Congratulations once again for winning. Even Branko is in the LMI podium after a long time.
I find it interesting to see new winners, although motris is always a favorite to win every test he plays having won 7 of the 11 Sudoku tests he has played.

The "Claim Bonus" button is new, and the functionality probably needs few refinements.
But, I'm guessing that you suggest we shouldn't have had partial bonus points in this test.

Our partial bonus system in WSC Philadelphia was tied to a belief that the solver had made an honest effort on any puzzle they had a mistake in. They might have lost the puzzle points for a mistake, but they had spent enough time to get far enough on it. I would certainly lean in this direction. I still think the best system for an online test uses some amount of instant grading and reporting at the moment of claimed bonus which might tell solvers with a typo that they have 1 puzzle wrong and would tell solvers that are done that they are done. No blank (early quitting) submissions would ever make sense in this system but at the same time typos wouldn't void all possible time bonus.

The way "Claim Bonus" was designed would have required Yuhei to enter solutions for all 12 Sudokus. So in effect, the bonus points would have been only if all 12 are correct, OR 11 are correct + 1 is incorrect. However, there is nothing that would have stopped one to enter some dummy answers for the 12^th to claim bonus.

With instant grading not in place yet, one change we could do is authors/organizers can decide whether the wrong answer is an genuine attempt and give bonus points accordingly.

So I was looking back at this comment which seemed weird to me as I thought the check box at the start meant 0's were now counting against solvers (unless they report technical problems). But it seems from looking at some top players that indeed a solver can start a test, not submit any answers, and not impact their rankings. Which is what you are getting at above with how some good solvers don't report on a test they know they are doing bad on. I didn't know submitting no answers equaled a free pass; I don't think it should equal a free pass. Perhaps we should re-explore the purpose of the opt-in box at the start. If players can go about a test to not report their bad days, then the rankings for some will be inflated unfairly. If players don't want to report their scores, they can choose to compete unofficially and then not submit.

I thought the puzzles were well constructed and didn't notice the omission in the puzzle with the mistake.

My only problem with the contest was that the Odd/Even puzzle didn't allow for people solving online to input anything in the boxes around the 9x9 grid. Not being able to input these numbers turned a 11 point grid into a 30+ point grid in difficulty. If the people who printed out the puzzles don't understand where I'm coming from, try solving the puzzle blind-folded so that the puzzle becomes a test of your memory to solve a puzzle rather than a test of using logic.

That is really a bad miss, and I've to blame myself for that.
Extremely sorry about that, and we just have to be more careful in future.

Sorry to ask a bit late and probably not in the best topic, but I have a request. I solved Sudoku City online and found the 'Undo' button quite useful. Unfortunately I clicked on it too many times when solving the Product Sudoku and I got lost which correct numbers I have removed (I was too tired :( ).
Would it be possible to add a 'Redo' button as well or it would be an advantage for online solvers because offline solvers can't 'redo' erased numbers from the 'memory' of the paper?

Edited by wicktroll 2011-08-17 12:27 AM

I'm not sure if "redo" feature is a good idea. Like you, I've a feeling that it will be more advantage to online players.

You should be using different colors, if you bifurcate while solving online.