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