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?	Classic Sudoku

A terrible round to cap off what has in my opinion, been the worst SM in history.

The target distribution of difficulty is nowhere close to being achieved.At every point,I faced a stumbling block,which is something i have never experienced before in an SM round,and which i dont expect to experience as well

Even a GP round seems to be more approachable than these tests,which is appalling.

Apart from all this,Disappointed with my own showing as well.

This is the first time ,I have wanted to stop solving and quit the test after just 45 mins. I had to force myself to regain focus and complete the test.

Really sorry to say,Ashish,but that was my experience.

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?	Toroidal Sudoku
Of the puzzles you solved/attempted, how well did the point values reflect the difficulty?	Most puzzles were worth the right amount

Wonderful Set of Puzzles. Well thought theme throughout the round. I can imagine the efforts put into designing every sudoku and entire round. Well done.
I didn't expect it will go so well for me. Although puzzles were hard, I do like Irregular sudoku.
At the same time, I believe that, fixing the theme restricts the difficuilty level for the puzzle sometimes, so that might be the case that it turned out to be so many hard puzzles.
Enjoyed a lot.
Thanks Ashish and LMI.

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?	Fairly Nice
Which set of puzzles did you like the most?	Toroidal Sudoku
Of the puzzles you solved/attempted, how well did the point values reflect the difficulty?	Most puzzles were worth the right amount

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?	Scattered Sudoku
Of the puzzles you solved/attempted, how well did the point values reflect the difficulty?	Most puzzles were worth the right amount

It was a really nice round. In my opinion it was the best one this year. For me the best sudoku was the scattered 9x9 and for 6x6 it was toroidal.

I didnt expect to solve this much considering lack of practice for quite some time. first time i didn't get stuck in syscraper 9x9. Even though it was mixed with outside, it still is the variant i fear the most. The others were really amqzing too like row sum extra region 6x6 and the classic 5. I think it deserved few more points. And also for one diagonal - disjoint 9x9 should have been around 10 and for row sum-extra region it should have been 13

Lastly the placing of numbers being almost the same in all 9x9 variants was excellent.

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?	Toroidal Sudoku
Of the puzzles you solved/attempted, how well did the point values reflect the difficulty?	Most puzzles were worth the right amount

The best SM round of the year by far.
Wonderful puzzles Ashish! Thanks a lot.

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?	Irregular Sudoku
Of the puzzles you solved/attempted, how well did the point values reflect the difficulty?	Most puzzles were worth too much or too little

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?	Average
Which set of puzzles did you like the most?	One Diagonal-Disjoint Sudoku

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?	Row Sum-Extra Region Sudoku
Of the puzzles you solved/attempted, how well did the point values reflect the difficulty?	Most puzzles were worth the right amount

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?	Irregular Sudoku
Of the puzzles you solved/attempted, how well did the point values reflect the difficulty?	Most puzzles were worth too much or too little

Nice sudokus Ashish!
Although, I think that by preserving the theme, some puzzles turn out to be a tad too difficult.
The hybrids were very creative and made good use of the two rules.
In general, a nice test :)

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?	One Diagonal-Disjoint Sudoku
Of the puzzles you solved/attempted, how well did the point values reflect the difficulty?	Most puzzles were worth the right amount

I like hybrid variations although I am slow to solve it.
About Disjoint variation rules:
No digit can appear in the same position in different x boxes.
I always have known this variation as Sudoku DG (Disjoint Groups), and rule is described as: cells at same relative position in regions form another additional region. Essentially, is the same concept but perhaps I think is more understandable.
In this case, 6x6 sudoku have 6 regular regions, plus 6 disjoint and a diagonal, total 13 regions. And 9x9 have 9 regular regions, 9 disjoint and 1 diagonal , total 19 regions. So many restrictions !
I think that Ashish did a good work with this set of sudokus.
Thanks Ashish.

Congratulations to Tiit Vunk, Tantan Dai and Kota Morinishifor taking the top 3 places.

Among Indian participants, Congratulations to Rishi Puri, Rohan Rao and Kishore Kumar for taking the top 3 places.

Ondrej Motlicek (Czech Republic)was the first to start the test while Fernando Almazán (Spain) was the last person to start the test. The median score of the test was 41.

15 participants completed the set within the allotted time. Special mention for Sinchai Rungsangrattanakul (Thailand) and Wang Weifan (China) who got to 100 with just 3 and 9 seconds remaining respectively.

Thanks Ashish Kumar for the puzzles!

Participants may share feedback on the results page and rate the puzzles on the contest page.

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?	One Diagonal-Disjoint Sudoku
Of the puzzles you solved/attempted, how well did the point values reflect the difficulty?	Most puzzles were worth the right amount

The best and fitting final round of SM this year. The theme was beautifully executed and as has been mentioned by others, might have impacted the difficulty levels at times. Beautifully done Ashish.

Congratulations to Tiit Vunk, Tantan Dai and Kota Morinishi for taking the top 3 places.

Among Indian participants, Congratulations to Rishi Puri, Rohan Rao and Kishore Kumar for taking the top 3 places.

Thanks a lot to Rakesh for helping me out to make this set a successful one.
This was a hard set of SM but many of them noticed that it was due to the theme that i had kept all over the set. All the 9x9 variants had same placement of givens. some of the sudokus were more tougher than the one in the set and I had to tweak it many a times to make it unique and approachable. Irregulars weren't being unique due to the theme and tweaking that also did much of the effort.

Thanks to all who gave this contest and enjoyed the puzzles.

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?	Classic Sudoku
Of the puzzles you solved/attempted, how well did the point values reflect the difficulty?	Most puzzles were worth the right amount

Hi,

Just wondering if you have the password to the SM irregular/hybrids, as it seems there is something wrong with the link to it.

Cheers, Nick

I have the same problem. I can't find the password. If anyone has it, send me a message please.

the password is TheLastRoundIRRHYB

the password is TheLastRoundIRRHYB

There is some problem with the Link. Admin, please fix the link.

This should be fixed now.