Very nice example Minfang. When I'm solving sudoku for fun I often run into eliminations like Finned X-Wing or Empty Rectangle which are very much what I'd just call situational thinking - like a Nishio with two steps ahead - but are pretty powerful to catch. When I'm solving classic sudoku for speed though, I rarely reach a stage where I'm searching for any of those things and on hard puzzles I will admittedly bifurcate with underlined digits to see if I can force a solution onto a grid. I'll also use uniqueness and other things that I wouldn't use when just solving logically.

To Ziti: Solving on paper versus online is a choice applied to all solvers evenly (choosing paper means you wait for it to print, but get the advantage of any notes you want, ...). Solvers can do some on paper and some online. Its the solver's option. So I don't think its necessarily unfair to apply a time-based standard that might require paper solvers to enter their answer with say 30 minutes left instead of at the last second, provided the value of time is made clear ahead of time. For this test, I entered all the relays and five of the matchmakers with ~25 minutes left, figuring I should get those pages entered, and then simply came back two more times to enter the last. Of course I missed one submit button (on the easiest respective "nonconsecutive" puzzle), but that's beside the point. I'd say you and others would use a similar strategy on the USPC - at some point after 2 hours make sure your answers are in place and then start trying to pick off 1 at a time. This approach - certainly with solvers knowing how tiebreaks apply - seems like one can adapt how they'd play on paper to not be disadvantaged.

Its also true that the matchmakers weren't evenly difficult, so changing their scores a little would help. More important is probably increasing the relative score of the matchmakers versus the classic relay as the classic relay was certainly a much higher point/minute value than the other which is why I started there. Solvers like Nikola that finished the whole Matchmaker were somewhat hurt scoring-wise by the relative valuation, although different scores for that section would certainly affect my strategy and likely others' as well.

Edited by motris 2010-08-18 9:06 AM

This is fixed now (hopefully correctly)

To Thomas:
We called the method like this "magic step". I think all the top players have their own magic method.

Because many people only play classic puzzles, they don't know how to solve variants, and everyone want to get a better score, everyone will be happy when he get a higher score. It's a relay, so later puzzles also have extra points for all correct previous puzzles. Nikola and zorko did best in matchmaker, i think they can get 100 pts more for the great job. And Nikola show us another method for diagonal, it's also great.

Amit said: The small point classics were really beautiful and I had never enjoyed solving classic puzzles so much before.
So we make 3 "small point" classics(solved from 1 to 9), but you should find the correct position of digits from previous puzzles first.
Just enjoy them!



000210000003000100060004020020000007006105300800000040070400090001000500000032000
000000600010304000600010000000900000009000500000002000000030006020105030004000700
003200000070000430040010005000500006000000100100006000900000020050000070000000300

TTHsieh&Leafcard

Edited by Minfang Lin 2010-08-18 5:41 PM

So, does Nikola move to 790...and, into first place...

Thanks for these additional puzzles Minfang Lin.

By low points classics I had meant the first four, so apart from the first one which went from 1 to 9, I liked the next three too :)

Good work with the increasing number of givens. Though I did not notice it during the test, this is the perfect way to display that the difficulty is not directly related to the number of initial clues.

The hard work that you guys have put in making the puzzles is evident from the quality of puzzles. Thanks a lot.

Lets not change the ranks for this test. We can start from next time if this works out.

Thanks for all the feedback regarding the tie breaking rules.

Ziti had pointed out that the paper players have a disadvantage if we now use the last correct submission time as a tie breaker. Motris also suggested that it would not be a disadvantage if the tie breaker rules are announced before the test.

Going forward we will use the last correct submission for breaking ties between players.

However since we had not announced the rules prior to the Qixi event we will not change the rankings.