Looks like what I wrote could be interpreted the wrong way. Let me put it another way. Allowing the top 2-3 to make mistakes pulls the bar for accuracy lower on them relative to the rest of the people. This is a huge huge deal in live competition, and is great enough advantage for them to be able to qualify ahead of the rest even IF everything else was the same (skills, speed, etc.). Being faster than the rest makes it a cake-walk. So we should either set the same bar for everyone to move from the regional rounds to the national rounds, or give these 2-3 a direct pass to the nationals, since they are going to be taken there anyway. Is my line of thought clearer?

Lenson I agree with what you are saying and we will explore the option of giving a few pre-decided participants a bye into the national finals next year.
It will also give an opportunity for more people to compete in the national finals.

yes, I do agree with Amit and Lenson that from the next year we need to improve on process. Moreover giving Rishi wild card entry is in best interests of Team India and lets not debate on this.
Instead we can debate on improving the process. We have seen in last few years that some of best players not qualifying for national finals due to some minor mistakes in regional rounds. I suggest the following for the next year onward.
1. Option of pre decided participants a bye in national rounds (This may be done on basis of rank in ISC with ISC being conducted before TSC).
2. In case Times does not agree with wild card entry then making the regional round in such a way that making minor mistakes by best player does not completely rule out player from finals e.g. making little tough puzzles for regional final round, so that only few best players are just able to complete these puzzles in given time.

Please do suggest something more for improving this process.

@ Rajesh

The second point that you mentioned seems easier than what it actually is.
Since we extend the event to 1000s of people we need to make it accessible to everyone.
So we need to balance the fact that while we are trying to select the best team we also aim to popularize sudoku by letting more people explore solving the puzzles.

Can we have the final points round wise of the National Finals similar to last year.. Just a curiosity..

Edited by rvarun 2014-07-14 6:30 PM

This is as surprising to me as for others, but India Sudoku team need guy of Rishi caliber. Debating on this point further according to me is unfair to Rishi and to India Sudoku team.

From next year onwards why not give wild card entries to all the 4 national champions of only last year if they fit into TOI Sudoku championship criterion.
Rest All should go through normal process without any exception.
@Amit
Agree with you, if there are tough puzzles the purpose to take Sudoku to masses and popularize may get hit.
May be why not introduced one more round of top 10-15 participants after 2nd round with some tricky puzzles.

Edited by gaurav.kjain 2014-07-14 7:45 PM

@ Gaurav
We also work under some time constraints with regards to the venue to finish the event on time, which prevents us from having additional rounds.

Do keep posting your ideas coming in, so that we can improve the event even further in subsequent years.

One suggestion I have which can be explored and seems to be the best of both worlds (assuming the organizers are fine with providing a bit more solving content) is to simply fill the 60 minute round with more easy Sudokus. The proportion of points with the top rankers/newcomers will probably still remain the same but
1. It'll be more difficult for everyone to finish (stressing on the word finish, as it still won't be difficult to solve). This means its not as dependent on bonus, and also means that one mistake might not cause as much of a hit.
2. There'll be even more for people to solve and enjoy. I would assume an enthusiast would like to fill their hour with solving when the competition is basically just a one-time-a-year opportunity.

I second Prasanna's thoughts of providing more puzzles, so that best solver just solves in time. It will be win-win situation for both audience as well as organizers as both the objectives will be met.

I totally agree with Gaurav............
Firstly there is no point discussing on the wildcard of Rishi.... he has proved it by coming second in the tournament and we cant have a better Indian team atleast without Prassanna, Rohan and Rishi as none of us come near to these guys in any of these tournaments....take it regular LMI contests or World sudoku GP or any other contest.

Giving wild card for finals to the last years team is a very good idea and should be implemented if TOI agrees. This will give help to Amit and Deb also in organising the TOI championships as they will have 4 more people to help them in conduct the show.


All the best Team India...........I am sure of TOP 3 spot this year.

@Prasanna/ Rajesh

Do remember the problem of the scale.
More puzzles means more prints with the expectation that a large percentage of those will remain unsolved.

The main issue is the large rift between the top few solvers and the wider audience.
We can easily balance time so that no one completes or only the topper completes, but that would mean either too many puzzles or too less time.


I was wondering if we can design a mechanism in which we can check the paper instantly (say within 2 mins) and return it back if there is an error. One immediate drawback is the heavy requirement and dependence on volunteers.

If I may add my two cents here, The present format was designed with the purpose to give more and more people the chance to solve sudokus without having to give up on some due to time constraints. The reason for this was to pull people towards solving all the puzzles and enjoy them. Reducing time or increasing difficulty would simply diminish the common peoples enthusiasm greatly which will affect the participation in the long run.

Yesterday in Mumbai Prasanna, Rohan and I were discussing on this and we all felt that the top 4 of previous year should be given a bye to the finals. TOI need not take care of their travel expenses. This in turn ensures that places open up for others in the regional round and more and more newer people will be seen qualifying for the finals, which is one of TOI intents as well.

But this is obviously dependant on TOI's agreement too.

Rishi

Upsets are more common in sports. We have seen many greats exists in the first round of a tennis grand slams. Once a set of rules are framed, altering the same in the middle of an event is not in the true spirit.
I agree with the Rishis comment that top four can be given a bye from the regional rounds and more can be accommodated to the finals. Try the same to select the puzzle team also. l

I think that there are two targets to be achieved by organising these events.
1. To select the best team to represent India at WSC.
2. To popularise sudoku in public domain, so that there will be a continuous generation of new talents in sudoku solving by increasing the penetration of sudoku to aam junta.

For this, it would be better, if Top 4/5 solvers will be allowed directly to the finals (on the basis of their last year performances in ISC/TSC/WSC). And then organise TSC at regional level, selecting top4/5 finalists from each city. There are many solvers among aam junta who are consistently in top10 in their respective regional rounds for last 2-3years. It is disheartening for them to not get selected despite of their sincere efforts.

It is in the interest of game that more and more people participate with a thing in their mind that they can win.
Participating with the veterans at regional rounds is not good for the enthusiasm of aam junta, as they know that there is no chance for them to get selected.

Edited by Dileep Singh 2014-07-15 8:35 AM

Link : http://epaperbeta.timesofindia.com/Article.aspx?eid=31804&articlexm...

I feel it is a pretty not so good article. They could have covered the event in detail rather than just a snippet given. :-(

I think the article is nice. It is crisp, and it grabs eyeballs as it is posted on the front page. Salman only looks mildly interested in the Sudoku, and more interested in modeling the Dixy Scott banian. ;-)

Here are the final standings from the TSC finals






Attachments
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results.png (24KB - 12 downloads)

I agree with Dileep... Knowing that its very hard to get into the top 3/4 of the regional round itself and that even if you are 5th or 6th it is not something that will get appreciated, its heart-breaking...

I would suggest that the organisers should acknowledge the hard-work/performance of ,say, atleast the top 10/15 participants out of the huge lot of around 1000-1200 people who participate in the regional rounds. People come to participate in the event from far-off places. I know in Delhi we had people coming-in from Chandigarh, Amritsar etc. which is like 5-7 hrs drive from Delhi.

Instead of 1 more round of Top 10/15 participants, simply acknowledging their effort, by giving away ceritifcates to them or for that matter a token of appreciation, will encourage them to participate next time and try to come in the Top 10/15 atleast if not in Top 3/4...

To be called as a 'TOP PERFORMER' in itself could be very encouraging...

Would've liked a scorecard (well of course I would) and a more accurate timeline of the finals (I'm pretty sure 10 AM to 3 PM across 4 rounds with breaks in between isn't accurately described by "2 hour session"). I like the idea of having a celebrity in there to draw eyeballs but after that the article should have the content to keep them interested, and I just don't think this article achieves that.

But focusing on the positives, I must say that the 4 rounds were a lot of fun. The Fortress of the 3rd round was easily my favorite but there were some nice stuff worked into the rest too. The first 6x6 Arrow from the Sprint round reminded me of one of my own :) The 4th round with the Samurai was fun at the start but probably tinted by the fact that I had to erase and redo 3 of the grids before submitting. Rohan actually submitted before me but he made a mistake, so that flatters my score a little.

Could we have the sudokus from the finals?

The sudokus from TSC are copyrighted and the property of TOI, so unfortunately they cannot be shared.

The 5 point formula:

1. 5 players from each city in the regional round
2. Same difficulty level to provide awareness and increase enthusiasm amongst the masses
3. WSC difficulty-level Nationals to screen the top 5
4. Wild card entries to Prasanna, Rishi and Rohan is a must, presently we know who the first 3 will be. Its like playing chess against a 3000 rated computer. You can't win, so keep them OUT !! :)
5. Request Times to provide full sponsorship to TOP 8, wild card entries and top 5 from nationals
(I know it's easily suggested but in a long term [2 years+] time-scale, we can request this in exchange for 3 page weekly puzzle section in the Times newspaper for the metropolitan cities), I bet this will induce more people to read ToI.

5th-8th will be on Team B which is unofficial, and Times/other sponsors might not be that interested in it. A lot of countries use their Team B in their own way in which they feel it is most productive.

Possibility 1: Load it up with more good players - all well and good. But will a sponsor like publicizing an unofficial team? A next level to this is, what if even one member of the B team outperforms members of the A team? That is fine and well from a competitive standpoint of course, but if both teams are publicized, in the eyes of the public it is an open fact that the Nationals didn't select the best team. That doesn't seem like a big negative to us but to sponsors, they definitely wouldn't want to publicize such a fact.

Possibility 2: Try to select newer solvers who might benefit from the experience - Again, great from our perspective. In the long term, this means more talent gets the experience of a WSC and improves (I mostly wouldn't have improved to this level if I hadn't gotten a bit lucky with better solvers dropping out of the team in 2011, so I value the WSC experience a lot). But again, we do not have a good enough structure currently for a sponsor to think of the long term benefits of a team. There is no short term gain here, and it is highly difficult to convince folks not into puzzling that it is not just a fad that will die out.

Possibility 3: Send a junior team (U-18 I guess, because that's the bar set by the WPF for prize categorization) - this is the only one I see sponsors interested in. Many schools will be interested in funding a competition which selects a junior team, and there is short term gain AND possibility of long term success too. It even seems great from our perspective, since it forwards the future of puzzles in India.

As for your other points, instead of 5 winners per city, I'd prefer it expanded to more cities. But Times already decreased the per-city winners to 3 from 4 last year, so they seem to be going in the other direction, and I think it might be really hard to convince them to go up to 5, unless we explore possibility of some players bearing their own expenses (assuming that's why they decreased it, and not some other reason).

But you add to the tally of people who want a wildcard for a few best players, which seems pretty unanimous at this point.