Your 3 most favorite puzzles of the contest.	Linked Poset Futoshiki
Your 3 most favorite puzzles of the contest.	Pentopia
Your 3 most favorite puzzles of the contest.	Hex Slitherlink
How balanced do you think the puzzle types of this test were?	Perfectly balanced
What did you think about the puzzle quality of the test?	Very nice
What is your opinion about rules, points and scoring for this test?	Very fair

LPF just flowed so nicely. No big pauses. Just fill it in. Didn't really like Akari. I'm not a fan of Akari to begin with, but then I thought too much trial and error due to not much overlap between number clues.

Your 3 most favorite puzzles of the contest.	Hex Slitherlink
Your 3 most favorite puzzles of the contest.	Pentopia
Your 3 most favorite puzzles of the contest.	Hidoku
How balanced do you think the puzzle types of this test were?	Fairly balanced
What did you think about the puzzle quality of the test?	Very nice
What is your opinion about rules, points and scoring for this test?	Fair

Your 3 most favorite puzzles of the contest.	Hidoku
Your 3 most favorite puzzles of the contest.	Domino Loop
Your 3 most favorite puzzles of the contest.	Pentopia
How balanced do you think the puzzle types of this test were?	Fairly balanced
What did you think about the puzzle quality of the test?	Very nice
What is your opinion about rules, points and scoring for this test?	Very fair

Your 3 most favorite puzzles of the contest.	Hidoku
Your 3 most favorite puzzles of the contest.	LITS+
Your 3 most favorite puzzles of the contest.	Pentopia
How balanced do you think the puzzle types of this test were?	Perfectly balanced
What did you think about the puzzle quality of the test?	Very nice
What is your opinion about rules, points and scoring for this test?	Very fair

Nice set of puuzles! I really like puzzle marathon :-)

Hi, I'm new to this and I'm a little confused by Linked Poset Futoshiki. I see that there are 4 rules to this puzzle:
1. Assign one of the 3 diagrams to a small grid
2. Solve each small grid so each number appears once every row/column
3. Make sure all >/< signs are complied
4. Digits separated by gaps must be identical.

I get 2,3 and 4. But I don't understand no.1. How does the diagram relate to the grids? What do the diagrams mean?
Sorry for the very newbie question, and sorry if this is in the wrong place. Found this puzzle via Reddit.

Lets look at the example below. By "diagram", we mean one of the trees (colored for your reference).
So, each small grid (3X3 in the example and 6X6 in the actual puzzle) will be assigned one diagram.
i.e. the "Inequality" rule in each grid will be governed by the "tree diagram" associated.

If you look at the solutions on the right, the top left and bottom right grids are assigned with tree diagram marked as "Maximum". Similarly, the top right and bottom left grids are assigned the tree diagram marked as "Minimum"

If something is still not clear, let us know.

Your 3 most favorite puzzles of the contest.	LITS+
Your 3 most favorite puzzles of the contest.	Linked Poset Futoshiki
Your 3 most favorite puzzles of the contest.	Pentopia
How balanced do you think the puzzle types of this test were?	Fairly balanced
What did you think about the puzzle quality of the test?	Very nice
What is your opinion about rules, points and scoring for this test?	Fair

Your 3 most favorite puzzles of the contest.	Twin Co-Ordinates
Your 3 most favorite puzzles of the contest.	Spiral Galaxy
Your 3 most favorite puzzles of the contest.	Akari
How balanced do you think the puzzle types of this test were?	Perfectly balanced
What did you think about the puzzle quality of the test?	Very nice
What is your opinion about rules, points and scoring for this test?	Very fair

Thanks!

Your 3 most favorite puzzles of the contest.	Neighbours
Your 3 most favorite puzzles of the contest.	Hidoku
Your 3 most favorite puzzles of the contest.	Domino Loop
How balanced do you think the puzzle types of this test were?	Perfectly balanced
What did you think about the puzzle quality of the test?	Very nice
What is your opinion about rules, points and scoring for this test?	Very fair

Your 3 most favorite puzzles of the contest.	Domino Loop
Your 3 most favorite puzzles of the contest.	Spiral Galaxy
Your 3 most favorite puzzles of the contest.	Pentopia
How balanced do you think the puzzle types of this test were?	Fairly balanced
What did you think about the puzzle quality of the test?	Very nice
What is your opinion about rules, points and scoring for this test?	Very fair

I enjoyed basically every single puzzle except for the twin coordinates one - it didn't feel like a logic puzzle at all, although I seemed to have guessed correctly which squares "should" have doubles. Not sure if that was the idea? Might have missed the point of it.

Your 3 most favorite puzzles of the contest.	LITS+
Your 3 most favorite puzzles of the contest.	Domino Loop
Your 3 most favorite puzzles of the contest.	Word Search Sudoku
How balanced do you think the puzzle types of this test were?	Fairly balanced
What did you think about the puzzle quality of the test?	Very nice
What is your opinion about rules, points and scoring for this test?	Fair

Different people have different strengths and weaknesses. Maybe you are better at spotting/guessing similar doubles.
Most of these puzzles are types that frequently occur at the World Puzzle Championships (WPCs), and there have been visual-based rounds (like Screen Tests) often in the past.

I disagree with you about TCO not having any logic. There are certainly cells/areas you can cross out and gradually get the pairs one by one by reducing the pool of potential cells, rather than randomly surfing through the grid.

Your 3 most favorite puzzles of the contest.	Hex Slitherlink
Your 3 most favorite puzzles of the contest.	Spiral Galaxy
Your 3 most favorite puzzles of the contest.	Word Search Sudoku
How balanced do you think the puzzle types of this test were?	Perfectly balanced
What did you think about the puzzle quality of the test?	Very nice
What is your opinion about rules, points and scoring for this test?	Very fair

Your 3 most favorite puzzles of the contest.	LITS+
Your 3 most favorite puzzles of the contest.	Linked Poset Futoshiki
Your 3 most favorite puzzles of the contest.	Pentopia
How balanced do you think the puzzle types of this test were?	Fairly balanced
What did you think about the puzzle quality of the test?	Very nice
What is your opinion about rules, points and scoring for this test?	Very fair

Your 3 most favorite puzzles of the contest.	Akari
Your 3 most favorite puzzles of the contest.	Linked Poset Futoshiki
Your 3 most favorite puzzles of the contest.	Hidoku
How balanced do you think the puzzle types of this test were?	Perfectly balanced
What did you think about the puzzle quality of the test?	Very nice
What is your opinion about rules, points and scoring for this test?	Very fair

The word "Poset" is short for "Partially Ordered Set", which means that there is some sort of "less than/greater than" relationship,
but that not every pair of items can be compared.

Example: Let the set be the Simpson family: kids Bart, Maggie, Lisa, parents Homer and Marge, plus Homer's father Abe.
Let our "less than" stand for "is descended from".
Every child is "less than" each of the adults, but none of them can be compared to the other (neither Bart nor Lisa is less than the other).
Homer is less than Abe, but Marge is not less than anyone in the family.

For Futoshiki purposes, that means that if you have a less than sign between two cells, they have to be a pair that is comparable (at all) and in the order indicated.

In the diagrams, arrows lead up from lesser to greater, and the relationships are transitive (so A < B and B < C -> A < C, as is true in the Simpson example also).

Your 3 most favorite puzzles of the contest.	Neighbours
Your 3 most favorite puzzles of the contest.	Pentopia
Your 3 most favorite puzzles of the contest.	Word Search Sudoku
How balanced do you think the puzzle types of this test were?	Perfectly balanced
What did you think about the puzzle quality of the test?	Very nice

LoL! Watching a lot of Simpsons lately? :-)

What does this means
"Additionally, digits separated by a gap (between two adjacent small grids) must be identical"


please clarify

Your 3 most favorite puzzles of the contest.	Domino Loop
Your 3 most favorite puzzles of the contest.	Pentopia
Your 3 most favorite puzzles of the contest.	Hex Slitherlink
How balanced do you think the puzzle types of this test were?	Perfectly balanced
What did you think about the puzzle quality of the test?	Very nice
What is your opinion about rules, points and scoring for this test?	Fair

In the example, look at the 3rd column of the first box and the first column of second box. They are separated by a gap and are identical. Similarly look at the 3rd row of the first box and the first row of the third box. Again they are separated by a gap and are identical.

Your 3 most favorite puzzles of the contest.	Word Search Sudoku
Your 3 most favorite puzzles of the contest.	LITS+
Your 3 most favorite puzzles of the contest.	Twin Co-Ordinates
How balanced do you think the puzzle types of this test were?	Perfectly balanced
What did you think about the puzzle quality of the test?	Very nice
What is your opinion about rules, points and scoring for this test?	Very fair

Thanks Rakesh

Your 3 most favorite puzzles of the contest.	Neighbours
Your 3 most favorite puzzles of the contest.	Domino Loop
Your 3 most favorite puzzles of the contest.	Linked Poset Futoshiki
How balanced do you think the puzzle types of this test were?	Perfectly balanced
What did you think about the puzzle quality of the test?	Very nice
What is your opinion about rules, points and scoring for this test?	Fair

The Marathon contest is always my favorite of the year and 2016 was no exception. I really enjoyed all of the puzzles and maily chose my three favorites based on what had stuck most in my memory.

I really did not think I was going to like linked poset futoshiki and did it last in case I found it unsolveable. The instructions were a little confusing to me--the arrows in the poset diagrams go in the OPPOSITE direction as the inequality signs in the puzzle. Once I made that leap, the puzzle was not only solveable with logic, but very fun as well and it made my favorites list. I remember Neighbors from Breinbrekers puzzle magazine and really like it. I wish I could find more of these. Same with Pentopia.

All of the puzzles had lots of delightful aha moments and generally linear solves for me. My fastest puzzle was about 40 min and my slowest about 70 so they all seemed "medium" to me. My least favorite was probably the akari, it seemed a little guessy to me and I never developed a good way to do trial and error with pencil and paper akari (I usually just do Nikoli ones online which are much easier), I kept entering wrong solutions only to later find a single unlit cell somewhere. Oh well.

Overall, 10-12 hours very well spent. Thank you LMI.