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