One of the best contests of recent times. Very innovative and very logical. based more on logical solving capacity rather than on speed. I liked it a lot, in spite of spending an awful lot of time on the first symmetry area (I managed to solve it only after the end) and still can't figure out how to sort the bigger brother. Very elegant also the second angle loop. Thanks to the authors

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
Your 3 most favorite puzzles of the contest.	New Tren
Your 3 most favorite puzzles of the contest.	Max Arrow Castle Wall
Your 3 most favorite puzzles of the contest.	Compass

As expected, the last Angle Loop broke me up for the last 10-15 minutes. It's a type that really doesn't suit me. I took a while afterwards to get it. I enjoyed all puzzles without a little eraser as the other ones caused some unnecessary problems. Not a bad performance overall though.

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
Your 3 most favorite puzzles of the contest.	Graffiti Snake
Your 3 most favorite puzzles of the contest.	Sunglasses
Your 3 most favorite puzzles of the contest.	Meandering Words

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 medium difficult puzzles
What did you think about the puzzle quality of the test?	Very nice
Your 3 most favorite puzzles of the contest.	Sunglasses
Your 3 most favorite puzzles of the contest.	Curve Data
Your 3 most favorite puzzles of the contest.	Statue Park

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
Your 3 most favorite puzzles of the contest.	New Tren
Your 3 most favorite puzzles of the contest.	Compass
Your 3 most favorite puzzles of the contest.	Sunglasses

Solutions booklet uploaded.

It also has a listing of which author created which puzzles and original version of Angle Loop (2), which is more challenging than the one that appeared in the contest.

Congratulations to Robert for winning this one, he is way ahead of Bram (2nd) and James (3rd). While I personally don't own the book, I have seen the very impressive stuff. They are of very high quality, and the contest puzzles certainly matched to them. Thanks very much to the authors.

I'm yet to solve all the puzzles (especially Symmetric Area and Angle Loop), but my favourites so far have been Araf, Sunglasses and Graffiti Snake.

Not so important statistics - While Japan has the highest number of participants in this test, there is none from Japan in top 10. That is first time in any LMI puzzle test. I suppose the only way to keep them out of the top is ask them to author tests :)

Wow! No wonder Prasanna keeps asking when will Japan host the WPC :-)

Ahhhaaaa cool :D

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
Your 3 most favorite puzzles of the contest.	Compass
Your 3 most favorite puzzles of the contest.	Statue Park
Your 3 most favorite puzzles of the contest.	Max Arrow Castle Wall

Well, barely missing top three. Still targeting for a top three so I can get my name mentioned. :P

Wow, I can't say I expected a chance to win, let alone by such a margin. Of course some factors played to my advantage: most Japanese top solvers didn't compete, the puzzles and types were on the geometric side and intuition-friendly, I own and have solved most of the three existing Toketa books. Still, very happy, thanks again!

I think the second Angle Loop is a great puzzle, I prefer it to the original from the solution booklet: I feel it sets up the final trick very elegantly. Of course that's after having figured it out quickly, I might well think differently otherwise...

Very well done to Rob, we are having a good start to the year!
His first LMI victory, and my first LMI podium (if you don't include Riad's April optimising contests...).
I was on holiday all last week without my Toketa books (oh no!), so had no chance to prepare. Perhaps that made my mind 'fresher'?
I was doing well until the end approached, then I sat for 8 minutes looking at the "easy" Angle Loop and constantly penciling and erasing on that squares grid... curiously I had little trouble with the harder Angle Loop, it was logically solvable (although I was still slow to join it up).
Thank you to the authors, the puzzles were great, and nicer than the practise set. ;)

This looks like a great set of puzzles, but 2 hours in one sitting is just too much for me. In the future maybe two separate contests of 1 hour each?

Will some one post a walk through for both Angle loop puzzles

For the first puzzle:



First the red. There is only one option for the obtuse vertex at the bottom. Also, the C has to connect down to the E, and you quickly run into problems if you try to connect it to B as well, so it has to connect to the acute vertex to the right.

Now the blue. There is only one way left to connect the H without cutting off the bottom right acute vertex, and the G then has to connect up to guarantee a single, non-crossing loop. The B then has only one option, then the D, then the A.

Finally the green connects up the last few vertices.


For the second puzzle, the right angle vertices are pretty constrained, so start with those. There is a clever trick you have to notice after this, but I thought it was very impressive so I don't want to spoil it in the forum (you can always check the solution pdf if you want to see it).

Edited by ghirsch 2016-02-05 11:17 AM

Sorry for the late comment, but thanks for all participations and lots of positive feedbacks. And congratulations to Robert Vollmert for his dominant victory! My only regret is that I was sleeping while he was playing.

As we stated in the password, we've started working for Vol.4. If any readers have some suggestions to our book, such as "more hard puzzles", "less T&E puzzles" or any particular genre you want to solve, please let us know.

Here are two related links:
1. EKBM has posted his thoughts about this test in his blog (http://ekbm.blogspot.jp/). Logical solving path of Graffiti Snake 2 is beautiful and worth reading.
2. German website croco-puzzle (http://www.croco-puzzle.com/) is holding a daily competition of Toketa Puzzles. First two puzzles are New Tren by Silke Berendes.

Thanks James and Hideaki. James, you were definitely on the list of solvers that I was scared off while reloading the score page all weekend + Monday. And Hideaki, looking at the croco series, good thing you were test-solving!