Gapless Kakuro?

Thanks for these puzzles - great fun.

We give points all competitors who replace A- B or B-A, so you got points.

Thank you for participation.

Best

Great competition as always! Lots of fun. Wish I hadn't written in the wrong line on one of the skyscrapers! wrote 4th instead of 5th line on Sum Skyscrapers... *sad face* Looking forward to the next one as always!!

Incredible test Serkan! I loved the balance of types (something I also shot for with my LMI, but with less Word puzzles than here). I'll second Nikola's comment that group C was a real standout, but I had a lot of fun with some of the others too. The jackpot didn't affect my result too much it seems, but the relative speed of printers might have made the difference....

Thanks for organizing a great contest (and accepting my typo in E2).
I especially liked Group C and D. Group E was extremely difficult for me!

This time, I noted down my solving time for each puzzle to compare them with ESTs.
I confirmed that I am good at math puzzles and poor at word puzzles.

A 7:18 1:26 1:48 3:56 9:47
B 1:06 0:30 1:01 6:10 1:08
C 2:36 4:43 2:13 1:42 4:20
D 5:36 2:24 0:37 3:10 3:08
E 2:06 13:12 7:20 (14:42) (46:51)
( ) ... not finished in time

I am looking forward to your Tapa Variations Contest this year too!

Contest is over, many thanks to all participants and of course LMI. The top three competitors are:

1. Thomas Snyder (USA) - 25/25 - 117:32
2. Ulrich Voigt (Germany) - 25/25 - 117:33
3. Nikola Zivanovic (Serbia) - 24/25 - 113:38

I followed all competitors' submissions during the two days with my wife. It was so fun like OAPC times, and also useful since it allowed to hand points to some correct but swapped submissions. There were several interesting moments to watch:

First one was watching Ulrich solve all puzzles alphabetically from A to E :) Actually I hadn't thought that anyone could finish all. Because there were several very hard puzzles and I thought the best player would solve 23 out of 25.

The second interesting moment was the performence of Nikola. He submitted his last puzzle earlier than Ulrich, and we thought he will pass him. But unfortunately his last submission was broken.

And of course the third one was watching Thomas. We looked at the time he needs to finish early, in order to pass Ulrich. We were refreshing the page repeatedly and following if he could submit the last puzzle before the time shows 7:27 left, including extra time. It was 7:30 and nothing changed, so we thought he wouldn't pass Ulrich but then Thomas managed to click the button 1 second before Ulrich! :) That was the most amazing moment of the test.

Full results can be viewed here: http://logicmastersindia.com/M201101P/score.asp
The results table is somehow confused with the amazing performance, so it shows both Ulrich and Thomas in the 1st place from time to time. I think it is trying to make a decision :)

Some notes:
- The puzzle solved by least competitors was E4-Criscross Crash. It was solved by 17 competitors and gave 88.3 points.
- The puzzle solved by most competitors was A1-Gappy Skyscrapers. It was solved by 106 competitors and gave 19.4 points.
- The puzzle with the highest rating was C-Kakuro and the puzzle with the lowest rating was A-Skyscrapers.

My personal thoughts on Jackpot concept is that it will be more effective with more competitors and a detailed calculation of Jackpot points. Of course it also requires a well-planned puzzle set. The Jackpot concept is not my personal idea, it has been discussed by Turkish puzzle community for a long time but has never been applied in national qualifications due to lack of technical background. And the idea of giving estimated times was inspired by Thomas Snyder's Decathlon.

Thanks again to hardworking LMI for making this concept possible.

All the best

Serkan Yurekli

Serkan.

All puzzles were very good, especially the first two kakuros. Gapped kakuro seems to be an interesting concept. Unfortunately, could not attempt most of the tapa and word puzzles due to lack of time.

Jackpot concept was interesting, although it did not change much at the top. From the results table, I can see that the top 22 participants would have finished the same irrespective of the jackpot points. After that, IP being equal, the Jackpot concept, in effect, favoured those who solved more 90-pointers.

The photo finish at the top was indeed unbelievable, even confusing the scoring system. Also, this was probably the first test where the highest number of non-zero participants were not from India. USA and Germany had 15 non-zero participants each this time, as against 14 from India.

Thanks for this wonderful test.

I really enjoy part A and part C, so I imagine that other parts (which I didn't solve) were very nice, too

Cud not participate this time due to very hectic weekend. Taken the printouts now and will try to solve them. Really missed my name in the Score sheet.

Little late, but better than never.
The score page has been fixed now!

So, contest being over :

Really bad day for me, several mistakes and lots of puzzles I just couldn't get into ; but puzzles were very nice and for some of them, really excellent. The first one I solved was kakuro - I couldn't believe such a small grid being such a fun solve, and it was a fantastic premice.

Thanks Serkan, I hope to do more honor to your next contest.