Hi to all,

The test starts within almost 2 hours. I wish all participants
the very best of luck. I hope you enjoy solving the sudokus.

Regards,

Zafer

Nice sudokus. I liked the Renban concept applied to solving the sudokus.

@rakesh. what is ur score?

Lets not discuss scores here till the test is ON. This time, I think we are able to see all scores lower than your score in the results page.

Rakesh, you are correct. After taking the test, you should be able to see your score along with all others who have got < than you.

Very nice set of puzzles, I really enjoyed during the test. Thanks, Zafer!

Nikola

Rakesh and Nikola for your kind words. I'm glad you liked them.

Regards,

Zafer

Nice set of puzzles. Renban usage was neatly done. Thanks Zafer.

Thanks, Zafer! Very nice puzzles!

Aha. This explains many things.

Good set of diagrams, thanks Zafer and thanks yet again Logicmastersindia.

Stefano

1. I naively thought from the Results tab that all the good sudoku players had been kidnapped and tied up in a closet somewhere as no one had passed my middling score.
2. Now I understand why I am the leader only in my own mind.
3. Was this explained somewhere ahead of time? I must have missed it.
4. Why is this the case and why dont you want us to see the others?
Thanks.

The Subro

it was a great test. and since we are only able to see the scores of people lower than us , i was in seventh heaven thinking i was topping . what a nice feeling it was. till rishi woke me up from my slumber and told me about the format of the result. but we must thank zafer for coming out with such lovely set of puzzles.

Zafer -- Quite an excellent set of puzzles, thanks for sharing them with us -

Best regards,

Dave

The change in score display is interesting.

Although it gives you a (false) sense of being at the top (at least till the test is underway), you do get to know the number of people below you. As for the number above you, it keeps you guessing till the end.

I like this change, as long as the scores are not discussed on the forum.

Nice puzzles, enjoyed solving them.

I like the change on the results page too... :)

Overall, it was another great experience for me. I have never done any sudoku puzzle that has Renban Groups in it. Unfortunately, I lost 42 points because the internet went down and i didn't finish typing the answer to Symmetric Unequal.

Complete results now available. Link, as usual, is http://logicmastersindia.com/M201011S/score.asp

Congratulations to Rishi, Fred and Jakub H. for topping in Renban Grouped Sudokus.
Rishi continued from his great performance in Hotpot (where he stood second behind Thomas S.) and finally, we have an Indian at the top of the table.
There is very little to choose between Fred and Jakub with only few seconds differentiating them.

Nice to see Rohan completing all the grids well ahead in time.

deu, cpickerel and willwc played really well to complete all the grids.

Few more players had chance to complete all the grids, but minor mistakes crept in (especially Jason who lost the 2nd place because of a mistake in 6X6 Symmetric Unequal)

188 participants, and 167 non-zero scores - both better numbers than any LMI Monthly Sudoku test.
Thank you everyone for participating.

Please share your feedback about puzzles and / or rate them, if you have not done so yet.

Zafer, thanks a lot for the wonderful sudokus. I'm sure everyone enjoyed them.

Also thanks
to Ours Brun, who pre-tested the Sudoku, he completed all the grids in very impressive time.
to Rakesh Rai for reviewing the IB completely.
to David for designing the test logo.
to Rakesh, Rohan and Tejal for taking the test earlier in the weekdays, to find out potential issues because of our recent database upgrade. Fortunately, there were none.

Rather surprisingly, the two most error-prone sudokus were both 6x6 - non touching and symmetric unequal.

It is indeed little strange. Also the low pointer, Shifted Sudoku 9X9, is solved by very few participants. While viewing 'live' results, I could see that among those who solved it, most players skipped this Sudoku in the beginning and returned to it at a later point in time.

I always attempt such sudokus (like Shifted and toroidal sudoku) in the end, which usually means I end up skipping them because the timer runs out anyway. I think the main reason is that these require you to think "unnaturally". So you postpone it for as long as possible.

Maybe, we can have some contest in future with only such variations....then there is no escape.

Hi to all,

Thanks for positive feedbacks I'm glad most of the puzzlers enjoyed this renban concept
inside sudoku grids. Knowing these renban groups and the candidates for digits inside these
groups your solving speed increases I think. So it won't be wrong to think that they are like
catalysts for complete solving process for a grid. Classical sudokus and variants have different
constraints which limit the possibilities for a single cell and with the help of renban group contraints
these possibilities become more restricted. These are my thoughts about renban groups.

all puzzlers for participating. I want to congratulate also Rishi, Fred and Jakub H. for topping
Really well done.

Thanks to LMI for hosting this competition, Bastien VIAL-JAIME (aka Ours brun) for test-solving the grids (and also amazing timing), David Millar for designing this very nice logo which fits well for the renban concept. I also want to thank Deb Mohanty for all kinds of support and help about the test.

Regards,

Zafer

Edited by zhergan 2010-11-15 12:46 PM

Zafer,

Thank you for producing a beautiful set of puzzles. I found the logical process of solving these very original. Also rather slow compared to many others, but it was thoroughly enjoyable. It was nice to have some rarely seen (by me) Sudoku ideas like Diagonally Non-consecutive and Argyle take their place in this contest. Congratulations to setter, testers and speedy solvers.

I have to say that I didn't like the new results page. Too much of a tease for my liking. I'd rather know nothing (apart from my own score) until the contest is over or else see all the scores like before.

David McNeill.