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?	True or Lie 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?	Average
Which set of puzzles did you like the most?	Fortress 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

Honestly... I spent half of my time decrypting those letters.

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

I took the test online and it was nightmare to solve True or Lie and Substitution puzzles, because when I enter pencilmarks into cells, number 1 was covered by given little digits (letters) so it was very easy to overlook that pencilmark.

What was your opinion of the distribution of easy/hard puzzles?	Just right
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?	Many puzzles were worth too much or too little

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

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

Very nice - thanks!

Favorites:

True or Lie 1
True or Lie 2
Renban 2

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

A very difficult test. It didnt helpthat i broke fortress 9x9 and true lie 9x9 . Also , i was stuck in odd even count for a long time. Could have done better had i not broken the two sudokus. My favourite were Classics , True lie and substitution .

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

Substitution 9x9 looked difficult because of the words but the solve was fairly easier. Not much time was needed for deciphering. Renban 9x9 needed some tough break-ins. Renban 6x6 had some interesting logic behind it. Odd Even Count 9x9 needed some counting in some of the circles. Fortress and True or Lie 9x9 were fairly smooth solves. Most 6x6s were of medium difficulty but the points reflected it.

What was your opinion of the distribution of easy/hard puzzles?	Just right
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

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

A Very challenging test with tough sudokus.Getting stuck or breaking a sudoku can easily cascade one's troubles and lead to well short of finishing a contest.

Thankfully, I had a smooth run and didn't break any sudoku.

My favorites of the set are Odd even count (13), True or Lie (9) and Fortress (8).

Thanks Hemant and Pranav for a tough, engrossing and enjoyable set !!

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?	Odd Even Count 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

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?	Fortress 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

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?	Fortress 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

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

Coming off the Sudoku GP with hard classics - I thought some of these 5-points classics were also quite hard for the usual SM rounds.
I can imagine a lot of people struggling with the Substitution Sudoku - but I kinda like it.
I wasn't sure if all circles were given in the Odd Even Count - maybe future IBs should clarify this.
Not a fan of hard 6x6 variants because it encourages guessing over logically solving it, there's probably a neat path somewhere.

Nice test nonetheless.
Thanks!

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
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 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?	Substitution 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

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

Too hard a set for SM. :) Had to resort to guesswork in a lot of them to finish in time. Puzzle quality was great. :)

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?	Renban 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?	Very nice
Which set of puzzles did you like the most?	True or Lie 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?	Odd Even Count Sudoku
Of the puzzles you solved/attempted, how well did the point values reflect the difficulty?	Most puzzles were worth the right amount

Congratulations to Jakub Ondrousek, World Sudoku Champion Endo Ken and Seung Jae Kwak for taking the top three places. The first and third place winners are the same as in SM1.

Thanks to the 364 participants from 42 countries. Ziyun Qiu (China) was the first to start the test, just 53 seconds after the test started. Taner Karabulut (Turkey) pipped David Collison (United Kingdom) to become the last person to start the test, about 48 seconds before the end. 21 participants completed the set within the allotted time, and 343 participants (94.23%) scored non-zero points. The median score of the test was 39.

Top 3 for countries with 10+ participants:

India(141): Rohan Rao, Kishore Kumar and Rishi Puri
Japan(27): Endo Ken, Kota Morinishi and Hideaki Jo
USA(24): Jason Zuffranieri, William Blatt and Jenna Rivet
Italy(17): Giulia Cossutti, Gabriele Carelli and Daniele Colnaghi
Poland(16): Tomasz Strozak, Piotr Gdowski, Mateusz Przybyla
Germany(15): Michael Ley, Martin Merker and Robert Vollmert
France(14): Timothy Doyle, Yannick Meyapin and Denis Auroux

Among the variants, Fortress was most solved and Odd Even Count was least solved.

Thanks Pranav Kamesh and Hemant Kumar Malani for the sudokus!

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