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davmillar
Posts: 44
Country : United States |  Sampler Platter will feature a variety of sudoku clues all thrown together in a set of puzzles.
The puzzles and designs for Sampler Platter have been created by me, David Millar. | Clue types include:- sum sudoku clues
- odd pair clues
- adjacent digit clues
- greater-than symbols
- even digit markers
- digit difference markers
| The test will consist of 18 puzzles, 12 of which are 6x6 sized and 6 of which are 9x9 sized.
The test will be open for 48 hours, but solvers must finish within 100 minutes of beginning. | | Please post here if you have any questions! |
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Administrator
  
Country : India | |
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debmohanty
Country : India | Many in the community might already know that David owns www.thegriddle.net . I came to know about this site 4 years back, and I follow his site regularly. He posts very interesting puzzles, almost on a daily basis. My personal favorite in the recent posts is Rotopath
David, Thanks for taking out time to create Sampler Platter. The puzzles and graphics are looking very distinct. |
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amitsowani
Posts: 349
Country : India | The IB indeed looks very beautiful.
Looking forward to the test.
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purifire
Posts: 460
Country : India | I can assure you... its going to be very different and nice experience :) |
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debmohanty
Country : India | purifire - 2010-07-18 2:21 PM
I can assure you... its going to be very different and nice experience :)
Thanks Mr Pre-Tester. |
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debmohanty
Country : India | |
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debmohanty
Country : India | I hope the rules for Stage4 and Stage5 are clear to everyone.
The puzzles will look similar, but there is big difference in rules.
Check page 4 and page 6 in the IB |
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mjaipal
Posts: 15
Country : India | mjaipal posted @ 2010-07-27 1:36 PM Yes Deb, rules for 4th & 5th rounds are confusing.
Can you explain? |
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debmohanty
Country : India | Without revealing too much about the puzzles, in some 3X3 boxes both odd-sum-circle and consecutive-bar are present.
In Stage 4 : Converse rule applies to those boxes.
That means, between 2 neighbours
a) if consecutive symbol is present, they have to be consecutive
b) if Odd-Sum-circle is present, their sum has to be Odd, but they can't be consecutive.
c) if no symbols are present, they can't be consecutive, their sum can't be odd
In Stage 5 : Converse rules don't apply at all.
That means, between 2 neighbours
a) if consecutive-bar is present, they are consecutive
b) if Odd-Sum-circle is present, their sum has to be Odd. But they still can be consecutive
c) if no symbols are present, they can still be consecutive or their sum can still be Odd.
Note that Converse rule applies to all puzzles in Stage1, Stage2 and Stage3
Is it clear? |
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davmillar
Posts: 44
Country : United States | @deb: Thank you for posting the excellent explanation.
@mjaipal: If you're still a bit unsure about the rules, wait a day or so - I'll be posting some puzzles similar to the stage 4 and stage 5 puzzles as additional practice. |
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davmillar
Posts: 44
Country : United States | Here's a set of puzzles using the same rules as the ones in Sampler Platter. Hopefully they help out a bit!
thegriddle.net/521Edited by davmillar 2010-07-27 11:56 PM
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debmohanty
Country : India | David, In the pdf file the top 2 puzzles are Stage 4 type puzzles and the bottom 2 are Stage 5 type puzzles. Is that correct? |
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mjaipal
Posts: 15
Country : India | mjaipal posted @ 2010-07-28 2:23 PM Thanks Deb & David. |
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davmillar
Posts: 44
Country : United States | Yes, that's correct. |
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neerajmehrotra
Posts: 328
Country : India | Just now solved the IB puzzles.............it was really great fun............now let me try the ones in griddle.net........
@Deb thanks for making the instructions so clear.... |
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purifire
Posts: 460
Country : India | Excellent and Interesting Puzzles Dave... :)
Rishi |
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davmillar
Posts: 44
Country : United States | The puzzle booklet is now ready to download on the submission page! The passcode for the PDF will be shown when you begin the test.
logicmastersindia.com/M201008S1Edited by davmillar 2010-08-05 2:59 AM
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Administrator
Country : India | In the submission site, there are 6 tabs. One for each of Stage 1 to Stage 5 and one tab for examples.
After you click on "Start", Stage 1 tab will directly be selected. At any point in time you can click on any other tab to go to the corresponding Stage.
As long as you don't close / refresh the browser, the state of sudokus in all tabs will be maintained.
Also, note that the Sudoku booklet has 7 pages (including the header page). Page 6 has one Sudoku from stage 4 and one Sudoku from Stage 5. All other pages have stage specific Sudokus.
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neerajmehrotra
Posts: 328
Country : India | Best of luck to all the participants!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! |
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KimKing
Posts: 7
Country : Malaysia | KimKing posted @ 2010-08-07 12:53 PM so many points to lose..aiyoyo...but overall i like ur puzzles.. thanks  |
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Semax
Posts: 10
Country : Germany | Semax posted @ 2010-08-07 4:22 PM Thankyou for these nice puzzles. |
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zhergan
Posts: 32
Country : Turkey | zhergan posted @ 2010-08-07 6:10 PM David thanks for this nice set. But anyone who wish to deal with it must be very careful. Otherwise he/she can make silly mistakes just like me  In one of the puzzles I entered two same digits in a 3x3 region and lost points of a successfully soved puzzle while entering the solution. My other mistake was seeing a sign (greater that ) wrong  Anyway the whole set was fascinating. Where you're using different tools to obtain a solution. What can I say, this sampler platter really tastes good 
Regards  Edited by zhergan 2010-08-07 6:15 PM
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Administrator
Country : India | Zafer, Good points.
Comparatively, I see many scores between 400 and 500. But only a handful getting bonus points. |
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bjelico
Posts: 2
Country : ITALY | bjelico posted @ 2010-08-08 1:18 AM Many thanks for these very nice puzzles with a good mix of rules.
I ask: puzzle n° 13 (the first of stage four) has a double solution, even if out of answer area?
I think that two "3" can be exchanged with two "9", but it is not important for tha answer. |
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amnon
Posts: 6
Country : Israel | amnon posted @ 2010-08-08 1:29 AM bjelico - 2010-08-07 10:18 PM
I ask: puzzle n° 13 (the first of stage four) has a double solution, even if out of answer area?
I think that two "3" can be exchanged with two "9", but it is not important for tha answer.
Remember this rule:
In Stage 4 : if Odd-Sum-circle is present, their sum has to be Odd, but they can't be consecutive. |
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bjelico
Posts: 2
Country : ITALY | bjelico posted @ 2010-08-08 1:41 AM Ah, yes! Thak you very much, Amnon! |
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luckypunk
Posts: 4
Country : India | well this was my first attempt at solving puzzles and sudoku...i scored extra low...but i loved the experience.....thanks...looking forward to learning puzzle solving admist some great guys..:) |
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Gotroch
Posts: 83
Country : Czech Republic | Gotroch posted @ 2010-08-08 4:24 AM debmohanty - 2010-07-27 1:57 PM
Note that Converse rule applies to all puzzles in Stage1, Stage2 and Stage3
Hm, I should read forum posts more carefully next time.
That costs me time in some puzzles, but at least it makes 6x6 puzzles little more challenging 
David, thanks for nice competition (4th and 5th stage - very nice puzzles ) |
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utkaarsh
Posts: 89
Country : India | cool puzzles |
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cnarrikkattu
Posts: 25
Country : United States | Very, very nice puzzles. I like how the logic flowed in the latter stages even though it looked like it shouldn't.
A feature suggestion for the online submission: give a warning when you haven't filled all the cells you need to (all cells pre-"show cells to fill" time, highlighted cells after clicking "show cells to fill"). I almost missed a region of cells to fill in one of the 6x6 puzzles! |
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Administrator
Country : India | cnarrikkattu - 2010-08-08 10:39 PM
A feature suggestion for the online submission: give a warning when you haven't filled all the cells you need to (all cells pre-"show cells to fill" time, highlighted cells after clicking "show cells to fill"). I almost missed a region of cells to fill in one of the 6x6 puzzles!
Will not be difficult to implement. but do we really need this feature?
in an actual competition, you are never going get this kind of helping tools. |
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Administrator
Country : India | Congratulations to jaku111, Hideaki Jo and Fred Stalder for topping in LMI August Sudoku Test - Sampler Platter.
There were 138 participants out of which 122 got non-zero scores and 20 of them got bonus points.
Thank you all for participating and making this a success.
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Administrator
Country : India | Thanks to David for authoring Sampler Platter. It was a very different test at LMI, with lot of the players hitting the 500 mark.
Thanks to Rishi for pre-testing the puzzles. He would have definitely got the bonus points had he taken the test.
Thanks to Neeraj and Rohan for pre-testing the submission site and updated results page.
Hope everyone enjoyed the test. Please leave your feedback about Sampler Platter here and / or rate the Sudokus, if you have not done so yet.
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davmillar
Posts: 44
Country : United States | Thanks to everyone who tried my puzzles this competition! I appreciate all of you taking the time to enter and solve my puzzles.
Regarding round 4: I'm sorry about the unusual rules in this round. Because I wanted to use all rule types but have separate sections, I thought combining the odd-sum pair and consecutive clues in that way would be the easiest and most logical way to combine the clue types. Now looking back I can see it caused a lot of confusion. If I ever do a similar puzzle set in the future I'll be sure to exclude any confusing rules like this one.
Please also let me know if there is any additional feedback anyone has - I always aim to improve the way I create puzzles to make the best experience for puzzle solvers.
David |
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debmohanty
Country : India | |
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purifire
Posts: 460
Country : India | cnarrikkattu - 2010-08-08 10:39 PM
Very, very nice puzzles. I like how the logic flowed in the latter stages even though it looked like it shouldn't.
A feature suggestion for the online submission: give a warning when you haven't filled all the cells you need to (all cells pre-"show cells to fill" time, highlighted cells after clicking "show cells to fill"). I almost missed a region of cells to fill in one of the 6x6 puzzles!
Hi Chris,
The warning feture has not been added on purpose. The purpose is not for a player to only solve it but also to input the answer correctly... If in an actual competition I submit a sudoku with a few blank cells (Which in reality has happened with me plenty of times, including the Indian National Championship this year ), nobody gives me a warning to fill up the blank parts. So in a way we are tying to make people double chk the puzzle to ensure completeness in solving as well as submission. |
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debmohanty
Country : India | Rishi, Good point.
By the way, for those who don't know, Rishi left one cell blank, which cost him the title. |
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Fred76
Posts: 337
Country : Switzerland | Fred76 posted @ 2010-08-09 8:07 PM David, thanks for creating grids and preparing tournament. I enjoy this !
Especially grids of stage 4 and 5 were nice and it was interesting to solve them.
In my opinion, it could have been 2 or 3 more difficult grids to settle best players otherwise than bonus time.
Fred |
Sampler Platter