Link - http://www.bist2011.com/

Offline tournament at Beijing with cash prizes of $32,000 (top prize $10,000)
Participation fee - $400

Just learnt that Chen Cen is one of the organizers. So the Sudokus should be fun, and of course the cash prizes and the Great Wall of China.... very tempting.

Thank you Deb.
We are looking forward to presenting everyone with a fantastic sudoku tournament. See you all in May on the Great Wall!

The rules and regulations as well as sample questions are announced on our website http://www.bist2011.com/tournamen.htm .
We know that there are very few Sudoku contests that announced sample questions as early as we did. However, there is an old saying in Chinese, “better come well prepared”. This is our first time holding a contest like this, which compared to other contests are more similar in form to WSC but without competition in teams. Therefore we put up the above information for participants to have a better idea about the tournament. In addition, the process of the tournament will be broadcasted through television, which is another innovation on our part.
In order to attract more players from more countries, we have very cautiously made some changes in the awarding rules with additional prizes, following consultation with some WPF leading members, coaches, captains and players.Please see our official website for details.

Yes, I have seen the changes... I dont think that will affect the participation much... I have gone through the IB and I like the mix of the puzzles... very nicely done... looking forward to seeing you all in Beijing :)

Is there a restriction on number of players from a country?

Not mine, in any case. It seems that "the popular republic of" China isn't very enthousiastic to welcome some kind of people. That is to say, my kind; the one which can not justify of recent wages.

Still, I wish you all to have some fun; and by the way, I just saw that Jan M. and Florian K. are amongst the participants...

Sorry to hear that...I have the same problems before when I attend Sudoku competitions abroad...

If you want to participate the BIST, we will do our best to help you get the VISA. We will send the official invitation letter to all participants, this can help players to get the VISA. Rishi has already get the letter.

sorry to hear that Bastien... this tournament is becoming like a mini WSC.... what with Tatsuya Nishio, Hideaki jo, Yuhei along with Janoslaw and Florian joining in.... Thomas Snyder is also on the decision mode and may as well join in... :)

The changes do affect a few ppl I guess but it would have been better to have a "Above 35" age group instead of "Above 40" ... Atleast then I would qualify for that group and have a chance... lol

I have a scientific meeting that weekend that I'm supposed to present at so it has been a hard choice to figure out how I can make it to Beijing when it would mean missing a work requirement. The new prize structure is also a bit of a disincentive, but I still have hope of getting out to the BIST.

Thanks for your help. I have been trying to answer to your PM but it seems that it didn't work, so I sent you an e-mail instead.

I am still working on it, the biggest trouble being to get in touch with the chinese consulate or the embassy (both don't want to be contacted by phone... but they don't answer e-mails either).

I have some doubt about how to interpret this :


Does "send a scanned copy" mean that we have to print the form, fill it by hand and scan it ? Or does "scan" have some other meaning in english ?

That is how I would interpret the literal meaning of the sentence. Since there is no signature required on the form, just typing in the fields and sending a pdf file seems more reasonable than doing the scan.

We simply filled up the soft copy of the Word document and sent it... no need to print and then scan it...

Rishi

Some high profile confirmations there - http://www.bist2011.com/participants.htm
This won't be anything less than a World Sudoku Championship.

All names except the Czech appear here... now I am wondering if it is worth going...lol

Thanks all for your help. I had to face many problems but they are being solved one after another, so, I should be there too.


Indeed, the level will be incredibly high. Many people will have their chance to make it in the top10... In fact, if I exagerate a bit, nearly everybody will be able of making it in the top10. Knowing this fact will make this competition especially stressful, but it also promises to be particularly interesting. Mistakes due to stress will be unforgivable... Which means, I am already dead. But, still, I have good hope to make it in the french top10 !

Bastien, nobody is as famous as me for making mistakes and blank cells :D the entire Indian contingent can vouch for that... lol

Rishi

I'm sad because I can not participate in this tournament. I wish good luck to all participants. Rendez-vous in the next WSC !

Fred

now the WSC list is complete.... the Czech names are also added to the Participants list... jaku111 and Jan Novotny are also in... its becoming an interesting line up :)

Rishi

What about Serbia? I think Nikola or Branko could expect a place in the top10.

I do not see any Serbian names as yet... Vladimir Portugalov from Belarus is there too...

Rishi

I am kind of a specialist myself - french players, as well as my results on most online tests, can certify it... Well, this promises to be an interesting parallel tournament : who will make more mistakes ?
Too bad there is no special prize for this title...

Edited by Ours brun 2011-04-17 10:33 PM

I am very sad that I will not be able to come to China. Sights of Beijing are very attractive, as well as money prizes. There are several reasons why I have to miss this tournament. First, my wife and I in May waiting for another child. The term is 10th, but as you know, it could be before or after, and I could not plan a long trip. Another reason is that currently we have serious problems in our organization, financial problems also exists...

I hope this tournament will be traditional and that we will see next year. I wish good luck to all participants. Let the best win!

Nikola

Thanks Nikola and here is wishing you the best in advance for your baby :)

Thanks Nikola and here is wishing you the best in advance for your baby :)

With Jakub Ondrousek joining in... it is going to be a lovely fight to see which of the three make it to the final 2... Thomas, Jan or Jakub... going to be a very interesting tournament...

And don't count out Florian or H. Jo or other familiar names. The Final Four at WSC 5 are all there, plus three others in the top 10, before you even count in the notable absentees from that tournament. Too few spots for too many good solvers. Makes me wish there were a greater weight given to the first day than just selecting a top 10 since I think I can predict at least 8 of those names right now. It will all come down to a 40-minute 8-puzzle part with no intermediate checking. Expect surprises.

Edited by motris 2011-04-19 9:25 PM

Oh definitely... and as you said, none can be counted out... its just that the 3 of you are sure to be there in the top bracket :)

Nikola, Congratulations on becoming father (on Saturday) - you had a tremendous puzzle-weekend as well, you are in podiums for all the contests you participated this weekend.
LMI Sudoku (3rd), IPC Qualifier (3rd), Scrabble Variations(1st). I hope you have good results at French qualified too!

Thank you very much, Deb.

You can see the picture of the Zivanovic family here:
http://blognadin.blogspot.com/

Nikola

Edited by Nikola 2011-04-25 7:16 PM

Congratulations Nikola!!! The baby is indeed very beautiful... God bless her :)

Thank you, Rishi!

Good luck to everyone in Beijing
Hopefully we'll see some live results at http://www.bist2011.com/result.htm

Yes...The results are coming in now.

I cannot tell you about the preliminary results, I thought they would be published but it seems like they will not. So, here are a few news : rounds 1 (classics), 2 (variants) and 3 (variants) have been played this morning and we already got the results for rounds 1 and 2; incredibly, the first two places have been quickly taken by two players called Jan and Thomas, I wonder if you already heard about them ?

Otherwise, detunedTom is easily beating Rishi and I regarding the number of mistakes made. Let be happy for him, he will at least get one crown !

Very strong competition, as expected. Very nice puzzles. Very good weather. And very soon, rounds 4, 5 and 6.

See you.

Thanks for the update. It is interesting to see that Jan and Thomas have tied after 2 rounds, although I wonder why would Jan be placed above Thomas. May be alphabetical

You are not doing bad either, with a quick spot in top 10. Good going.

Thanks. I hope I will do better (in particular, less mistakes) this afternoon. Regarding Jan and Thomas, I do not remember their respective scores on rounds 1 and 2; but tied scores are supposed to be decided regarding the fact that some rounds and puzzles "prevail" on other ones. This could explain Jan being first and Thomas second.

I suppose you got some echoes from indian players ? I know Rishi did not do as good as expected, but Ritesh took a good start, I think. I could not see Gaurav and Sumit's results yet.

yes, Rishi in particular had 2 bad rounds, hope he will be able to catch up.

Thomas's detailed report here - http://motris.livejournal.com/

Round3 results in - http://images.qianlong.com/mmsource/images/2011/05/21/333-1.JPG http://images.qianlong.com/mmsource/images/2011/05/21/333-2.JPG...

Yes,

I had a real bad start.... but thankfully the last 4 rounds have been good... I have climbed to 17th spot behind Gaurav and hopefully the climb will continue and the 6th round was also good... lets see what happens...

Rishi

Well done Rishi on moving to 15th. With one more round to go tomorrow, lets hope for the best. Gaurav isn't far behind either.

Congrats to Gaurav Korde and Rishi Puri for their performances! Unfortunate to miss the playoffs, but creditable scores. Ritesh and Sumit were not far behind and suddenly I'm getting a good feeling about next month's finals. Its going to be intense with a lot more contenders for the titles.

One of you should give details about the experience and the competition.

Great Show!!! Congrats to all Indian Players

just came back home... I must say it was probably the best organized tournament i have attended so far. The semifinals and finals rules and puzzles could have been better.
As for my performance, its a bit disappointing that i was some 100 points away from my best performance. Those single blank cell and digit switches didnt really help. But the other point of it is that even my best performance would have gotten me just into the top 10. And not to mention almost everyone made mistakes and had lost good chunks of points including thomas, jakub, janoslaw, yuhei, byron, tom collyer etc Almost everyone in top 15 (except Bastien, kota and hidieki jo) had lost atleast 80-100 points. So goes to show that we are still way off the top players. Need to get into that practice mode once again in order to stand a chance to compete for a good spot in any of the WSCs.

Overall it was a pleasure participating in such a wonderful event. And Congrats to Jakub for his 1st trophy. He really deserved one for a long time. And tough luck to snyder for being the top player in the tournament again and still unable to get into the finals!

As Gaurav mentioned, this was one of the best organised tournaments ever with the smallest of details being taken care of. Each country's participants had an individual translator assigned who even took care of calling up the rooms to ensure we were ready on time and they also took care of our schedules including pick up and drop to the airport.

The fun started when we reached the Beijing airport. There were a few organisers there hoding the BIST sign for us to know. The moment we reached them, we had a press photographer take a video of us as we entered China. It was a nice feeling and Gaurav and I went as red as a beetroot with all the people staring at us(mini celebrities.. lol) Later we came to know that we were the lucky ones who got videographed and not everyone.

Moving on to the next day, the amazing trip to the Great Wall (one third of my holiday wishlist fulfilled) .. the site was amazing and beautiful. It also gave us a chance to mingle with all... It was fun meeting everyone and getting to know them better... Everyone was dead tired by the end of day with the day ending with a visit to the olympic stadium.

Day one of the conpetition... started with classics and the basic variants rounds....by lunch time we had finished 3 rounds and the results were published for the first two rounds... I had a bad start and ended up screwing the first 2 rounds... for a change my loss of points was not because of blank cells but bcoz of jumping between puzzles and in the end completing neither of them... by the end of 2 rounds I was languishing at the 33rd poisition and abt 34 points behind Gaurav who was at 24th position with Ritesh at 20th position leading the Indian rankings. Sumit was just behind me. I had lost about a 100 points by then.

We broke for lunch and I was so disappointed that I had a couple of beers and decided to go for full or bust with nothing more to lose :)

After the lunch 3 more rounds and they went real good...(beer helped ) and by the end of the 5th round I had managed to reach the 17th position and Gaurav was on 15th with the 6th round results awaited. So a satisfactory climb back.. in the night the 6th round results were updated and I had climbed another 2 places to 15th with Gaurav on 17th with only a 5 point diff between us and a Japanese guy between us.

Day 2 of the event had a final 7th round of classics and we knew that Classics were not a strength for us and target was to maintain our positions and not lose more ground. Good part was that Sumit Gaurav and I completed all the 8 puzzles in the stipulated time with Gaurav getting a time bonus of 2 minutes which meant an additional 6 points and Sumit and I completed with 30 seconds to spare. So the end was good since we managed to complete one round completely. I could have finished the 6th round too if not for the wrong little killer. I started the 6th round with the little Killer and everytime I reached the end the sums did not tally and I tried re-doing it... I tried that puzzle 4 times and wasted about 16 minutes on it... In the end I had completed the Inequality killer half when the time ran out.. .since I was not in the reckoning for the semifinal spot, that was not considered but then I was not even going to complain :)

So after the completion of the 7th round I knew that Gaurav would overtake me since he had additional 6 points from the time bonus... but then the organisers felt that in 1 classic I had put 2 twos. However that was not the case as they saw an additional line under a 7 and assumed it was a 2. Again no point in getting it corrected since I would still be 1 point behind Gaurav instead of 14 points and my position would still be 16th. so 2 Indians being just 3-4 places behind the semifinal spots was heartening to see... but as Gaurav mentioned there is a long way to go before we can match up the World Standards.. I mention this in a positive way since a little practice and more efforts can take us there. Atleast no one will discard the Indians as walkovers anymore :D

The semis and Finals were a let down for me... I expected the puzzles to be more tougher where the contestants would have to rack their brains instead of it just being a sprint to see who finishes first. Post the event in my discussions with Thomas Snyder we both felt that puzzles needed to be tougher at the higher stages... I agree completely with Thomas when he says that the moment he saw the sprints semis and finals, he knew it will be tough for him... When it comes to tough puzzles where the next move has to be thought off, I say nobody to beat Thomas... I do not intend to say this at the cost of the finalists. Both Jan Mrozowski and Jakub O were tremendous.. Full credit to them... but if their solving styles are compared to cars then Jan and Jakub have more nitro installed to zoom off and Snyders car has the best control features never going off track and can overcome the toughest of roads easily where others get stuck :)

Finally A big Congratulations and a heartfelt Thank you to the organisers for a great tournament. Looking forward to going to Beijing again in 2 years where I will atleast have an additional 500 USD to compete for for the over 40 yrs category

Rishi

Edited by purifire 2011-05-25 1:11 PM

Nice! :)

This means I missed the chance this year.... I am already above 40....

Edited by neerajmehrotra 2011-05-27 10:40 PM

I could not found thread for 2012 championship, so replying to the same thread.
Is anyone from India participating this time?

Firstly,
http://logicmastersindia.com/forum/forums/thread-view.asp?tid=447&p...

Secondly, I can now confirm that I'm not going this year unfortunately. Next year for sure :P

Thanks Prasanna for information. I have posted my same query there.