Your 3 most favorite puzzles of the contest.	Nanro
Your 3 most favorite puzzles of the contest.	Fity Fifty
Your 3 most favorite puzzles of the contest.	Liar Diagonal Slitherlink
How balanced do you think the puzzle types of this test were?	Perfectly balanced
What is your opinion about rules, points and scoring for this test?	Fair
What did you think about the puzzle quality of the test?	Very nice

Even when I had fun the contest was a little to difficult and to extensive for me this year. Last year I could solve 4 out of ten puzzles in less than one hour time and one more puzzle in slightly (below 90 minutes) more time. This year it was 2 out of 12 puzzles (+ 2 puzzles in under 90 minutes). I also liked the number of 10 puzzles more than 12.

Edit: To choose the 3 most favorite was difficult, so I decided for the (for me) new puzzles. But I also liked Star battle and Graffiti Snake very much. And the missing black points in Masyu were very surprising.

I like the concept of one hour with bonus points and then "infinite" time for finishing later. I do not want to have this longer, even when I could finish some puzzles with only slightly more time. But so I know I have to reserve one hour and then I can do something else again.

Edited by Nola 2013-03-12 2:03 AM

Your 3 most favorite puzzles of the contest.	Gapped Kakuro
Your 3 most favorite puzzles of the contest.	Maxi Loop
Your 3 most favorite puzzles of the contest.	Mintonette
How balanced do you think the puzzle types of this test were?	Fairly balanced
What is your opinion about rules, points and scoring for this test?	Very fair
What did you think about the puzzle quality of the test?	Very nice

This was a lot of fun. Thanks to all of the puzzle creators!

Your 3 most favorite puzzles of the contest.	Watches
Your 3 most favorite puzzles of the contest.	Araf
Your 3 most favorite puzzles of the contest.	Star Battle
How balanced do you think the puzzle types of this test were?	Perfectly balanced
What is your opinion about rules, points and scoring for this test?	Very fair
What did you think about the puzzle quality of the test?	Very nice

All puzzles (except Gapped Kakuro and Liar Diagonal Slitherlink, which I didn't even attempt) are very good. Its actually hard to choose the 3 most favorite puzzles.

Edited by An LMI player 2013-03-11 6:36 AM

Thank you for your feedback. We are most likely to have 10 puzzles next times. To me, 10 seems ideal.

Puzzle Marathon 2013 is over now.
Link to score page - http://logicmastersindia.com/2013/03P/score.asp

Your 3 most favorite puzzles of the contest.	Araf
Your 3 most favorite puzzles of the contest.	Mintonette
Your 3 most favorite puzzles of the contest.	Gapped Kakuro
How balanced do you think the puzzle types of this test were?	Perfectly balanced
What is your opinion about rules, points and scoring for this test?	Fair
What did you think about the puzzle quality of the test?	Very nice

Congratulations to the authors, for correct and fun puzzles. I would like to add Star Battle, Maxi Loop and Nanro to the too-short list of honourable mentions above. Araf and Mintonette were pleasant surprises. At this size, these types could have been terrible messes of trial and error; instead, they solve very cleanly indeed.

Also, congratulations to the organisers. I'm sure the unusual requirements of this contest had them put in a lot of extra work, what with the fancy scoring formula, and complex document presentation, and the finish line list and only they know what else.

I did have a lot more wrong submissions than usual, but these were all on me, and not the fault of keying at all. With puzzles this size, I find myself losing focus when stuck, and end up repeatedly checking some subset of possible breakins. I need some way to remind myself to cast a wider net after a while.

My usual question :)

Regards,
Ravi

First of all thanks to Organizers, Puzzle authors and Puzzle testers. This time I get to see some new puzzles.
I had more fun compared to last year Puzzle Marathon and I am happy that this time I was able to gain bonus even though I broke them in the last. I am sad that this time I was not able to complete all 12 puzzles.

1) Star Battle: I have solved only a few of this type and the layout scared me a bit in the start, but once I made some progress I felt that it is indeed a easy one. Great one from Dr. Sudoku

2) Mintonette: This is my first time seeing of this one. The puzzle is well constructed with nice start, few tricks in middle and simple finish.

3) Maxi Loop: This is my first time seeing of this one. The puzzle is well constructed and I couldn't have completed this if I had not solved couple of them from Para's Blog.

4) Graffiti Snake: At first the layout gave an impression of hard level to me. After I made some progress I found that it is actually not that hard and all the given clues are sufficient enough to solve the puzzle.

5) Araf: This is my first time seeing of this one. The layout is excellent and the puzzle is well constructed. I made no progress in the first 8 min, later I was able to solve the upper portion and left portion under 30 min, but couldn't make proper deductions after that as I failed to use below left corner.

6) Multi Skyscrapers: I was never good with this type. The puzzle is well designed and has nice solving path. Thanks to the puzzle I was able to grasp few tricks for this type.

7) Watches: This is my first time seeing of this one. Even before I could see the puzzle I knew Serkan will surely provide the "Serkan fun while solving". The layout is excellent. I was able to solve the below half very quickly and thought I will be able to complete it under 60 min but I was wrong and the top half took more time to finish the puzzle, not to mention one wrong arrow costed me 20 minutes.

8) Nanro: This is my first time seeing of this one. I like the puzzle type very much. The puzzle is well constructed with a nice solving path. Somehow unconsciously I was making deductions assuming that numbers inside the region should form a polyomino :(

9) Masyu: I knew that the layout will be something different and I was right, it had only white circles. Excellent puzzle.

10) Fifty Fifty: I really had a hard time solving this one. no doubt that the puzzle is very good and thanks to puzzle that I was able to grasp few tricks. I was not able to make any deduction and just started bifurcation to solve it and luckily I was able to make all right guesses.

Liar Diagonal Slitherlink and Gapped Kakuro: No comments as I did not attempt these.

Regards,
Ravi

Your 3 most favorite puzzles of the contest.	Nanro
Your 3 most favorite puzzles of the contest.	Fity Fifty
Your 3 most favorite puzzles of the contest.	Liar Diagonal Slitherlink
How balanced do you think the puzzle types of this test were?	A bit skewed
What is your opinion about rules, points and scoring for this test?	Very fair
What did you think about the puzzle quality of the test?	Very nice

From my perspective, most of the puzzles were too hard.

Edited by An LMI player 2013-03-11 7:48 AM

The test solvers are
Branko Ceranic - I can never thank Branko enough for all the pre-solving he does (for this test, beginners and many other LMI tests)
Rohan Rao - who has taken a break from competitive solving, but is available for pre-solving :-)

Last year, we were able to include the test solvers' scores in the official list, but we couldn't do so this year because of administrative constraints and also because some puzzles got changed after their testing.

Thanks also to Prasanna who was the first official solver, and also to Serkan and Fred C for spending time on the test before it began.

Single booklet with all puzzles and no password available here

So congratulations to MellowMelon for winning Puzzle Marathon this year - he had impressive timings on several puzzles. Unlike last year, he won 6 out of 12 puzzles this year. deu and xevs take the 2nd and 3rd places respectively.

Individual puzzle wise, there were 6 winners : sai (Multi Skyscrapers, Graffiti Snake), deu (Maxi Loop), muhorka (Liar Diagonal Slitherlink), xevs (Araf), EoHeongMat (Fifty Fifty), and MellowMelon (Masyu, Star Battle, Gapped Kakuro, Mintonette, Nanro, Watches)

Out of 467 participants, 105 players solved all available puzzles and 305 solved at least one puzzle correctly. Thank you for participating.

Your 3 most favorite puzzles of the contest.	Nanro
Your 3 most favorite puzzles of the contest.	Maxi Loop
Your 3 most favorite puzzles of the contest.	Graffiti Snake
How balanced do you think the puzzle types of this test were?	Fairly balanced
What is your opinion about rules, points and scoring for this test?	Fair
What did you think about the puzzle quality of the test?	Very nice

Hi everyone, this was my first marathon discovering this website quite recently. I've enjoyed it most of the time (although it was a bit painful to progress sometimes :) ) . Most of the puzzles were new to me.

star battle: I was most familiar with this puzzle from gmpuzzles, and I knew how to approach this so I attempted this puzzle first. but made silly mistake twice and finished just under an hour. I'm not a fast solver currently. for other puzzles, I didnt attempt to finish other puzzles under an hour.

Mintonette: First time I'm seeing this puzzle. I did some progress on 3 side but didn't find a clue for other regions. It didnt seem like a fun puzzle to me looked like need some trial error play. I didnt spend too much time.

MAxi loop:First time I'm seeing this puzzle. it was fun, didn't need a lot of trial and error. My 2nd favorite.

Graffiti snake : First time I'm seeing this puzzle. solved this in ms paint. it was a lot fun.
My 3rd favourite.

Araf: First time I'm seeing this puzzle. Enjoyed solving this, it took me some time where to start and how to use large numbers.

multi skyscrapers. I solved 5 squares without any trobule but stuck for some time refusing scenario testing. at the end i give up being stubborn. solved at the end but It was a bit painful for me and I guess I missed some hint.

watches: First time I'm seeing this puzzle. it was pretty good and to my surprise it didnt require any trial error. Just getting the direction of 7 clue solved lower half and 5 clue the upper half.

nanro: First time I'm seeing this puzzle. But it was my most favourite to solve. Maybe it's because I'm a huge nurikabe fan. Pretty good solving path.

masyu: I was a bit familiar with masyu and this was the second puzzle I attempted. However, it was the most paintful and I couldnt solve correctly. I couldnt progress much, made an assumption and I didnt get a conflict for 50 %, stuck progressing, made another assumption and after a lot of sweat I've finished it. Double checking the result, I realized one stupid circle missed a turn :( and it didn't appear the mistake was fixable easily, and of course solution key was rejected. this puzzle doesnt look right for a large size since one mistake costs a lot. Probably missed the right way to approcah this, keeping track of the single loop was a headache.

gapped kakuro: it didnt take me long to understand for uniqueness I need to assume edge sums were 45. with that, puzzle can be solved pretty much easily.

I didnt attempt fity fifty and slitherlink, I didn't have time, will try them later.

Thanks for the puzzle contributers and administrators for this fun marathon.

It should be mentioned deu had a higher total bonus; a slight change to the ranking system (best 11 of 12 might have been enough) could have easily made him the winner. I didn't stay very consistent throughout even if I had a few lucky breaks.

No bad puzzles in this set, and a lot of them were nicely thematic (Star Battle, Masyu, Mintonette, Gapped Kakuro's opening, Araf's large regions). Nanro was my favorite solve of the bunch; new and interesting thinking the whole way.

I did notice that, and wanted to mention, but thanks for bringing it up. It is always debatable whether it should be best 11 or best 10. I just went by my hunch that best 10 is better (there were more puzzles this time, and that some of the authors are high profile players themselves and they won't have any benefit if it is best 11). Sudoku Grand Prix rules also played in my mind, which is considering best 75%.

But yes, deu played incredibly well and had very consistent timings.

I would be very interested if someone could walk through their solution for the upper left-most square of the skyscapers puzzle. After solving the other squares, so I had the clues for the bottom and right-hand side of this square, I was able to place all the 5's, but couldn't get much further. I only solved it after some very extensive guess-and-checking. Was there a better way?

Your 3 most favorite puzzles of the contest.	Liar Diagonal Slitherlink
Your 3 most favorite puzzles of the contest.	Fity Fifty
Your 3 most favorite puzzles of the contest.	Star Battle
How balanced do you think the puzzle types of this test were?	A bit skewed
What is your opinion about rules, points and scoring for this test?	Fair
What did you think about the puzzle quality of the test?	Average

Your 3 most favorite puzzles of the contest.	Masyu
Your 3 most favorite puzzles of the contest.	Star Battle
Your 3 most favorite puzzles of the contest.	Watches
How balanced do you think the puzzle types of this test were?	Fairly balanced
What is your opinion about rules, points and scoring for this test?	Bit unfair
What did you think about the puzzle quality of the test?	Very nice

Your 3 most favorite puzzles of the contest.	Liar Diagonal Slitherlink
Your 3 most favorite puzzles of the contest.	Star Battle
Your 3 most favorite puzzles of the contest.	Graffiti Snake
How balanced do you think the puzzle types of this test were?	Fairly balanced
What is your opinion about rules, points and scoring for this test?	Very fair
What did you think about the puzzle quality of the test?	Very nice

Your 3 most favorite puzzles of the contest.	Liar Diagonal Slitherlink
Your 3 most favorite puzzles of the contest.	Gapped Kakuro
Your 3 most favorite puzzles of the contest.	Araf
How balanced do you think the puzzle types of this test were?	Fairly balanced
What is your opinion about rules, points and scoring for this test?	Very fair
What did you think about the puzzle quality of the test?	Very nice

(Can anyone help me how to end the quotation and begin my own text??)

Yes, it is solvable without trial and error. An important thing to see: In the right above part of the puzzle, if you fill in the right edges, they can not belong to any circle with a 2 in it. This helps a lot, for you have to use the only ways outside the area which is filled with 2-circles. The 3- and the 4-part I think were quite easy to solve, and with the detection I first described, there is only left a small 1-part-region, which was more difficult in my opinion.

Your 3 most favorite puzzles of the contest.	Gapped Kakuro
Your 3 most favorite puzzles of the contest.	Star Battle
Your 3 most favorite puzzles of the contest.	Multi Skyscrapers

Your 3 most favorite puzzles of the contest.	Mintonette
Your 3 most favorite puzzles of the contest.	Graffiti Snake
Your 3 most favorite puzzles of the contest.	Masyu
How balanced do you think the puzzle types of this test were?	Fairly balanced
What is your opinion about rules, points and scoring for this test?	Fair
What did you think about the puzzle quality of the test?	Very nice

I am not sure if we can really find a solution this problem. Increasing the limit to 75 minutes or so is not a solution, because there will be some players who might finish a puzzle in 78 minutes for example.
We certainly want a cut-off time beyond which the puzzle does not carry bonus points. Of course, if others have some other ideas to handle this, please share.


About the bonus system
---------------------------
Last year, we had extensive debate on how to improve the bonus system, especially about "normalizing" the bonus points. In fact, this year's system is directly based on a suggestion from last year. There are some votes indicating that the bonus system was bit unfair, it is important to know why players thought so. Except Nilz, I can't see any concrete reasons.

Given how popular Puzzle Marathon has been, we would certainly try to make it as an annual event. And if the bonus system has some obvious problems, we need players' input and opinion on how to get it fixed for next year(s).

Thanks to all the authors for these great puzzles. Unfortunately I could not solve all of them due to disconnection of Internet at my home. Anyway whatever the puzzles I could download and solve last week, I found each and every puzzle created very carefully. I liked Fifty-Fifty the most and found Gapped Kakuro little tough to solve.