Heartfelt thanks to organisers, authors, testers and all those responsible for putting together a brilliant event.I really enjoyed the 2 day event.Right after seeing the IB for both ISC and IPC, I realized that this year is much more rich, varied and diverse in content.The content of all rounds were meticulously designed and just seeing the IB was a pleasure ! In fact, both events looked like miniature versions of WSC and WPC respectively to me !

It's unfortunate that a round had to be scrapped again like previous year due to a printing error.This was the only blemish in an otherwise flawless event.The sudokus and puzzles in the contest were a treat due to a blend of quality foreign authors like Bram, Tawan, Nikola, Jan Novotny for sudokus and Walker coming together for puzzles with Indian authors like Rakesh, Akash and Ashish decide to piece together the contest rounds.They were an absolute treat to solve and I only wish the next year turns out to be even better.I had a fantastic experience at the ISC/IPC Kolkata.Thanks once again !!

Thanks to the Organisers,Authors and all the Puzzle Testers for a well conducted event.As Kishore has said,The IB itself felt quite rich and looked to be challenging.And as expected,the Puzzles were of great quality,markedly higher than last year's events.But the printing error in Round 4 was a bad mistake to make,considering the fact that there was an error even last year which led to the round being discarded.Rounds getting discarded 2 years in a row is just unacceptable,and quite irritating to take in,this one being more so because I had done quite well in it,and also because of it being the round with most points up for grabs.This,and my subsequent ousting from the top 4, put a dampener on my experience,but regardless,the rest of the event went very well and was enjoyable.Also,My congratulations to the Top 4 of both ISC and IPC.

Thanks,and See you again next year.

Edited by pranavmanu 2019-07-24 10:40 AM

- Some of us left in a hurry, and didn’t get a chance to thank the organisers, myself included. Kudos to Akash, Ashish, Rakesh, Sumit (and all other authors, testers, organisers and volunteers) for donning the organisers’ hat and making the event successful. I particularly enjoyed the IPC, one of the best in the last 10 years. And as always it was wonderful to meet the puzzle community in India and hope this grows in the coming years.

- I discussed with some people that we could have the Saturday evening plan as part of the event schedule, where the organisers can arrange some space for board games and casual socialising. We anyway end up doing it every year and if it is arranged, it will be very convenient and can also encourage more people to be part of it. It is also one of the best times to interact with some of the new participants.

- This year we didn’t have a round of introductions before starting the event. I know 80-90% are common, but I think it’s a good simple and short 15-min session where we all get to say something about ourselves and get to know each person by name.

- It’s unfortunate that a round had to be cancelled last two years (for very different reasons). In case it helps, Deb followed a strict rule that AFTER the final PB is prepared, it would be printed and test solved by a tester and only after that do the final printing. That helps in formatting issues (like last page puzzles) and printing errors. Of course, only if time permits.

- I think the SM/PR playoffs and CSM/PZ events are wonderful and should continue. The size of the flex puzzles were very appropriate this time but maybe using thinner markers would be better. The large grids on flex in some of the previous years is inconvenient.
This is feedback from the folks who solved on flex since I didn’t.

- The venue hall was good, especially considering the change. Better than last year.

- Lastly (and this is personal, can be ignored) I vote for ISPC and not IPSC for no particular reason except that it mimics the WSPC order :-)

Classic Sudoku Master 2019 Video can be seen at
https://youtu.be/FzkNTLi58Dw