Indian Puzzle Championship 2013 will be held online on 7^th July (Sunday)

Quick notes :
1) The championship will be online, will start at 2:00 PM on the specified day.
2) The format will be very similar to last year.
3) Best 3 performers will be invited to the Indian team representing at China in October. Like last year, with a strong performance at WPC, Amit Sowani receives a wild card for the Indian team.

For first timers
==========

If you are planning to participate for the first time and are curious about what types of puzzles to expect, here are some classic types that you will see in the championship along with many other variants
Sudoku
Skyscrapers
Slitherlink / Fence
Hitori / All Alone
Kakuro / Cross Sums
Battleships
Star Battle
Many of these puzzles appear in news papers, so that will be a good source of practice. But the championships puzzles will vary with respect to difficulty. It is always good idea to check the previous years' puzzles ( 2009, 2010, 2011, 2012) .

The Instructions Booklet with final puzzle types will be published around 5 days before the championship.

Hi,
Please consider having IPC on a different date as The Brands' Sudoku C'ship will be held on 13-14 july in Bangkok.

looking forward to it :)

Thanks Deb/Amit for rescheduling the date for IPC.

how to register for ipc 2013.?
please help i am a new user

Hi,
Welcome to LMI
There is no other process for participating in Indian Puzzle Championship (IPC), registering at LMI is sufficient to participate.
Please do not open any new threads for IPC 2013 related things, follow/post queries in this thread of IPC 2013.

Regards,
Ravi

how to register for ipc 2013 ? whether the test can also be taken offline ?

please help i am a new user ....

You're already registered for LMI, so there's nothing you have to do other than watch this topic for the Submission link, and then login (with this same "inventor" user name) and participate..

Hi,
Your question is already answered here.
The contest is not conducted offline. It is conducted online which means you have to take print out of the puzzle booklet and enter the answers at the link provided.
Watch this thread for more information.

Regards,
Ravi

hello
when the ipc will start and what is the duration of the test ?

This information is already given earlier in this thread - "2pm on the specified day"


This will be announced soon. But since the format is similar to last year, it could be about 2.5 hours duration.

By 2pm, in what timezone? (I think the answer is "Indian Standard Time" which Wikipedia says to be UTC+05.30 (aka the time is 08.30 am UTC), but just want to make sure.)

Also, I assume that this is not like other puzzle tests where you have a 48-hour window or something to start? (As in you must start at 2pm; if you're late, you lose the lost time?)

Usually (last year is an example, scroll down in the link provided above to see the unofficial Rest-of-the-world results), although the IPC is at a fixed time for all Indian participants, it is extended thereafter for international players to participate. Hopefully, the format is similar this year.

hi
please help me for getting the solution of ipc 2010.
thanking you

Please post specific puzzle for which you need solution. Making solutions for all puzzles will take time for us.

Another way to go about it is, if you want to check your solutions from solving those puzzles, you can just post your solution images here, and we'll confirm if they are right or not. You can also post incomplete puzzles here if you are stuck and want us to tell you the next step in order to proceed. :)

hi
thanks for the reply.
i am post my problems here.
hoping for a favorable reply :)
Ipc 2009
Minesweeper:
I can’t understand the meaning of the last line “when all the four grids are solved single coordinate should exactly contain one mine”.
Dominos:
How to solve these type of problem?
What should be the first step of approach solve the probem?
Please help.
No four in a row;
How to solve these type of problem?
What should be the first step of approach solve the probem?
Please help.
Is more than one answer possible??
Ripple effect :
Please check the last row of the answer it’s not following the question rule that if same digit appears then they should be separated by cells equal to the digit. {for 1}
Triangle count:
I got a max. 31 triangles on many attempts.
Is the answer given 32 correct?
Trid:
How to solve these type of problem?
What should be the first step of approach solve the probem?
Please help.
Polygraph:
How to solve these type of problem?
What should be the first step of approach solve the probem?
Please help.

I'll deal with your queries one at a time. If you see the example in the Instruction booklet, you will see the letters A-H, and in the competition puzzle, you will see 1-4 at the bottom and A-D on the side. This is basically an easy way to name the rows and columns. So, I'll explain using the competition puzzle. In each 4x4 grid, take the first row as "3" and 1st column as "A". So, the intersection of these will be one cell, the cell that is left-most in the 3rd row, and this cell can be called A3 for reference. So in all 4 grids, A3 can have a mine in at most just one grid. (below is an image showing A3 for 2 of the grids, you'll need to use this co-ordination for all 4)





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2.png (6KB - 2 downloads)

I usually use a few basic tricks, like say, search for some pair that has only one instance in the entire grid. In the competition puzzle, one of those pairs is 0-2 I think, so I've marked it.

That could be time consuming, so sometimes things can be found in the corners, like if there's something like

1 2 _ _
2 _ _ _

in a corner, you know that, whichever way the 1 is paired, it has to be paired with 2, so you can then divide all borders in the rest of the grid where 2 and 1 are next to each other.

In the particular competition puzzle of 2010, there's another little trick - Right at the top, if the 5 to the right of the 2 pairs up with the 3 below, then that results in another 3-5 pairing to the right of that, considering all numbers need to be paired (Rules say layout is showed with domino edges removed, so everything's part of a domino). So, the 5 pairs up with the 2.

I've also marked below a border above a 1 that I haven't explained. The explanation for that is, there's three 1s there, and that is the only place where 1-1 pairing can be done. So that 1 will be paired rightward or downward, so can't go upward/leftward, hence the line above it.

Domino's not one of my good types though, so I might have missed some key points. But once you start spotting these techniques you could tend to ease into whats needed to solve it.





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Domino.png (51KB - 2 downloads)

Firstly, unless explicitly mentioned otherwise, all puzzles have exactly one solution only. As for how to start, just look at 4 consecutive cells in a row/column/diagonal where 3 are already given and are all X (or all O). Then the 4th cell in that row/column/diagonal must be the other sign (Not the one given in all the other 3). If you start at these places, that forms other places where this happens and so on and you can go on solving like that and reach the single solution.

For the competition puzzle in 2009, see the 3rd row, there's an X in the 1st, 2nd and 4th cell. So, by the above explanation, the 3rd cell has to be O, else there'd be 4 Xs in a row.

For the Ripple Effect - I don't get exactly what you mean. Do you mean that the 1s are touching diagonally? If so, they can be next to each other diagonally, the rule only states "same row or column". If you mean something else, is it possible to be clearer? (Maybe post a picture).

For Triangle Count - Given that multiple participants have participated in that Championship that year, if there is any problem, it'd already be reported mostly :) I'm guessing, you might have missed the hidden big triangle, pointing downwards? (There's one big traingle pointing upwards and one of that same size pointing downwards).

For Trid - Consider that digits can't repeat in any straight line. Now look at the competition puzzle, see the "6" sum. The only numbers that can come around it, due to no-repeat rule, are 1,2,3. Since the digit set is 1-6, the maximum sum that 2 adjacent cells can have is 11 (6+5), so the 14 next to the 6 has to have a 3 in the one circle they share, because otherwise, you need more than 11 in the other 2 cells which isn't possible. Use such things, and Sudoku-type eliminations along the straight lines, and you'll get there.

The easiest way to start the competition puzzle of 2009 is to use the 0. Think of it this way - Every cell has a total of 4 lines that can be around it. But no clue can have all 4 lines around it used, because that'll form a little square loop away from the main loop. So, a 0 has to be the number of lines used, rather than unused, because if 0 lines are unused, that means 4 lines are used. Therefore, all 0s have to be inside the loop and have no lines around them. Since the 0 is inside the loop, there needs to be some part of the loop "binding" it on all sides. so, you have a line in the last row, under the 0. This means, the 3 is "bound" as well and is also inside the loop, and there's your start, and you can now also prove that the two 1s are outside the loop and this means that 3 sides of theirs are used by the loop.







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Polygraph.png (29KB - 0 downloads)

thank you very much prasanna for your valuable reply. :)

hey tel m details dude

By "IPC will be open for a longer period for international players to participate at their own convenience." (IB), what or how long exactly is the period? Can we assume that it's at least 24 hours?

EDIT: More questions as I'm reading the IB:

In F1-F2, can we assume the circle marked A is aligned to some edge of the grid? (This makes seeing which way is clockwise to become easier. Related post.)

In H2, can we assume that we're told which squares are blank? (Just in case the grid is actually a cross or some other thing that is not a rectangle; if we're not told so, the spaces outside the grid can be either a blank square that is supposed to be filled or simply not part of the grid. Currently, the example in the IB has an outlined grid, so the part inside the grid is visible.)



Edited by chaotic_iak 2013-06-30 2:30 PM

For International participation, IPC will be open for 48 hours. When flash submissionis enabled - in a few days from now, local times will be displayed.

"A" will always be the first (top-left-most) black circle. Letters will be marked only on black circle.
However, full points will be awarded if you start from any given letter, and go clock wise / anti clock wise - as long as you enter all letters you should be safe.

Just like the IB, the final puzzle will be a square with borders.

One note about answer key of Battleships :
Answer Key: For each row from top to bottom, enter the column position of left most ship segment. Enter X if no ships.

The word "segment" was missing from the IB.

1. If I understand it right, the A1 questions will be different versions of the ones given in the Instructions booklet, but A2 will be unknown types?

2. Will the Skyscraper Sudoku be a 9x9 or something smaller?

Yes.
Smaller.

IPC Practice Puzzles, Solving Tips, and Links :

http://prasannaseshadri.wordpress.com/2013/07/03/ipc-preview-practi...

does the puzzle quiz contests includes all the various kinds of puzzles? is there any quiz for only sudoku puzzles??

There are annual Championships for Puzzles and Sudoku separately. This year, the Sudoku Championship hasn't been announced yet, but that shouldn't stop you from participating in the Puzzle Championship :)

In H2, is it possible for a word to occur more than once in the grid?

Where can i get some practice puzzles for crosslink(M2)

http://mellowmelon.wordpress.com/category/puzzle-types/slitherlink/...

Regards,
Ravi

For Pentomino Kakuro: Is there any possibility of 6 becoming 9 or 9 becoming 6 during rotation?

No. 6 Remains 6 and 9 remains 9. Only the pieces are rotated, the number (digits) do not change.

No. Each word will appear only once :)

i want to know how to play IPC give me reply

It will be 6X6.

Hi,
I recommend you to go through this link for IPC http://logicmastersindia.com/2013/IPC/
After this if you have any specific questions you can post.

Regards,
Ravi

I solved the Regional Star Battle given in practice pdf by my own and get the differ solution .. .. just check this link. Is it right ??

https://www.dropbox.com/s/nhgkjhszcxnjwxf/20130705_192803_2.jpg

sorry ... i did a mistake in that solution

You have two stars touching diagonally - R2C4 and R3C5

thanx for the response .... i got that later ..

Still earlier than me

Thanks @macherlakumar and @swaroop

In K1, why cant there be tents in cells (0,2) and (2,2) instead of (0,3) and (2,3) respectively .

Also, in K1, two trees can share a tent....right ?

two trees can never share a tent. one tent will always belong to one tree

Can you clarify which cells you are referring. Please start numbering your rows and columns from 1. That means first left most and top most cell is (1,1).
Still i am considering you started numbering as (0,0) to first cell. so answering your query,
(0,2) and (2,2) cannot be tents as the (0,1) and (2,1) trees already have one tent each at (0,0) and (2,0) respectively. And according to rules, you can have only one tent belonging to one tree. Hope that clarifies your doubt.

Edited by swaroop2011 2013-07-06 5:11 PM

Thanks, i wrongly assumed a tent can be diagonal to a tree and so was the confusion.

Puneet, the first rule of the Tents : Place a tent horizontally or vertically next to each tree.

10:30 pm - 6th JUL the Puzzle booklet is NOT available at the link ? would the password be available after you login at the same link where you submit the answers at 2 pm on the 7th ?

Password will be available when you login into your account and start the test at 2pm on 7th and yes at the same link where you submit your answers :)

Edited by swaroop2011 2013-07-06 10:52 PM

It says that:
"International players can start up to 7/9/2013 8:30:00 AM GMT"
So if I start at 8am Tuesday (GMT) do I get the full 2.5 hours, or only 0.5 hours?

Please clarify

1) How to fill partial answers for A1/A2?
If correct answer key is AHL, but I know answer only for 2nd puzzle should I fill ( H ) or (H) or (XHX)

2) Whats are points tie-braker rules other than time-bonus (situation where tied participants have completed less than 25 puzzles and wont have time bonus to differentiate. Would you consider the submission time for last puzzle submitted?)

***** This answer is valid for international players and other LMI tests. *****
Hi James, in LMI submission system, once a player starts, *he will always be allowed full solving time.

Hi Aakash,
Good question. Any of the the 3 suggested by you is fine i.e. ( H ) or (H) or (XHX)
However, note that the submission system expects you to enter XHX, only then the red warning will go away.

Related notes :
1. If the correct answer is AHL, and you enter BHL : You get 0.
2. If the correct answer is AHL, and you enter ABHL or BCHL, you get 20 points. In these cases, since you have entered 2 answers for the the first part, it will be considered as not submitted.

Page 3 of the IB :
Ranking will be based on following rules in order:
1. Most total points
2. Earliest final submission time, upto seconds (ignoring incorrect submissions)

Is this a rated contest?

It is not. If we had started Saturday, it would have been.

In pentomino kakuro is it fair to assume that the direction of the slant lines on the pentominoes should match the direction of the slant lines on the main grid?
Also can we assume that in a given orientation if a sum gets blocked then that orientation is not allowed?

All given sums have to be respected.

Yes.

Everyone, please note we might not be able to answer specific questions about the puzzles / instructions after the championship starts. Not everyone will read the forum after it starts.
However, we will answer any technical question about submission OR questions like "does a 3X3 box in Sudoku need to have 1 to 9 exactly once?"

i am trouble with starting point. i logged in but i unable to start because starting point is not in block letters its show me only slight letter what can i do please help me

The starting point "Start IPC 2013" will be enabled after 2:00 PM. You are correct in observing that it is gray-ed out now.
If you login after 2:00 PM, it will be enabled.

Hi,
Sharply at 2 P.M it will be activated.

Regards,
Ravi

All the best of all the participants. Do give your best for this championship.

Best of luck to all ! :)

Link to score page : http://logicmastersindia.com/2013/IPC/score.asp
After competing IPC, you can view your own score.

How balanced do you think the puzzle types of this test were?	Fairly balanced
What was your opinion of the distribution of easy/hard puzzles?	A bit hard
What did you think about the puzzle quality of the test?	Very nice
What was your opinion of the booklet formatting and printing?	Just right

HEY I CANT SUBMIT ANSWERS

How balanced do you think the puzzle types of this test were?	Perfectly balanced
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
What was your opinion of the booklet formatting and printing?	Just right

H1 is wrong. No words are available.

How balanced do you think the puzzle types of this test were?	Perfectly balanced
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
What was your opinion of the booklet formatting and printing?	Just right

please help i can't submit my answer at 4:30

GAH I DID NOT PRESS SUBMIT THAT LAST TIME #&@$! lost 95 points qq can I immediately PM an admin for my unsubmitted answer keys right now?

Meanwhile, it's a great test. Save for certain unexpected surprises (in particular M1 made me that have no access to printer cringe), the puzzles are enjoyable. Who guessed an Easy As ABC with 9x9 grid and three letters? And for whatever reason I intuited L2 to score somewhere around 40 seconds. (Which didn't get submitted afterwards. Argh. I must learn to click Submit Answers at one minute left.)

How did you come to know about Indian Puzzle Championship?	Facebook
Did the Instructions Booklet (IB) provide enough information about participating in IPC?	Yes, mostly.
Did you understand the puzzle rules, examples and answer keys from the IB?	I understood all of them.
After your experience in IPC, are you going to participate in future championshiops or contests at LMI?	Most likely

How did you come to know about Indian Puzzle Championship?	I am a regular visitor at LMI forum.
Did the Instructions Booklet (IB) provide enough information about participating in IPC?	No, I was clueless even after reading the IB
Did you understand the puzzle rules, examples and answer keys from the IB?	I understood all of them.
Did you find enough easy puzzles to solve during the championship?	No, there were really few easy puzzles.
After your experience in IPC, are you going to participate in future championshiops or contests at LMI?	Most likely

How balanced do you think the puzzle types of this test were?	Fairly balanced
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
What was your opinion of the booklet formatting and printing?	Just right

Considering the 16:45 cutoff, here is the top 4 from India

Prasanna Seshadri (976 points)
Amit Sowani (720 points)
Rajesh Kumar (610 points)
Rohan Rao (584 points)

Considering the 16:45 cutoff, here is the top 4 from India

Prasanna Seshadri
Amit Sowani
Rajesh Kumar
Rohan Rao

Congratulations !!!

wow congrats all :)

Congratulations Prasanna, Amit, Rajesh and Rohan!!

Congrats guys.. all the best for WPC.. :-)

Thanks Swaroop, Rakesh, rvarun and Admin :P

Congrats to Amit, Rajesh and Rohan for making the team :)

I'll post my reactions in a while..

Congratulations PS. A very well deserved victory. Your challenges have just started.

You can now view each others' scores.

International players should be using the unofficial/complete score page.

How did you come to know about Indian Puzzle Championship?	LMI email
Did the Instructions Booklet (IB) provide enough information about participating in IPC?	Yes, mostly.
Did you understand the puzzle rules, examples and answer keys from the IB?	I understood all of them.
Did you find enough easy puzzles to solve during the championship?	No, there were really few easy puzzles.
After your experience in IPC, are you going to participate in future championshiops or contests at LMI?	Most likely

The score page doesn't seem to work yet?

Congrats Prasanna, Amit, Rajesh, Rohan.
The "R - Trend" is finally broken

Regards,
Ravi

Edited by macherlakumar 2013-07-07 8:19 PM

It was down for a while to fix Bonus Points. Please check now.

How balanced do you think the puzzle types of this test were?	Fairly balanced
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
What was your opinion of the booklet formatting and printing?	Just right

Congrats PS. Awesome performance. Well Done the other 3 stalwarts.... Looks a formidable Team India for the WPC. Best possible team...

Rishi

Congratulations PS, Amit, Rajesh and Rohan !!
A strong team, formidable top 4 !!

How balanced do you think the puzzle types of this test were?	Fairly balanced
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
What was your opinion of the booklet formatting and printing?	Just right

How balanced do you think the puzzle types of this test were?	Perfectly balanced
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
What was your opinion of the booklet formatting and printing?	I have a different complaint

How did you come to know about Indian Puzzle Championship?	I am a regular visitor at LMI forum.
Did the Instructions Booklet (IB) provide enough information about participating in IPC?	Yes, mostly.
Did you understand the puzzle rules, examples and answer keys from the IB?	I understood most of them.
Did you find enough easy puzzles to solve during the championship?	Yes, there were many of them.
After your experience in IPC, are you going to participate in future championshiops or contests at LMI?	Most likely

A: Odd one out: I completely missed, that I was supposed to find a wrong answer, given that the other A puzzles was about to find the correct solution. I know it was my fault not to have read the rules carefully enough, but it could have been described more clearly.

How did you come to know about Indian Puzzle Championship?	I am a regular visitor at LMI forum.
Did the Instructions Booklet (IB) provide enough information about participating in IPC?	Yes, mostly.
Did you understand the puzzle rules, examples and answer keys from the IB?	I understood most of them.
Did you find enough easy puzzles to solve during the championship?	Yes, there were many of them.
After your experience in IPC, are you going to participate in future championshiops or contests at LMI?	Most likely

Missing letters and Multiple choice were doable even for novice. It is good to have some doable puzzles to keep up the morale and the participant's interest. For other puzzles I still have a long way to go. Overall it was a good mix of puzzles.

Right then, thanks to all the others who have congratulated, I'll jot down a few thoughts.

First, my personal viewpoint. The quality of puzzles were absolutely amazing in general this year. I really liked so many puzzles. I was planning to post a detailed review on my blog, but that can't be done till the international participants are done, so here's a quick overview -

A1 : This was run of the mill/as expected, but I still managed to make a goof (my only uncorrected goof) on the 3rd one, where I calculated 4 of them and didn't bother with the 5th one and went for the progression-odd one with the 7.

A2 : I thought this was a nice little way to use multiple choice.

B1, B2 : I do like big sizes of these. B1 was one of my favorites in the set, just took a while to find where the main break in was, and then there was no pausing. B2 was pretty easy for me, just about not confusing the 1x3 areas.

C : I don't usually like Battleships puzzles, but these two were beautifully made, even if the second one was a little intuitive while speed solving. The trick I used with the second one, after using the 3 row making 2-segment ships impossible everywhere else, to just see that there's a real limit to get in all the ships and also satisfy all the clues remaining.

D : Turns out I was spot on here with my practice puzzles. I'm sure I'd have loved the 3-star star battle especially too if it weren't for me thinking of it during practice already. The puzzle itself was tougher than practice though, a nice challenge figuring out the intricacies of the top few rows after the obvious parts around the bottom.

E : The classic was nice and easy, and so was the Sudoku skyscrapers for me, maybe there's a pause when only 1, 2 and 4 are left around the grid, but I got through it using the Irregular Sudoku tactics and just marking stars and circles for instances across the grid till I reached a contradiction. The theme was nicely done with the 3s.

F : Black and White Loop was one of my favorites. The usual tricks, but nicely done all the same. Black White and Grey featured one of my worst in-test moments when I saw I somehow made 2 loops the first time! Went back and re-did it, saw my error, and done easily after. The double-turn-avoiding logic was used nicely here.

G : I absolutely loved both Kakuros. Maybe my favorite page of the test personally. spotting the 6789 quadruple in Column 9 in G1 was a nice moment, I hope that was the intended path. The Pentomino Kakuro was a nice idea with the pieces. It made M have a very very limited space and that was the major break-in, but even after placement, the Kakuro part was challenging too, which I suppose is the main reason for it being well worth the high points.

H : H1 was kind of that "expected surprise" feeling. It was a nice enough puzzle, but these are not to my personal taste, so difficult to get excited for. The end logic with some of it being similar sequences was a nice shortcut, in case someone missed it. This puzzle also included the second of my big in-test scares - I realized a little later that I had forgotten to consider the diagonals! Luckily, got back and got it done. H2 was easy enough as they go. Just went totally intuitive on that one wherever I saw the possibility to fill in and get a word.

I : Tapa's generally one of my favorite genres, and these were really nice too, especially Tapa Difference. 0's my favorite clue in that variant, so, yay! The Tapa was a 40 second solve for me and about a minute and a half on Difference, pencil barely left the paper on the classic. But thats one of my strong types and I'm glad I made it count.

J : The Corridors puzzle was one of my favorites too. Nicely done theme, nice logical path, some fairly obvious starts with some thinking on the top right and the bottom left. The need to "fit out" paths of the circles (if this path goes this way, there's no space for that one) dominated most of the solve. Happy Dots was as I expected after creating the corresponding practice puzzle, not really any new tricks, which is fine by the points assigned, and still a fun workout.

K : Tents was my next favorite page after Kakuro. I don't usually get the logic in tents, but I seem to have improved in spotting that. The basic tricks were used nicely with some combination ones (the kind of chain reaction that gets caused from tree to tree by placing a tent in a certain cell).

L : Nurikabe was easy. Solved many with these reachability tricks in them by now. Only slight pause was around the right and figuring out how to avoid a 2x2 forming with just 1 cell of the 6 being able to reach right-ward. Snake Egg was superbly done. After getting the 3, 4 done, I got a bit intuitive on this one, with the 8 in the bottom right, went wrong once and figured out how it has to go upwards, after that it was quick.

M : Slitherlink was gorgeous to look at :P A bit troublesome to solve the narrow middle area in competition mode though. Took a good 10-12 minutes on this, simply because of that. Crosslink was easy enough. I was almost expecting that last extension at the bottom to satisfy the 1 clue. Its just the kind of thing I might have missed last year.

I finished all of these with about 8-10 minutes left I think, so went backwards checking, and spotted errors in H1 (had eliminated a sequence by mistake and luckily saw that there's 2 sequences that are the same where I've crossed out one and ticked the other) and C2 (Extended a 3 ship to 4 cells. oops), fixed them, and was just reaching A1 and would probably have fixed that too when time was up.

Overall, wonderful experience, and I'm glad to have not lost out because of that A1 goof. On a slightly negative note, I'd like to say that my general opinion was that this test maybe contains too many twisty puzzles for newcomers. I get that Slitherlink and Hidden words are the only obvious twists, but to a newcomer, a Kakuro without sums, or a Pentomino Kakuro without Pentomino shapes, or a 9x9 Easy as ABC is still quite a twist and a leap. Its enjoyable for a solver like me, but I'm just wondering how newcomers might feel who probably jotted down things like Slitherlink, Kakuro, Easy as ABC as stuff they can tackle easily before thinking of the rest.

But overall, thanks to the organizers and authors for a wonderful Championship! The Indian team looks quite good this time, and hopefully we can improve on last year.

How balanced do you think the puzzle types of this test were?	Fairly balanced
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

Hi Admins,

I was busy solving the IPC and did not notice the submission time. I submitted the puzzle at 16:50 IST.
I would be grateful if you could consider my submission as it is my first time at IPC and I would really like to know my standing with all the established players


Thanks in advance

Prateek Gupta

How balanced do you think the puzzle types of this test were?	Perfectly balanced
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
What was your opinion of the booklet formatting and printing?	Just right

How did you come to know about Indian Puzzle Championship?	WPF site
Did the Instructions Booklet (IB) provide enough information about participating in IPC?	Yes, mostly.
Did you understand the puzzle rules, examples and answer keys from the IB?	I understood all of them.
Did you find enough easy puzzles to solve during the championship?	Yes, there were many of them.
After your experience in IPC, are you going to participate in future championshiops or contests at LMI?	Most likely

How balanced do you think the puzzle types of this test were?	Fairly balanced
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
What was your opinion of the booklet formatting and printing?	Just right

How balanced do you think the puzzle types of this test were?	Perfectly balanced
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
What was your opinion of the booklet formatting and printing?	Just right

How balanced do you think the puzzle types of this test were?	Fairly balanced
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
What was your opinion of the booklet formatting and printing?	Just right

How balanced do you think the puzzle types of this test were?	Fairly balanced
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
What was your opinion of the booklet formatting and printing?	Just right

How did you come to know about Indian Puzzle Championship?	LMI email
Did the Instructions Booklet (IB) provide enough information about participating in IPC?	Yes, mostly.
Did you understand the puzzle rules, examples and answer keys from the IB?	I understood all of them.
Did you find enough easy puzzles to solve during the championship?	Yes, some of them were easy. I would have liked more easy puzzles.
After your experience in IPC, are you going to participate in future championshiops or contests at LMI?	Most likely

So a follow-up post after my previous rage-induced post.

Apparently I was checking the official score page. That explains the disrepancy between my submissions in the submissions page and in the scoreboard page (I submitted the last two puzzles after the 16.45 IST cutoff, but that doesn't matter for international participants right?). Deb has ensured I got those two puzzles submitted.

Next, C2. Gah I miscounted even after doublechecking it.

G2. I want to know how a 10-mino is considered a pentomino :P (It should have Shapes Kakuro or something as the title instead.)

A1. Odd One Out is always not unique except if the difference is extremely obvious. In this case, even though the most obvious answer is R (the only wrong equation), there is also a possibility of N (the only denominator not in sequence with the others; Prasanna answered this), P (the only non-prime denominator), and everything else if you twist the thinking enough. But hey, it's inductive puzzle, unlike B-M that are all deductive, so "the puzzle should have a unique solution" doesn't really apply here ("the puzzle should have exactly one obvious solution" instead). :P

So, well, not a bad score for one competing by phone without access to computer/printer. Perhaps I can cut like 15 minutes copying the grid to my papers and entering answer keys in (harder on a phone keyboard), which might allow me to solve J2 (I was like 70% finished when the time ran out), M1 (much more possible if I can print the page :P ), and perhaps G2.

Well, if you check the rules, we have omitted the word Pentomino from there.

If your argument is that, we should have listed "the puzzle should have exactly one obvious solution", that is probably fair. At this point, 111 out of 134 players have submitted R. (11 players N, 6 players O, 2 players P, 4 players Q). So I think the answer was obvious. However, one can add as much twist, and come up with a valid alternate answer. We can possibly debate endlessly about all options, but the key in my opinion is that, you are given 5 equations, and exactly one of them is wrong.

At one point in time, I was even thinking to announce that "the option that would be most submitted" will be marked as THE answer. But didn't want to add more uncertainty. Like one of the test-solvers commented, we can possibly never include an Odd One Out puzzle in a World Puzzle Championship because of the reasons you listed already.

How balanced do you think the puzzle types of this test were?	Perfectly balanced
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
What was your opinion of the booklet formatting and printing?	Just right

I really liked this test esp the twists in this test. I was expecting few twists in this test e.g. in Battleship but getting twists in puzzles like Fences was nice surprise. Overall enjoyed the test.

Thanks to LMI for this great test.

This was one scenario I was worried about when it was announced that if you enter even one answer wrong, you'll lose points for the entirety of A1/A2. I should've been vocal about it then.

Anyway, might as well talk about it now. I get that the aim of this was probably to prevent guesswork, but when someone can genuinely attempt and still get another answer in their mind, then its unfair to penalize the attempt while someone not bothering with it can get 20 points for the other 2. I think awarding sincere attempts is more important than preventing guesswork in general. No sport prevents luck, its everywhere. Preventing luck should not compromise awarding sincerity.

I understand its extremely difficult to organize such an important Championship, and there's always some difficult decisions involved, but I think this should be considered and changed for future IPCs.

How balanced do you think the puzzle types of this test were?	Fairly balanced
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
What was your opinion of the booklet formatting and printing?	Just right

How balanced do you think the puzzle types of this test were?	Perfectly balanced
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
What was your opinion of the booklet formatting and printing?	Just right

How balanced do you think the puzzle types of this test were?	Fairly balanced
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
What was your opinion of the booklet formatting and printing?	Just right

Dear Organizers,
Thanks for a great IPC 2013.

Congrats to a well deserving Team India! Prasanna performed incredibly and raises our expectations for WPC 2013.
No surprises from Amit and Rajesh :)
Surprised to see Rohan's score but at the same time know that he'll come back strongly on the bigger stage.

It was a great test and seemed to be a shade more difficult than last year.
I am yet to try out the complete set.

As for the test:
I particularly liked "Black and White loop", "Star battle" and "Kakuro".
The multiple choice questions were interesting and should attract the beginners.
I feel there should be more puzzles on word search.

cheers,
Harmeet

Good that you touched upon that point. It is certainly more difficult than last year. Probably around 40% if you consider the top international player's time.
However, the set this year (and last year) were designed such that top Indian player should be able to complete just in time. Rohan couldn't complete the set last year, even though he had 8+ minutes for one skyscraper puzzle. But PS completed it this year. So from that point view, in my opinion, the set was fine. Given that the standards of Indian puzzlers will (hopefully) increase every year, I think the standard of puzzles will probably increase in IPC.

Now the question is the goal itself correct? The goal that "Only 1 or 2 top Indian player should be able to complete"? I will probably stick to that, unless there are some other ideas or opinions.

This, as one of the goals, is correct. And, its been close to being achieved last year, and was technically achieved this year as Deb said (lets just ignore my silly A1 goof for now). I think overall, the top 1 or 2 completing a test is ideal in any puzzle test. But a related question is, what are the other goals? I'll add a few more that I think are important -

1. Make parts of the test accessible to everyone, no matter how new they are to the world of puzzles.
Was this achieved?
I personally don't think so. Not other than A1 and A2 anyway. It is the only negative in terms of achieving goals, according to me. This is mainly because, experienced puzzlers tend to have a skewed perspective on exactly what is "easy" (myself included). We have been exposed to so many of these puzzles now that the techniques come naturally to us, whereas someone who's new will only have seen the puzzles that are vastly available on the main newspapers and magazines. A Sudoku in a newspaper, for example, has mainly just singles. So while this test had a Sudoku, which I found easy enough, its still on a heavy medium side by newspaper standards. A Kakuro without clues is never seen in newspapers.

Ways to fix this.
I think the easiest way to fix it is to make these "known" puzzles really easy. The puzzles like Nurikabe, Tapa, Corridors etc. can be made harder and experimented with, but keep the "known" ones like Kakuro, Sudoku, Slitherlink extremely easy. This ensures newcomers have the confidence that what they have seen in newspapers is still enough in itself to get to a certain score in the IPC, and there'll be enough of a confidence level to work on the other types from there.

2. Have a variety that'll challenge all aspects of puzzle solving.
Was this achieved?
Yes.

3. Make sure that the general points distribution, bonus structure, etc. is fair.
Was this achieved?
Yes. This one is always a bit dependent on opinion, and also a knowledge of one's strengths and weaknesses. Comparing points-wise, I took a lot more time on H1 and H2 (probably 15 minutes in total, 2 more if you include the error fixing at the end) than I did on I1 and I2 (probably 2.30 to 3 minutes in total) but I expected that even before the test. Considering my own solving abilities, the points reflected the difficulty well.

What was your opinion of the distribution of easy/hard puzzles?	Just right
What did you think about the puzzle quality of the test?	Very nice

How did you come to know about Indian Puzzle Championship?	I am a regular visitor at LMI forum.
Did the Instructions Booklet (IB) provide enough information about participating in IPC?	Yes, mostly.
Did you understand the puzzle rules, examples and answer keys from the IB?	I understood all of them.
Did you find enough easy puzzles to solve during the championship?	No, there were really few easy puzzles.
After your experience in IPC, are you going to participate in future championshiops or contests at LMI?	Most likely

How balanced do you think the puzzle types of this test were?	Perfectly balanced
What was your opinion of the distribution of easy/hard puzzles?	A bit hard
What did you think about the puzzle quality of the test?	Very nice
What was your opinion of the booklet formatting and printing?	Just right

Firstly, Congratulations to PS(Dawn of another new era ?) and ofcourse other veterans Amit, Rajesh and Rohan ! Brilliant performances !
Swaroop, stars not right for you again man !
More importantly, Deb and the entire LMI admin team and the authors for creating such an enjoyable tournament !

I'm not a regular puzzle solver, so I attempted IPC with very little practice. I still thought I'd manage about 15 puzzles(Gosh what was I thinking). I could solve only 8. Some timer goofup and hence couldnt really submit my keys.

My take away points this time would be to not leave too many 75-80% solved puzzles and jump over to other puzzles. thinking that you'd come back to solve the finishing bits of the almost-solved puzzles later. Because someone like me who barely reaches the end of the test, can never come back to finish the almost-solved ones. So yeah If I'm close, solve it completely and then move ahead.

Also, personally speaking, I believe some of the common variants could have been simpler. Some newbies would have got terribly shocked looking at the clue-less kakuro or the scary slitherlink. So, maybe, the IBs should be a little closer to the actual puzzles coming in(Leave the surprises for the pros). Otherwise, It just makes you feel really dumb during the test. Not a feel-good experience :)

Also, I totally respect the fact that, IPC has to make sure that only the best qualify from India(C'mon some powerful brains you're gonna be up against at the WPC).
Hence, I'm very sure the entire process is very deeply thought by Deb and his team before implementing it.

Overall, I had a great time and looking forward to more of such well-organized tournaments.

Finally, Team India All the very best for the WPC '13.
A bit filmy, but yeah, Chak De India ;)

This was the first time I faced technical difficulties with the site. The .PDF would absolutely not print from my regular viewer (Atril 1.4.0 under 64-bit Mint Nadia MATE). Enter lots of troubleshooting of working things, until I concluded the problem was between this one file and this particular viewer. Using the horrible .pdf support within Firefox, I finally got something printed; this being Firefox, some grid details were replaced with random characters (mostly damaging Battleships).

Then there was the stuck warning on E2, which kept on complaining about a compliant answer key, and eventually resulted in an odd partial score. In that vein, the multiple choice instructions seemed to ask me to insert X for unanswered questions, then rejected the answer when I did.

After that I could fail all on my own: fill in the very last Kakuro digit wrong, rotate between a few too many worked on puzzles, that sort of thing.

With my foul mood in mind, on the puzzles:
M1 was wonderful. Pretty, and a very clean path to solution scratching both the connectivity and the pattern recognition itches. It was also very easy, and, at 60 points, it felt like Xmas morning.
M2 was a bit of a disappointment. Crosslinks are a fun type I was excited to see another of. The funnest thing about crosslinks is having to keep track of where all segment ends wind up, and having to keep that in mind when deciding if a point is visited by 2 or 4 segments. We got none of that, as it solved almost entirely from patterns.
Variant wordsearches! Yay! No convincing but wrong choices! Um, I'll still like them.
A2: Every now and then, tests want to give us something of the proctor experience. It is never fun.
D2: Star Battle is either brilliant, very fiddly, or I'm just being my usual blind self. My money's on the latter, but I'd like to know.

Sorry to hear about multiple problems.
Do you know if the IB printed well? Did it print at all? The IB and PB are made exactly using the same technology (Microsoft Word + Encapsulated Post Script being used for images). So I will be interested to know that.

The red warning stuck on E2 because you were entering 3rd column, instead of the marked 2nd column. The submission system just checked that the last digit is not 3 and warned.
Most answers for A1 - Multiple choices need to be manually reviewed.
Will post after IPC (i.e. when I get to create the images :-))

How balanced do you think the puzzle types of this test were?	Perfectly balanced
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
What was your opinion of the booklet formatting and printing?	Just right

How balanced do you think the puzzle types of this test were?	Perfectly balanced
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
What was your opinion of the booklet formatting and printing?	Just right

Maybe I am just not familiar with some of the types of the puzzles used, but this felt much harder than the USPC and UKPC.

By the way, why is it that some people have different survey questions?

Edited by achan1058 2013-07-09 8:43 AM

I will let some of the solvers reply to the first part.

There are 2 types feedback questions
type 1) for players who are playing for first time or have played few tests at LMI, but are mostly beginners
type 2) for players who have been playing at LMI for a while OR have secured high points in current or previous contests

Well, I'll wait for the UKPC results, but personally I think, even without the few submission issues I had mid-test, I would've just completed only the 22 puzzles (the other 4 were written by me) within time. USPC, the results themselves show Palmer not being able to finish a test with 21 puzzles, and Hideaki was even further away (and was the top International ranker). Hideaki finished IPC (26 puzzles) 25 minutes before time. So going by that, and a few other general stats I'd say USPC was definitely more difficult. Obviously, personal opinions and preferences can vary though.

How did you come to know about Indian Puzzle Championship?	Word of mouth
Did the Instructions Booklet (IB) provide enough information about participating in IPC?	Yes, mostly.
Did you understand the puzzle rules, examples and answer keys from the IB?	I understood most of them.
Did you find enough easy puzzles to solve during the championship?	Yes, some of them were easy. I would have liked more easy puzzles.
After your experience in IPC, are you going to participate in future championshiops or contests at LMI?	Most likely

Well, seeing that I am not as strong as the top competitors, my standard of judgement is rather different. It felt that there are more approachable puzzles on the other 2 tests compared to the IPC, though that might have to do with my particular puzzle experiences as well. Objectively though, in the percentage of points department, I actually did quite a bit worse on the USPC than the IPC, even though it didn't feel that way.

Edited by achan1058 2013-07-09 10:11 AM

Thanks to all authors for some super puzzles. A few notes:

A1 - As I am among the minority who solve puzzle contests using paint, I am aware that a maze can be easily solved using paint by using 'fill colour'. Hence, in my personal opinion, mazes should never be part of online contests. They can be part of offline contests definitely.

A2 - The multiple choices did not have the original clue cells filled in the solutions and this made it a little more difficult in sudoku as well as slitherlink. I would have preferred all cells to be filled in the sudoku solutions and also the boundaries, and the existing clues to be included in the slitherlink solutions. Or, maybe this was intentionally done to make players uncomfortable.

E2 - I solved the skyscrapers sudoku two times, as I made an error the first time. In the end, this solved fairly elegantly, with the 3s first, then all 6s, followed by all 5s.

G2 - Pentomino Kakuro started so well that I was wondering if it really deserved 65 points. In the end, I solved it three times to ultimately end up with zero points. If this puzzle had gone well, I might have finished at my regular (fourth) position, as I wasted a lot of time and lost a lot of points here.

G1, G2 - I liked the use of the boundary rows/columns in both puzzles.

H1 - This was the first surprise and was a little painful. Letters are anytime preferable to circles.

H2 - The LMI theme was prominently at play here, in the clues as well as the gray part.

M1 - I have not solved this, but this design is visually disturbing again, in my opinion. Maybe good for a leisurely solve but not as a competition puzzle.

I have still not tried F2 (B&W loop variant), J2 (Happy dots), M1 (slitherlink). But the other high pointers which I did not touch during the contest solved fairly smoothly later.

Top 3 enjoyed puzzles (so far): J1, K2, L2

As already voiced multiple times already, beginners hardly had anything (except A1, A2, E1) which they could solve realistically.

So, maybe, a section with mini versions (easier kakuro, loop, abc, sudoku, tents, tapa, word search). Plus some other types which come in newspaper like mastermind, hitori can be introduced. This can form a set of 8-10 starters which seasoners can solve quickly and beginners can solve over the test duration.

(Adding to Deb/Prasanna's points)

Test goal? - I think this should be "To select the best possible team who can represent the country at WPC." and not "Only 1 or 2 top Indian player should be able to complete."

For this, these could be some of the factors to be considered -

1. Coverage

Reach out to a larger community than current reach-out. There is always a chance that there are individuals who are talented but are not even aware of IPC/WPC.

2. Test duration/difficulty

I think this needs to align with the objective we set. So, if we set a target for a Top 25 finish in the WPC, the test duration/difficulty can be designed/finetuned based on a benchmark of the 25th WPC rank holder's performance of last year. It should not matter if 0 or 1 or 10 Indian players are able to finish.

3. Puzzle selection

Ideally an offline contest takes care. But since that is unlikely, prepare a test with
(a) 8-10 starters (newspaper types)
(b) 10-12 main course (WPC regular types)
(c) 4-6 challenging ones (WPC tough rounds/new unknown types)

In brief, I am probably suggesting an IPC similar in structure/flow to USPC/UKPC - to cover a larger spectrum of puzzles and have more accessible puzzles. (instead of having multiple similar puzzles, and very few accessible puzzles)

I was aware that players might try to solve the Maze using "Fill Colour". But the image was created such that Fill Colour won't work. I used 3 different software to test that (mspaint, Paint.Net, PicPick) and Fill Colour simply won't work with the maze image. Did you find it otherwise? If yes, using which software?

Well, it was done intentionally (even putting dots instead of digits). Otherwise, both the puzzles should have been only 5 points each.

This year's IPC seems to be very successful as it has selected 4 names who are arguably the Top four in the country. With the experience and talent in this team, we can expect extremely good results this year.

I obviously did not use this during the test
But I just created an image in ms paint, closed the entry points and filled with colour.

Bad testing on my part. Luckily, it was not a whole lot of points. Thank you for bringing it up.

Edited by debmohanty 2013-07-09 12:38 PM

I solved this maze during printing the PB. It was the first page, so I had it still on the screen and it was pretty easy to solve it just by eyes. However, the idea by Rakesh is very smart although it is slower than honest solving.

Edited by greenhorn 2013-07-09 1:35 PM

How balanced do you think the puzzle types of this test were?	Fairly balanced
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
What was your opinion of the booklet formatting and printing?	Just right

How balanced do you think the puzzle types of this test were?	Perfectly balanced
What was your opinion of the distribution of easy/hard puzzles?	A bit hard
What did you think about the puzzle quality of the test?	Fairly Nice
What was your opinion of the booklet formatting and printing?	Just right

As others have said, too few easy and standard puzzles. Online National Championships and WPC qualifications are the competitions that are most likely to attract new/nonregular solvers, and they should not be frustrated.

Also I did not prepare, and so I stumbeled across some unusually wordings in the puzzle booklet during solving.

For example in Easy as ABC, it is not said, that each letter has to be used in each row/column. Actually, the wording is different from the instruction booklet, which is a no-go for me.

And in Kakuro it is only stated, that digits can not repeat in words with a clue. Experienced solvers might see such wording as a "hint" for a twist in the puzzle, which could cost much time.

Edited by Realshaggy 2013-07-09 2:34 PM

How balanced do you think the puzzle types of this test were?	Perfectly balanced
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
What was your opinion of the booklet formatting and printing?	Just right

How balanced do you think the puzzle types of this test were?	Fairly balanced
What was your opinion of the distribution of easy/hard puzzles?	A bit hard
What did you think about the puzzle quality of the test?	Very nice
What was your opinion of the booklet formatting and printing?	Just right

I agree ideally Hitori and Mastermind makes up more in the newspaper quotient, but I think accessibility beyond newspapers can be defined with two points -
1. Easy to understand rules.
2. Types with many examples available if one is willing to search.
Even assuming there were no dedicated practice sets, Nurikabe, Tapa, Tents, Battleships, Star Battle, Easy as ABC, Hidden Words fall under point 2. Corridors, MCQs, fall under 1. Sudoku, Kakuro, Slitherlink are newspaper puzzles. I'm only leaving Black and White Loop away from category 1, because there's a few tricks implied by the rules that aren't obvious.

So accessibility-wise, the "classic" half of IPC 2013 was very much accessible, at least in my opinion. I also don't think we should stray away from the Classic + Variant formula, because that is in fact suited for beginners, as they mainly need to look at 13 sets of rule-sets with a few tweaks (overwhelming in itself, when the newspaper puzzles can only cover up to 5 distinct types at most), instead of 26 different rule-sets. It is definitely more accessible than the USPC/UKPC I think, at least for an Indian. Puzzle backgrounds may differ and the USPC/UKPC may be more accessible to participants of their respective countries.

I'll say again that, more than accessibility the main problem is the fact that the classic puzzles themselves had twists and were a step above what newcomers were prepared for. The Sudoku was a notch higher than newspaper difficulty, the Kakuro had a few clueless cells, the Hidden words didn't have words, the Easy As ABC was huge, the Slitherlink was a complete twist. These being the first puzzles that any Indian newcomer would attempt (this much I'm pretty certain of), and having a bit more than usual would be the main turn-off.

The problem with Atril (the Evince fork for MATE) persists with the IB as well. However, the problem seems to be localised to specific pages.
IB: 6, 8, 11, 12, 13
PB: 6, 10, 11, 13
I thought I had located the culprit in the form of the labeled row- and column- pointing arrows used for keys. Alas, after looking at the IB, this seems to hold very roughly, so something else must be going on.

How did you come to know about Indian Puzzle Championship?	I am a regular visitor at LMI forum.
Did the Instructions Booklet (IB) provide enough information about participating in IPC?	Yes, mostly.
Did you understand the puzzle rules, examples and answer keys from the IB?	I understood all of them.
Did you find enough easy puzzles to solve during the championship?	Yes, some of them were easy. I would have liked more easy puzzles.
After your experience in IPC, are you going to participate in future championshiops or contests at LMI?	May be

Sudoku : The difficulty of the sudoku was higher than newspapers, but should not players be tested little more than what they solve everyday? And this was a sudoku, that still didn't need anything other than hiddens/singles. Although it had fewer clues compared to newspaper ones, it still had a wide solving path.
Kakuro : I didn't anticipate the problem that beginners might face. Otherwise I might have asked Serkan to add all the clues.
Hidden Words : Not sure if I agree here. A search is a search, whether letters or symbols. Agreed that, with letters it is easy, but the solving methods are pretty much same.
Slitherlink : Didn't we already have a classic Slitherlink in page 2?
Easy As ABC : It was huge, but it was easy. But yes, someone looking at this first time, they may not want to attempt it.

For a newcomer, the Sudoku having fewer givens is in itself intimidating. So is a Hidden Words having symbols. Note that a newcomer is someone who has probably never solved a word search with symbols, but has maybe solved a few word searches with letters. Slitherlink, I hope you're joking with that :P Easy As ABC as well, like Sudoku, intimidates with appearance itself.

The main point I'm trying to make here is that, the IB "features" (whether intentional or not) these puzzles as the ones that are familiar or easy to think about. A newcomer will go in thinking what they know from the newspapers is good enough to get some points, and then get intimidated at the starting steps itself. Thats never good. Make the common types really easy (easy by the definition of a newcomer and not an experienced puzzler), so that they can actually translate what they already know into some amount of points, instead of having to advance their thinking from the start itself.

How balanced do you think the puzzle types of this test were?	Fairly balanced
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
What was your opinion of the booklet formatting and printing?	Just right

With no more players participating at this time, IPC is over.

Official Results : http://logicmastersindia.com/2013/IPC/score.asp
Complete Results : http://logicmastersindia.com/2013/IPC/score.asp?mode=complete

How balanced do you think the puzzle types of this test were?	Perfectly balanced
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
What was your opinion of the booklet formatting and printing?	Just right

My opinion applies to the Turkish GP as well.
If we all cater newcomers then there's no room for "surprise" innovations.
But we must also consider what is fair game and what is too much of a stretch.

The Turkish GP's only flaw I find is with the rotation of the photo in Spy Sudoku.
A player shouldn't be asking "hmm.. maybe this flips" during the competition.
I don't see how changing fonts on the first 3 puzzles is an enough excuse for one to complain about the entire test.

With this year's IPC, the puzzles are fantastic. The symbol word search, unclued Kakuro, few-clues sudoku shouldn't be a problem as the
rules aren't that much deviated. Heck, you might as well criticize the 16-submarine battleships too then.
But when the rules do bend by far: for example having Strange as ABC, the instructions of Easy as ABC - it didn't happen, but it
illustrates what isn't fair.

I thought it was good to think on your feet, since it is required at the WPC.
Remind yourself that this test's goal is to select the best Indian team members, not making newcomers too comfortable.

How balanced do you think the puzzle types of this test were?	Perfectly balanced
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
What was your opinion of the booklet formatting and printing?	Just right

How balanced do you think the puzzle types of this test were?	Perfectly balanced
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
What was your opinion of the booklet formatting and printing?	Just right

The sudoku I think is actually ok, and the kakuro wasn't too bad neither. The Nurikabe on the other hand, especially for someone who is used to the Nikoli style, was awfully hard for 20 points. The slitherlink I think is ok in a twisted sort of way, since the point value and the geometry made it clear enough that I should skip. (and I would imagine it to do the same for new solvers as well) Coming from someone of my skill level at least, there's nothing more frustrating than diving into a problem that you think you can solve due to type/point value, but it turns out that you can't, or that it takes a large amount of time.

Edited by achan1058 2013-07-09 10:16 PM

Thanks Rakesh, Prasanna and others for bringing up the point that the set was not really best for beginners. It took me a lot of time to understand why you are saying that, and now I realize that I was defining beginners differently. A beginner in my opinion is someone who has strong sense of logical reasoning with a desire to solve challenging problems (not necessarily the puzzles at IPC). I thought those are the kind of players who can take us forward in world puzzle map. That is the main reason for having puzzles with simpler instructions so that they don't feel uncomfortable with the rule itself. But here we are discussing about beginners who have exposure to puzzles, have solved newspaper puzzles (and might shy away if they see a 20-clue sudoku).

However, since the general feeling that it was tough for beginners - by either of the definitions, we will need to include easier puzzles in future IPCs.

How balanced do you think the puzzle types of this test were?	Fairly balanced
What was your opinion of the distribution of easy/hard puzzles?	A bit hard
What did you think about the puzzle quality of the test?	Very nice
What was your opinion of the booklet formatting and printing?	Just right

Thanks to all authors for such wonderful puzzles, they were really more tricky rather than hard.
It was sad that i missed again this time. It took me two days to consume my result. But anyways i was happy thinking there would be some year made for me :). Well regarding puzzle types,

A1 - I felt this was good for beginners. Except that odd man out created confusion to some of them and then flaw in maze as pointed out by rakesh.
A2- Slitherlink was fine with logic that we either need to eliminate options or solve and match it. But for sudoku i thought borders of regions must have been present because its just mechanical to redraw it on each grid and nothing logical think about it. Though few of them can imagine the border and eliminate the options. So at the same time giving borders would reduce mechanical work and if required points could have been reduced and allotted to some other type.
b1, b2 - They were little tricky and easy but for beginners seeing the huge size grids must have surely created problem.
c1,c2 - i personally don't like battleships. c1 was nice and c2 i haven't solved yet.
D - Both star battles were nice and i guess practice puzzles had similar types so most of people must have attempted this.
Sudoku - i felt it was little difficult for beginners to attempt with fewer clues.
e2 - it was easy and worth for 30 points.
G1 - I felt it could have been little easier one. As we already had g2 to think of.
K - They were really my favorites. But was not able to solve during tests. They were real real tricky in terms of logic.
M1 - Well i want highlight upon this one. I was surprised looking at this kind of Slitherlink. I feel the lines could have been much darker. It was so light in my print outs that once used erasor the lines get erased and then i had to take print outs again and again. So if those lines would have been darker then it would have been helpful.

My favourites were - crosslink, BWG loop, tapa difference. Kakuro + pento kakuro were also awesome (solved it later)
I felt sudoku and its variant could have been avoided as we already have ISC for that and instead two other puzzles could have been kept.

Overall i really enjoyed the puzzles and quality were good. I felt it could have been balanced such that more easy puzzles and few with much difficulty so that for beginner it could have been more enjoyable and also for top solvers to compete in their zone. I also think that like beginners sudoku we can have some beginners puzzle tests which will attract beginners and get hands on few puzzle types Or like we have CTC going for month we can have different puzzle types but instead of month at least a week. I know organizing all this is difficult but i am ready to help in any way i could do it :)

Edited by swaroop2011 2013-07-10 12:41 PM

Ah, it seems I'd have done a much better job of guessing the authors this year compared to last year. My only mistakes would've been giving Nikola Missing Letters, Zoltan Easy As ABC, and Deb the classic Tents. Ah well.

It good that we've been discussing a lot of points for general improvement, but there are certain existent factors that need to be valued. This list shows the amount of time and effort it must've taken to organize this championship, especially when I note that there are some variants that aren't by the same author who wrote the classics. A big thanks to all the authors and test solvers for putting it all together. Also, I thank Deb for co-ordinating all of this and for authoring A1, A2, D1, D2, E1, E2, H1 himself, unless these puzzles appeared out of nowhere

Where do we get to see the answers to the IPC 13

Probably nowhere. If you want to ask about a puzzle's solution, just ask here and someone will definitely help you.

Well, all the authors have been kind enough to send me solution images for all puzzles. I need to put them together and publish. But it has not happened yet.

Link to Solutions Booklet

How balanced do you think the puzzle types of this test were?	Perfectly balanced
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
What was your opinion of the booklet formatting and printing?	Just right