The puzzles are very well designed. Thanks a lot Deb.
Though I am not a fan of sudoku I enjoyed the test a lot.
I liked one thing about the test i.e the two variants concept, in usual tests each sudoku is of only one type but in this I guess almost all the variants are covered in such a way, that to solve you need to know both the variants mentioned for each sudoku, thus making everyone to learn more than one variant (atleast in my case) :)

Thanks
Ravi.

Very enjoyable test, although can I put a request in for 6 extra points? I finished the Sequence/Palindrome puzzle early on in the test, but I noticed I hadn't input the answer when I was checking everything at the end. I hurriedly input the answer key and pressed 'submit' with about 6 seconds remaining but I was told that I couldn't submit as the test was over. It hardly makes a difference to my position but at least I will feel my time solving that puzzle wasn't wasted!

Thanks

Rodders

Sudoku A or B is now over. Thank you everyone for taking time to participate. Hope you enjoyed the easy set.

Top 3 : motris (76:04), TiiT (76:16), Fred76 (84:12)
17 other players completed all sudokus correctly before time. Congratulations everyone.

LMI sudokus tests have been bit hard in last few months. Here are the number of players completing all sudokus in last 5 months - May : 0, Jun : 1, Jul : 0, Aug : 0, Sep : 0. So I decided to keep this test bit longer than needed so that many players get a chance to try and complete all sudokus. I am really happy to see that apart from the regular ones, many new players have completed the set.

About the Sudokus : Apart from Odd Even View / Outside view, most sudokus were easy. I think it was possible to find the logic to determine the correct rule for each sudoku. I'm glad that everyone generally liked the concept of A/B, but I felt I could have used more interlinking uses of the rules in some cases to make the grids more interesting. I'm not sure if I could have achieved that without raising the difficulty level. All I can say is, I'm really tempted to write "Sudoku C or D" sometime in the future.

Some stats :
# of participants : 204
# of Non zero scores : 170
# of players submitting all sudokus : 29
# of players getting all sudokus correct : 20
Average time for the 20 players : 102 minutes

3 best buddies get India top 3 positions : Rohan(97:28), Pras and Tejal.

Many thanks to Branko and Rakesh for pre testing the Sudokus. Branko's timing were especially impressive.

Thanks to David Millar for creating the logo.

Looking forward to C or D :D

The fun on the 'A or B' style of solving is to first solve the grid as a normal classic, get as many numbers as possible, and then try to find a contradiction in one of the rules, rather than choosing one and solving until you go wrong or reach the solution. Most of the sudokus were so neatly made. Even/Neighbours and Quadro/MultiTable were phenomenal!

C or D definitely on the cards.

I found half of the grids tough while test solving. However, finding the right variant was mostly easy and elegant.

Looked at the score and noticed that the ratings (as of now) hover between 7.46 and 8.25 for all sudokus - which effectively means that the grids had consistent quality about them and almost all sudokus were highly rated by at least some competitors. Probably this test has the lowest standard deviation ever across grids.

That is a close observation, and you are certainly right that standard deviation is lowest here. Here is top 5 tests with low standard deviations (after we introduced 10-pointer ratings)



Another stat of minor importance : Marked Quadro / Multiplication Table is the first puzzle to be submitted by more than 100 players (125 to be precise), still being 100% correct. The next best was Skyscrapers sudoku (Small) in Logidoku by 81 players.

It looks like you are very strong when you read the rules carefully . You were very close to win a monthly test ! I hope you'll not read WSC' instructions booklet carefully

Thanks for the fun test. Deb, you have accustomed us to magnificent grids, it was still the case this time.
Since November 2010, I had not made such a performance on LMI monthly test. It's very encouraging for next month, even if the truth of the day is not the truth of next day.

Fred

Thanks Fred! It was great test for me, because I didn't do mistakes (like sometimes happens). Also I was able to find the correct rules and solve them without any longer pauses, so It went quickly for me. Only puzzle, I was a bit troubled, was the last one (I'd have liked outside much more), but It was the hardest one in this test anyway. Congrats to you too, Fred, and Thomas, ofcourse. This result means much to me.

Tiit

Deb! Fabulous Test!!! :)
Thoroughly enjoyed solving it, just missed completing an LMI test, was acheivable.

Thanks Deb, that was fun. Even though I made 2 mistakes.

My mistake for puzzle #2 was really dumb though and a bit miraculous. I determined the right rules quickly with the {45} pair in R12C1. Except somehow I continued solving with the opposite rule. And the puzzle also solves uniquely with that rule besides of course that {45} pair. I'm not sure if you were aware of this occurence, but it was somewhat a shocker to find out i got it wrong, till I realised what had happened. then it was more amazement that the puzzle still solved that way.

It was such an easy puzzle, but you and aldentea submitted identical wrong solutions. Both being top players, I kept wondering what could be the problem, but never figured out.
No, I didn't know that it can be solved the other way except that 4/5 pair.

That is just the same as what happened on me!
I'm glad that there exists another player who made such a CRAZY mistake.

Funny mistake !

It should have been worse for you if this "special rule" sudoku had been more difficult. I solve it with this "special rule" and I think the difficulty is roughly the same as the one with original rule.

Thanks Deb, this was really good and, in particular, extremely fun.

A fifth place is rather satisfying considering the number of stupidities I made - and will really have to avoid in one month :

1) trying to solve the Touchy as an Untouch,
2) not noticing that the "2" clue was not the only one on the Skyscraper,
3) spending 30' on the last puzzle ! I guess I was just a bit stressed after having solved the first 11 in less than an hour because I tried it again this morning, and it went well. Stupid.

Puzzles were very nice, including this last one, and really affordable.

Thanks again, and congrats to the toppers !

So, in short, are you trying to say "I missed an easy opportunity to be on the podium"?
Congrats on your best LMI Monthly Test performance

Edited by Rohan Rao 2011-10-06 10:28 AM

Well, you never know, perhaps the top 4 players lost even more time than I did. But indeed I missed an opportunity to do a really good perf in terms of position as well as of timing (I tried again the last puzzle a few days later, and solved it quite easily). Still, 5th is not bad and since a few months I do less mistakes than I used to, so the tendancy remains positive. Thanks and congrats to you too for a good perf !