How well did the variants represent the theme of the test ?	variations represented the theme 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?	Below Average
Which set of puzzles did you like the most?	QuadMax 4Odd 4Even
Of the puzzles you solved/attempted, how well did the point values reflect the difficulty?	Most puzzles were worth the right amount

How well did the variants represent the theme of the test ?	variations represented the theme 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
Which set of puzzles did you like the most?	X Sum Frame Sudoku
Of the puzzles you solved/attempted, how well did the point values reflect the difficulty?	Most puzzles were worth the right amount

Thanks for another great test Rakesh and Harmeet. All of the puzzles I solved were very nice, but my favorites were QuadMax 2 and X Sum Frame 2 (I really liked the deductions for X in this one).

Really nice sudokus....Liked construction of all of them.
Hats off, Rakesh and Harmeet.
Kropki seems to be a no starter for me logically, Rakesh/Harmeet, please provide me THE logical starting point.

Technically for me 2015-16 SM is ended as, I will be co-authoring last round of SM along with Amit.
All the rounds were really great and I enjoyed them a lot. Thanks for the authors and organizers for all great SM rounds throughout the year.

I guess you are referring to the 9x9.
(1) One starting point is R1C3/C4 -> one of them has to be 3. You can find out easily that the 3 must go in R1C4. You can then fill out all cells in row 1. R1C1 cannot be 5 (look at the long sequence in col 1) so it will be 1.
(2) R5C1 is even (count odd/even in box4). Using this, we can complete col 1, as there is only one place for the number 2.

After this, it should be simpler.

How well did the variants represent the theme of the test ?	representation could have been better
What did you think about the puzzle quality of the test?	Fairly Nice
Which set of puzzles did you like the most?	Classic Sudoku
Of the puzzles you solved/attempted, how well did the point values reflect the difficulty?	Most puzzles were worth the right amount

How well did the variants represent the theme of the test ?	representation could have been better
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
Which set of puzzles did you like the most?	QuadMax 4Odd 4Even
Of the puzzles you solved/attempted, how well did the point values reflect the difficulty?	Most puzzles were worth the right amount

How well did the variants represent the theme of the test ?	variations represented the theme well
What did you think about the puzzle quality of the test?	Very nice
Which set of puzzles did you like the most?	X Sum Frame Sudoku
Of the puzzles you solved/attempted, how well did the point values reflect the difficulty?	Many puzzles were worth too much or too little

The puzzles were all right but the point distribution was rather poor. IMHO for the big kropki 16 points were faaaaaar too many, while the big average with only 13 points was underrated.

Thanks a lot Rakesh, I really forgot to use Even/Odd marking , it makes it so easy which was looking a non starter to me , I remember Prasanna also mentioned it earlier.

How well did the variants represent the theme of the test ?	variations represented the theme 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
Which set of puzzles did you like the most?	Kropki Sudoku
Of the puzzles you solved/attempted, how well did the point values reflect the difficulty?	Most puzzles were worth the right amount

How well did the variants represent the theme of the test ?	representation could have been better
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
Which set of puzzles did you like the most?	Kropki Sudoku
Of the puzzles you solved/attempted, how well did the point values reflect the difficulty?	Most puzzles were worth the right amount

How well did the variants represent the theme of the test ?	variations represented the theme 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
Which set of puzzles did you like the most?	X Sum Frame Sudoku
Of the puzzles you solved/attempted, how well did the point values reflect the difficulty?	Most puzzles were worth the right amount

How well did the variants represent the theme of the test ?	were not represented well
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
Which set of puzzles did you like the most?	QuadMax 4Odd 4Even
Of the puzzles you solved/attempted, how well did the point values reflect the difficulty?	Most puzzles were worth the right amount

Really enjoyed the puzzles.... Thanks a ton Rakesh & Harmeet for such nice puzzles...

How well did the variants represent the theme of the test ?	variations represented the theme well
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
Which set of puzzles did you like the most?	Classic Sudoku
Of the puzzles you solved/attempted, how well did the point values reflect the difficulty?	Most puzzles were worth the right amount

How well did the variants represent the theme of the test ?	variations represented the theme well
What was your opinion of the distribution of easy/hard puzzles?	Too many easy puzzles
What did you think about the puzzle quality of the test?	Fairly Nice
Which set of puzzles did you like the most?	X Sum Frame Sudoku
Of the puzzles you solved/attempted, how well did the point values reflect the difficulty?	Most puzzles were worth the right amount

The 6x6 Average was a bit (a lot) guess-y

How well did the variants represent the theme of the test ?	variations represented the theme well
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
Which set of puzzles did you like the most?	QuadMax 4Odd 4Even

How well did the variants represent the theme of the test ?	variations represented the theme well
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
Which set of puzzles did you like the most?	X Sum Frame Sudoku
Of the puzzles you solved/attempted, how well did the point values reflect the difficulty?	Many puzzles were worth too much or too little

Pl extend the time till to night

Edited by devarajand 2016-02-16 8:06 AM

I would have liked that too. But the password has already been posted. So that does not look like an option now.

Edited by lenson 2016-02-16 9:15 AM

That is right. We would have extended the time only if we are requested before it is over.

Congratulations to jzverina, deu and jaku111 for securing the Top 3 positions. In fact, 4th to 10th positions were very close, with only 6 points separating them. Thanks to everyone who provided a feedback on the test. Glad to see the two relatively newer variations - X Sum Frame and QuadMax 4Odd 4Even - getting the bulk of the votes. Congratulations to Rohan, PRasanna, SuvaRna and ShaheeR for taking the top places for India. Also good performances from Amit, ManjiRi, KishoRe and NeeRaj. Thanks to Rishi for test solving this set.

Overall 315 users, and about 10% of participants (33) completed all 18. Average 6x6 had a lot of erroneous submissions (1 out of 3 wrong) as participants tended to guess since it was a 6x6. However, there is a neat logical path to solve it. Kropki 9x9 was the least attempted with only 93 correct submissions. However, I had expected QuadMax 9x9 or Average 9x9 would be the one with least submissions as the come last in the PB.

We have puzzle wise submission data for 6 of the top 10. Based on their timings, Classics should have had 22 points (we had 22), Consecutive should have 15 points (we had 13), Kropki should have had 18 points (we had 19), X sum frame should have had 13 points (we had 12), QuadMax 4Odd 4Even should have had 15 points (we had 18) and Average should have 17 points (we had 16). So, except for QuadMax 4Odd 4Even, the differences were less than 3.

HaRmeet: You may also share your impressions from this test.

Thanks to LMI for hosting the test and especially to Rakesh for guiding throughout. Together we came up with the set, the standard ones were kept reasonably simple to compensate for moderate to difficult variants. I hope all of you have enjoyed solving the sudokus. Congratulations to the winners! It was awesome to see 30 participants solving all 18 within time. The feedback is yet to be analyzed. This was my first attempt as an author and I have learnt a lot from the experience of creating them. My personal favorite was Average 9x9.

@Rakesh
Good work with the R's ;-)