I dont agree Rajesh. the contest is as much about speed as it is about accuracy. top player or not

We can debate endlessly (and aimlessly) about every format that is put together. It is really easy for us to double the number of puzzles or halve the time, but lot of thoughts have gone into why the round is structured this way. I can't put in the details here.

Given that there is ample time for TOP players to finish the round, they must double / triple check their papers before submitting. And even after double/triple checking, if they still make mistakes, I am not sure if they were the best players in the contest.

Does the top solver not have more time to check and submit?
Last year we had two rounds, so it could be argued that participants would not know how well the other participants could do in the next round.
But as there is only one round, participants better check for accuracy before submitting as Rishi pointed out

Thanks Rakesh for the results. Well, I feel I could have done far better, had I known about this blog and the hints (Logics) to solve difficult clues. It was amazing to see youngsters finishing in less than half the time. This competition has given me a rejuvenated interest in Sudoku and looking forward to better performance in the next year TOI competition.

Thanks for your post. Really happy to read your comments. Please keep an eye on this forum as there are regular sudoku competitions which will help you keep abreast with multiple sudoku variants on an ongoing basis.

I have to agree with Rajesh that there is a flaw in the system, that if even a single mistake is made, it causes one to fall majorly through the ranks. I guess last year's method was better since even if a mistake was made in 1 round, it did not affect much on the ranks (since Tejal, Prasanna and me were still in the top 10 despite making minor mistakes). Also, that, if 6 or 7 people have finished their puzzles, it demoralizes other people to finish since they know that the top 4 will mostly be from amongst them. Last year one did not know where they stood and it kept the excitement and the competitive spirit alive. But i guess Deb and Amit are also right on their part that the best should recheck if they have the time.

Including more puzzles sounds like a good idea, but I am not in favour of decreasing time. I feel the submission times are already short. Scores get bunched together very easily because of that, and it becomes harder to pick the top 4. There was a 3-way tie for the 4th place last year in Chennai, and a tie-breaker round was needed to identify the 4th qualifier.

But yes, we could end up debating this endlessly. What we have now seems to be working just fine.

why does everyone want to make mistakes and yet qualify? Everyone talks about top players. how do u define a top player? is speed solving or knowledge of different variants enough to qualify as a top player isnt accuracy important too. In my opinion all three are needed to make someone a top player. Let us learn ti blame ourselves for not qualifying instead of blaming a system

As someone who's been mentioned in previous posts, I think I should address what happened last year, at least to me. Firstly, last year, Rohan, Tejal, Gaurav and me, among many other good players, were competing for 4 spots. That greatly influences the thinking that one can check their solutions, and I hesitated to check much because of the competition around. Of course, there could be unknowns challenging for the spots too, but "known" contenders will obviously influence your thinking as a competitor more. But this is nothing to blame the organizers on.

Its difficult to settle on the ideal format. There are other factors too, like attracting newcomers, and having a format enjoyable for everyone and not just the winners. I can understand that, and since the format is the same for everyone, its fine with me. Whether or not I qualify this time, I prefer this year's format to last year's mainly because there's more choices to move on to in-case you get stuck in one Sudoku.

On a side note though (consider it a discussion for future years more than anything), I fully agree that accuracy is part of solving too, but it's still a point worth discussing if standings are a bit too dependent on accuracy vs solving prowess. For instance, imagine if the recent IPC had just 8 easy puzzles that everyone could solve. The IPC as it was had 26 puzzles, out of which I solved 25 correctly and made one mistake. Allowing accuracy to be a factor, if I had made many mistakes, then that strikes out all the good solving I did and I'd have fallen in the rankings. The keyword here is "many". If making one mistake cancels your good solving, then accuracy might be taking a bit too much priority in my opinion.

we need to look how the event is being conducted. IPC is an online event where solving prowess is combined with accuracy. When you look at Times Sudoku Championship we need to understand that thousands of normal people attend. now if u keep a max of 20 'top players' then what about the rest. the regional round serves as an elimination round and at the same time it gives some degree of satisfaction to the aam janta. These events are not just about us few solvers but also abt each and ecery sudoku enthusiast thats comes out to have fun.

Edited by purifire 2013-07-23 6:21 PM

Of course. I did note those other factors in my understanding of the format. My point is, lets not brush aside what is a valid discussion/query based on "accuracy matters". Its another reason why I welcome this double format of TSC + a long online ISC. Its pretty difficult to organize both formats going forward but overall, we'd have covered accuracy, solving prowess, and any other factor in our overall team (including A and B teams).

The Delhi results are now updated on the same link (or you can use this direct one - http://logicmastersindia.com/2013/TSC/?city=D ), the top 18 timings have been added. Everything seems to have been really close in Delhi.

The Delhi Results are too close. Great to see this result making TSC an even competition for all. Can we know the number of participants in the two rounds (Chennai and Delhi) just to know about the reach of the event.

Edited by rvarun 2013-07-24 10:58 AM

Around 8 more players (I don't have the papers right now to tell the exact number) also submitted before time, but had bad mistakes.

Interestingly, the 4th place cutoff for both Chennai and Delhi turned out to be almost the same - around 42 minutes.

I am eagerly waiting for the mumbai round. Thats going to be a rocker. My money is on a mumbai person winning the finals. :-)

Because, bad practice to bet on yourself?

want to know how much time limit is provided for classics and variants as i am a beginner never participated in toi sudoku before so would liove if u wud tell me what exactly is d procedure of rounds timelimit etc and stuff

After the first round of 8 6x6 classics in 15 minutes, there is a 1 hour round with 4 classics and 4 variants.

and the 4 variants are trio odd even alphabet and diagonal that is it or any other variant is included

just one day to go! all the best to all for Mumbai :)

I think that's it. But I am also a participant and am just basing that on last year's experience and some information from friends who participated in the other cities.

I am playing this for the first time in Bangalore .
Could someone please provide the format of the test (how many rounds, duration , types of puzzles etc)?

Is there some place where the test puzzles are published ?

What is the best online reference to prepare for this competition ?
Thanks!

Read the posts above ;) As for online reference, go here. The same 4 types will be on the test mostly. Test puzzles haven't been published, and I'm not sure they will be published. But there's enough as practice material if you're willing to look around the site (including in other months to the right on the link I gave)

All the best to Mumbai and Bangalore participants... :-) Expecting a great turnout and a close fight in the two cities this year also..