How do I get the password for sudoku Mahabharat subsitution and odd even 2018 booklets for practising? I am a first time user and want to practice old sudokus for the upcoming test on 8th feb


Following is the link of the file for which I need the password
http://logicmastersindia.com/lmitests/dl.asp?attachmentid=721&view=...

Can you please check now? The password should be available on the contest page.

Am I correct in thinking that “True or lie” is simply a less well presented (in my opinion) version of pencilmark sudoku?

The test has started.

Well.You are entitled to think whatever you want to.But yes.True or lie is not very different from a pencilmark sudoku.

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?	Coded Sudoku
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 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?	Coded Sudoku
Of the puzzles you solved/attempted, how well did the point values reflect the difficulty?	Most puzzles were worth the right amount

The test was overall fine. I thought the True or Lie formatting was bad, though, because the given clues overlapped the place where a 1 pencil mark would go when solving online. I skipped the 9x9 puzzle mainly for this reason.

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?	Coded Sudoku
Of the puzzles you solved/attempted, how well did the point values reflect the difficulty?	Most puzzles were worth the right amount

Thanks for the feedback.

Yes. There is partial overlap but we think it does not impact solving. Perhaps we could have used a lighter font for the True or Lie clues.

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?	Quadro Sudoku
Of the puzzles you solved/attempted, how well did the point values reflect the difficulty?	Most puzzles were worth the right amount

Very nice set. Top quality sudokus.
Felt the difficulty is too hard for SM.

Favourite puzzles: Quadro 9x9, 2Odd2Even 9x9, True Or Lie 6x6

Thanks Ashish and Kishore!

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?	2 Odd 2 Even Sudoku
Of the puzzles you solved/attempted, how well did the point values reflect the difficulty?	Most puzzles were worth the right amount

Excellent Set of Sudokus.
Loved the 2Odd 2Even Sudoku, Although I solved it after the test.
It was a wonderful test.
Thanks LMI.
Thanks Kishore and Ashish.
Agree to Rohan, difficulty is on higher side for SM, so beginners might have some tough time.

What was your opinion of the distribution of easy/hard puzzles?	Too many easy puzzles
What did you think about the puzzle quality of the test?	Very nice
Which set of puzzles did you like the most?	Odd Even Count Sudoku
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 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?	2 Odd 2 Even Sudoku
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 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?	2 Odd 2 Even Sudoku
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 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?	2 Odd 2 Even Sudoku
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 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?	Classic Sudoku
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 distribution of easy/hard puzzles?	Too many hard puzzles
What did you think about the puzzle quality of the test?	Below Average
Which set of puzzles did you like the most?	Coded Sudoku
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 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?	Classic Sudoku
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 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?	True or Lie Sudoku
Of the puzzles you solved/attempted, how well did the point values reflect the difficulty?	Many puzzles were worth too much or too little

Too hard for timed test but nice fun puzzles.

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?	Coded Sudoku
Of the puzzles you solved/attempted, how well did the point values reflect the difficulty?	Most puzzles were worth the right amount

Great quality of Sudokus, really enjoyed the variants. But had a bad day and broke a lot of them, even some 6*6 ones. Thanks for the great Sudokus Ashish and Kishore!

Extremely tough for a beginner. Added to it, my network conn was really bad. So personally pathetic performance again. Infact its getting worse with each round. But I guess this is required at this level of competition. So Great job done Ashish and Kishore.

Edited by Anu G 2019-02-10 1:55 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?	Very nice
Which set of puzzles did you like the most?	Coded Sudoku
Of the puzzles you solved/attempted, how well did the point values reflect the difficulty?	Most puzzles were worth the right amount

After a bad performance in the 1st round I had targeted to perform well in this round. But couldn't perform as well. I lost a lot of time in the classics and the 9*9 2 Odd 2 Even. At the end I couldn't solve the 2 Odd 2 Even.
Overall a good set of sudokus. I specially liked the Coded Sudokus.
Thanks Kumars for the sudokus :p

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?	Quadro Sudoku
Of the puzzles you solved/attempted, how well did the point values reflect the difficulty?	Most puzzles were worth the right amount

great set of sudokus. thankfuly i had no mistakes in this round. in my opinion i found true or lie and coded sudoku easy, finshed 9x9 for both of them in 10 mins combined. had already decided to go for the hghest pointer 2 odd 2 even first and thankfully it worked for me. i felt that quadro should've been given more points compared to true or lie and coded sudoku.

overall i am glad that i finished the whole set within time

Nice test but rather difficult. Even the Classics were hard.
I basically give up an hour fumbling hopelessly so it was a surprise to see other people found it just as hard.
I thought Coded 2 was too guess-y and the 2O2E was beautifully made.

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?	Quadro Sudoku
Of the puzzles you solved/attempted, how well did the point values reflect the difficulty?	Most puzzles were worth the right amount

Thanks for this amazing set. I really enjoyed quadro and coded during the contest, and 2 odd 2 even offline.

Edited by harmeet 2019-02-10 5:20 PM

Does this mean the only differences are to do with the presentation, rather than how you might solve the puzzle? That's certainly how it seems to me, so I'd be grateful if you could confirm this or else point out differences I might be missing.

My interest in general is that sometimes Sudoku contests do themselves no favours with being overly complex and not friendly to beginners. So I see an old and relatively well-understood variation masquerading under new rules and new presentation, and I wonder if that is really being helpful. My personal opinion is that a beginner would look at a 12 in a pencilmark grid and be able to grasp what is going on far better than a 1 in a true or lie grid. If that's really the case, I ask myself what, if any, benefit this new presentation is bringing to the table.

The whole "Liar" theme is also something that probably needs some further point - at some point in the WPC and WSC community someone decided that "Liar" should mean differing by exactly one and the precedent has stuck for whatever reason. However, to an outsider this might seem quite arbitrary, and whilst this might be lying in a technical sense, this +/- 1 concept is actually far more restrictive. That, to me, is something more like "fuzzy" clues.

The final point I'd like to make is if this is really just a pencilmark sudoku, it kind of stretches the theme of "substitution" a little far. Granted, I personally don't care that much for themes as I know it's perfectly possible to group together variations that superficially look similar but fundamentally solve using different heuristics, however there may be solvers who end up confused by the theming. I tend to think it should be the puzzles that make the theme, rather than the theme that makes the puzzles.

True or Lie sudoku is not a new idea. I think it was first created by Nikola in sept. 2014 for the tournament sudoku day: http://logicmastersindia.com/lmitests/?test=M201409S, and appeared in a few occasions, like indian sudoku championship 2015.
I've created some similar variants, liar sudoku: http://sudokuvariante.blogspot.com/search/label/Menteur, with only the "liar" idea.

Concerning the points you raised:

Presentation: In my opinion it's not less well presented than pencil marks. Here we have only one clue in each cell, which is in my opinion more readable than pencil marks sudoku. Of course it could have been presented as a pencil marks sudoku, it's only a small twist. I think this variants belongs to a category we could call "coded information" variants, exactly as roman numeral sudoku. Roman numeral sudoku could be presented as pencil marks sudoku, too: "V" means pencil marks 45678, "III" means pencil marks 38, etc... I don't see a problem in having a small twist from pencil marks variant which leads to true or lie sudoku.

Beginner-friendly: I don't think the rule and presentation of true or lie sudoku is too complex for a beginner. I think the idea is quite simple and the presentation very clear. If a player prefer pencil marks, it takes few seconds to write them in all clued cells, I don't think it's a problem for players.

"Liar", perhaps liar is not the right word to use, but who really cares about name of variants?

The only complaint I would make is that playing online was not very easy with this formatting, as mstang noticed.

Fred

In a True or Lie sudoku, each given clue restricts marking to ONLY 3 possibilities which is certainly not the case in a pencilmark sudoku (where you may have 2,3,4 or even more ! given digits/possibilities) in a cell.Yes it is similar in solving style to a pencil marks sudoku but that doesn't mean that it should be taken off from contests.



I think you are reading too much into an issue which I think is very trivial.The opinion that you put forth regarding a beginner grasping idea of a pencilmark grid more than a TOL grid is very dubious and I don't quite agree with that.On the contrary, any person grasping anything boils down to whether that person in question understands the rules clearly(which I think can definitely be taken for granted for TOL rules) and once that is done , I think TOL is a far better and beginner friendly version than a pencil mark sudoku.



As I said before, the issue is too trivial .We didn't even think of it being compared to a pencil mark sudoku.Perhaps you might have had a bad experience solving a TOL in the past which bothers you when you see it and your opinon on it is largely framed based on you being very subjective ?!



If a beginner or any person for that matter had a question regarding rules of TOL, that would have been raised in the forum and besides TOL doesn't find its debut here .It has occured previously in other websites' contests too (argio logic for one which also presents pencil marks sudokus separately !) and even in last year's SM round (where you didn't seem to have an issue) and where no one had posted any problems regarding comprehension of rules.

I was quite disheartened after my performance today and felt I was not fit for competitive sudokus. Then I decided to try and solve the puzzles offline. I had got stuck on classics 6-7 points and wasted lots of time in the contest. Offline, I finished the 10 points true-lies quite fast and also the odd-even count. I think the 10 pointers were easier than the classics. I take back my comments that it was extremely tough for a beginner. The variants were actually very interesting. I just chose the wrong puzzles. And forgot to upload the result of the first classic thinking i will do it later . Anyways I continue to learn from my mistakes. Well done, Kumars.

Do you have any suggestions for improving the formatting for this variant?

You may have noticed that points for classics were higher as compared to most SM tests. So classics were expected to be harder.

There is nothing like a wrong puzzle but individual preferences can differ. And with the clock running, even easy grids can look formidable sometimes.

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?	2 Odd 2 Even Sudoku
Of the puzzles you solved/attempted, how well did the point values reflect the difficulty?	Most puzzles were worth too much or too little

Extremely hard test,as expected.
Just like last time,literally every sudoku was difficult,which is now certainly a theme of Ashish's creations without doubt.
I felt a few sudokus as a result were grossly undervalued,examples being coded and odd even count,both of which were worth more points.
Classics should have been given lesser points to compensate.
Didnt enjoy the test much,but thanks to Ashish and Kishore for the sudokus.

Slightly off-topic, but regarding +-1, my suggestion would be to go with "knapp daneben".

In terms of presentation I think it's fine to not present the True or Lie as pencil marks. Besides the mentioned Roman Numerals, there's also e.g. last GP's Braille Sudoku or just Odd/Even Sudoku. Certainly they can all be expressed as pencilmarks, but I feel that the presentation does direct the logic in a way. The kinds of arguments that are possible are somewhat restricted, and there are different patterns to be recognized. I did end up writing out candidates in the hard competition puzzle after missing some logic, but in the end I think the messier grid rather solved me down extra (on top of the work of writing out candidates).

The puzzles were great, and quite difficult. Thanks to the authors and organizers!

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?	2 Odd 2 Even Sudoku

What did you think about the puzzle quality of the test?	Very nice
Which set of puzzles did you like the most?	Classic Sudoku
Of the puzzles you solved/attempted, how well did the point values reflect the difficulty?	Many puzzles were worth too much or too little

@kishy72: Ok, I feel there has been a lot of playing the man not the ball here. Comments like:

"Perhaps you might have had a bad experience solving a TOL in the past which bothers you when you see it and your opinon on it is largely framed based on you being very subjective ?!"

are not helpful. I have had no such bad experience, and indeed I've already outlined where I am coming from with my thinking. I don't know why you are trying to falsely attribute further words and motives to me, but I sincerely hope this is unfortunate behaviour you might hold back from in any further discussion. You might think what I've raised is trivial, but that's also just your opinion, and it's an opinion with which I disagree. I also doubt I'm the only one who disagrees.

You are correct in saying that not all pencilmark sudoku can be represented as true or lie, but it is very much the case that all true or lie sudoku can be represented as pencilmark sudoku. So we certainly have some kind of equivalence going on here, and so I think the question as to which presentation is more helpful is a legitimate question to raise.

Re beginner friendly - I've framed things in this way because presentational issues are more likely to affect less experienced solvers than more experienced solvers - although perhaps this was not the best way to make my point. I take the point that as stated true or lie isn't unclear in the statement of its rules, but ultimately my point is that doesn't mean that things couldn't be improved. In general I think contests should aim to present puzzles as clearly as possible.

@Fred76, @rob: Solving this competition puzzle reminded me of solving a Roman Numerals/S for Sudoku/Morse etc. In general I'm not the biggest fan of such puzzles either - exactly the same arguments can be raised when it comes to the required bookkeeping required to solve these puzzles, and whether they add to or hinder the solving experience. Certainly if you are transposing the given information back into candidates there's a risk you might make transpose something in error and not realise until much later, which I can imagine being very frustrating. On the other hand I accept that not everyone will be solving the puzzle quite like that. Maybe there's something to be said when the information is encoded in completely different sets of symbols, as opposed to numbers 1-9 abbreviating the candidates.

Anyhow all that aside, I thought the puzzles in this round (although quite hard) were of very good quality. In particular it's nice to see some very well crafted classic puzzles, which often get left as an afterthought in many online contests.

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?	2 Odd 2 Even Sudoku

Puzzle quality was excellent, even though some puzzles seemed quite hard to me, but maybe thats because I did the test late in the evening. Quadro 2 and Classic 4 seemed undervalued to me. Thanks for the nice set of puzzles!

Right.You started this even before you took the test by stating that TOL is a less well presented version of a pencil mark sudoku when it clearly felt to us that you were taking a jibe and belittling the efforts that go behind in putting forth each episode.You probed further asking me what the differences were when you knew yourself what differentiates the two.When the matter is insignificant for a discussion, it's natural to think that your past experience might have had a say and moreover I didn't say that you had one.I said "perhaps you might have ..." .Both have a difference.If I still stick to my point and say now that you are letting your judgement clouded by your past encounter with TOL, then that's totally different.If you think that "unfortunate behaviour" is to withheld then you should be more polite when you addressed the issue.

I am 100% certain that if it weren't for you, it wouldn't even have occured to someone to equate the 2 and then sacrifice one for the other just supposedly because of an alternative version with better presentation based on some preconceived notion.

There might be numerous cases where one variant is very similar in solving style/presentation to another and can be sacrificed for the other but it would just be an unfruitful thing and a waste of time and efforts to search for such.They just add variety.


You seem to be contradicting when you agree that TOL isn't unclear in the statement of its rules and yet you put forth that contests should aim to be as clear as possible.If that's the case here, then why this pointless discussion ?!



Thank you and indeed the puzzles were on the harder side and I will add a little to this after the contest.We discussed this right after sinchai gave the test and it became very clear to us when kwak took 77m to finish the set which is much more than what he usually takes for an episode.

Is it possible to extend the test for one more day i.e. till Wednesday midnight IST.

An idea I had was to put the numbers (faintly, but larger font) over the whole square so the pencil marks would be more visible on their own. Not sure, though.

Thank you. This is noted for future contests.

@kishy72: I’m done here, this isn’t a school playground, and I won’t waste my time further with childish taunts of “you started it”. You’ve twice dissected my posts line by line and remararkably you have failed to come close to addressing my point. I don’t think there’s anything more I can say to such a person.

That said I’m sorry if you thought I was initially making a jibe or belittling the contest. Perhaps you are not aware, but I have been organising online contests for nearly 10 years and I have an interest in all aspects of running them. I certainly know that running a contest is no easy thing to do, that it’s certainly possible to make mistakes, and I am grateful to all those who give up their time to do so, you included.

If you feel you have run the perfect contest, then maybe you have the right to be so touchy about any kind of criticism. If not, then I urge you to react with a little more maturity in the future, and take the positives rather than inventing some straw man negatives to get so upset and offended over.

I may as well try and put all this bad blood behind me and take something useful out of the other “discussion” - given the similarities to other symbolic type variants then some of the same principles apply. I thought larger, centred and greyed out clues worked nicely for Morse on the recent GP round, and perhaps something similar might work for this. Another idea is to apply Pinocchio style outlined clues rather than solid clues.

Thanks for the suggestions. We will definitely consider this approach when we come across such a scenario in future.

Please, no digits that occupy the whole cell and are not part of the solution, even if they are grey or outlined. This is my (personal) advice for formatting. See here for a past discussion on the subject:
http://gp.worldpuzzle.org/content/sudoku-round-6-liar-sudoku

Fred

I think it is more a problem of online solving interface than grid formatting. The harder part of the job on LMI is to get friendly format for both paper and online solving. Perhaps it's better to concentrate first on paper format, because official championships are based on paper solving. Having a possibility of online solving is a great tool for people who don't have access to a printer, but I don't think it should be the priority for formatting grids.

Concerning interface, there are basically 2 models for writing pencil marks: the one here, used for example on the website argio-logic.net too, and the model of fed-sudoku.eu and sudokucup.com (pencil marks are confined on the top of the cell and don't erase when entering the final digit). I'm more fan of the second one, I think some potential formatting issues could be fixed more easily with this model.

Fred

Consider this as thrice.This is the way I respond to posts and if you can't take them then so be it.You say that I fail to address your point .I think your post has been given more attention than it needs to and your query has been well answered (just not in the way that you might have expected or wanted it to be).I already told you that TOL is not very different from a pencil mark sudoku and even explained whatever differences I thought they had.I further added that it is a more beginner friendly version than a pencil mark sudoku.I don't know what more you expect me to say.I would be glad too if you don't have anything to say because I am getting tired of answering your posts.

I am well aware of that having been a regular of UK puzzle association myself and the sudoku contests there but that doesn't mean that you can keep posting ditzy queries elsewhere like the one you raised here or in WSC 17 regarding the printing ink and paper standing to the use of an eraser.

I never boasted anywhere nor am I related to running contests here except co-authoring this round which is a first.There is nothing called a 'perfect contest'.There will always be room for improvement which is why feedbacks are given serious importance here.Perhaps you haven't taken cognizance of that fact and don't try to play the moral high ground here asking me to be mature.You are neither a parent or a superior to me and nobody is inventing anything here except answering your trivial and silly queries .

LMI encourages healthy, constructive discussions but there is no scope for comments which are personal in nature. One of the sub-discussions in this thread is not happening in the right spirit and we request the concerned participants to please put a stop to that discussion. Thanks.

At the same time, all are free to ask any questions even if those questions are trivial in nature.

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?	Odd Even Count Sudoku
Of the puzzles you solved/attempted, how well did the point values reflect the difficulty?	Most puzzles were worth too much or too little

Well said. I regret the spirit in which this discussion has taken place and I apologise where my tone became personal or non-constructive as this was not my intention.

However, speaking for myself in light of that last post in particular which hints at a long-standing grudge, I no longer feel free or welcome to ask questions, promote discussions or to provide feedback at LMI - and therefore I will no longer do so going forward. Given my good friends here this is something that greatly saddens me.

Tom,

You don't know me. I hope you reconsider. As a fringe member of this community, I appreciate the diverse points of view presented by the more experienced and engaged members like you. It will be a loss to this community if you choose not to participate further.

Thanks.

That would indeed be sad Tom. I have known you for ages, through sudoku and personally too. Maybe people are not aware on the bigger role you are handling with WPF regarding the Sudokus and their definition, and I think I can safely assume your questions were a result of the efforts you are putting in that. Maybe I am wrong, but as the Admin pointed out, no question is unwelcome. Having said that, irrespective of what our personal style of response is, a certain decorum needs to be maintained in a public discussion.

Edited by purifire 2019-02-12 3:23 PM

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?	2 Odd 2 Even Sudoku
Of the puzzles you solved/attempted, how well did the point values reflect the difficulty?	Most puzzles were worth the right amount

This was indeed a beautiful set of puzzles. Loved the construct. Absolutely beautiful. Had the trademark Ashish stamp on them.

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?	True or Lie Sudoku
Of the puzzles you solved/attempted, how well did the point values reflect the difficulty?	Most puzzles were worth too much or too little

Thanks a lot for your feedback but co- authoring also helped me get suggestion on theme and solve path too. it woudnt be possible without Kishore to get it done nicely.
Thanks again.

Im sorry if my post came out unintended. My intention was not to sideline Kishore. Of Course it is a team effort and congrats to both of you. It is just that I have gotten so used to your style of creation, that it was easy for me to relate to and identify your puzzles . :)

this SM3 round not gone well to my expectation.may be due to my over confidence on varients.I would have practiced atleast IB before do the competition. I have finished all the puzzle which are left in the competition. My favorite is True or Lie then coded sudoku.Thanks for Aashish and Kishore for creating very good puzzle for this round. But one thing i want to say here is too hard puzzle in classic will demorale the budding players in LMI which is unwarrented.Top players have places to compete on hard puzzles.Here we have to bring lot of players who are only know classic to lmi contest. we can train those who are capable to compete in the higher level.It is my view

Thanks kumaresan for your valuable feedback. We will look forward to your suggestions which seems valid and will surely see to it that we feature some easy puzzles too.. thanks.

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?	Odd Even Count Sudoku
Of the puzzles you solved/attempted, how well did the point values reflect the difficulty?	Many puzzles were worth too much or too little

Thanks LMI for extending the test based on my request. Travelling and fatigue took a toll on me in this test. I pesonally found most puzzles harder or rather I got stuck/broke in most puzzles. Other than that, the test is pretty good or may be of a regular LMI monthly test standard than an SM. Thanks Ashish and Kishore for the puzzles.

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?	2 Odd 2 Even Sudoku
Of the puzzles you solved/attempted, how well did the point values reflect the difficulty?	Most puzzles were worth the right amount

Congratulations to Hideaki Jo, Jakub Ondrousek, Tiit Vunk and Tantan Dai for taking the top four places.

Amongst Indian participants, Congratulations to Rohan Rao, Rishi Puri and Shaheer Rahman for completing the set and taking the top 3 places.

Of the 291 participants, 95 were from India, 31 from Japan and 22 from USA. Philippe Meyer (France) was the first to start the test while Priyam Bhushan (India) was the last participant to start the test. 25 participants completed the set within the allotted time. The median score of the test was 42.

Thanks Ashish Kumar and Kishore Kumar for the puzzles!

Participants may share feedback on the results page and rate the puzzles on the contest page.

Before, I add a little about the contest, I would like to clarify a few things.I don't have any enmity that's being harboured for a long time towards detuned and whatever were stated were said spontaneously.Given that I hardly know or talked to @detuned in person, it makes no sense to have an animosity over a period of time.I would also like to point to one of the posts which indirectly suggests that I am not aware of what detuned does with respect to sudokus and their definition, to an earlier post wherein I had stated I am a regular of the uk puzzle association which is the centre point of definition related discussion and what encompasses a sudoku.Further, I also think that decorum needs to be maintained from both parties involved in discussion and it's not one way.

Having said that, it doesn't feel right to me that detuned decided to stop posting here because of my replies since whatever were mentioned in some of my later posts were solely my opinion and is no way related to what others may or may not think about him here.I apologize if my tone had been scathing on occasions and if it's of any little use, I will refrain from involving myself in queries that detuned may raise in future.He's in no way unwelcome here.

Now, about the contest, as feedbacks from many have indicated, this is indeed a difficult set.Thank you for all those who gave their feedback ! The idea behind the test was to create a hard set which is challenging to complete.Since scores are normalized anyway and it's best 4 of 6 episodes, I think it's fine if 1 or 2 contests become outliers.The original versions where were submitted had lesser givens and clues were added in the following sudokus to achieve a balance in difficulty :
Coded 9X9 is solveable without R2C1 and R8C9
TOL is solveable without R1C9 and R9C1
OEC is solveable without R4C6 and R6C4.On a side note, one of the classics also got replaced with a relatively easier one for being on the harder side .

Originally coded pair sudoku and not coded was created for SM3 and was scheduled to occur in this episode but we were surpised when it became a variant in the previous episode and so the sudoku created for contest was decided to be posted as a practice here : http://lifeinsudoku.blogspot.com/2019/01/coded-pairs-sudoku-by-gues...

Congrats to all top solvers : international as well as India. Finally, I thank Ashish for his valuable feedback in my creations and for being tremendously supportive whenever the quality was not good in creation.I hope I get to co-author with him sometime in future too and a big thanks to LMI for organizing this contest.

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?	Odd Even Count Sudoku
Of the puzzles you solved/attempted, how well did the point values reflect the difficulty?	Most puzzles were worth the right amount

will we get current standings while the SM online rounds are going on ?

Thanks everyone for your participation. Congratulations to all the top solvers.

I would like to Thank LMI for giving me an opportunity to co-author an SM round.
I would like to thank Rakesh Rai for helping us in maintaining the difficulty of the set ( was tough previously ) and making all the eps work and pdf work. It is the most difficult and important task and i always admire him for his selfless effort in everything.

I would like thank kishore who helped me create such sudokus which came out to be good enough for a set. His suggestions helped me to understand a solvers point of view too.

At last i would thank each and every participant who took time to solve the set. It was indeed still a difficult set and there is always a way for improvment. I would thank everyone who gave feedback and helped us get an idea for future sets.

Thoroughly enjoyed..... Solutions booklet link please.

Solution Booklet: http://logicmastersindia.com/lmitests/dl.asp?attachmentid=769

After the completion of PR4 (around March-end), current standings for SM and PR will be made available.