To explain my own performance, first if this test had been rated I probably would have unchecked the box. The Putnam (http://www.maa.org/awards/putnam.html) was not the only thing I had to worry about this weekend, and a lot of the types weren't ones I was comfortable with (sudoku? easy as? japanese sums?). Second, if you check my submission times, it was going pretty well, and then I stubbornly refused to skip the dotted snake until I had sunk 50 minutes into it. 420 points in the first hour, 28 in the second.

And since "last 2 world champions" was noted by someone, it seems tarotaro had a similar problem. To his credit, he did finish the dotted snake after his 50 minutes (only one as pointed out above).

Edited by MellowMelon 2011-12-06 10:23 PM

Thank you for a very interesting and challenging set of puzzles. I performed dismally, which wasn't a surprise given how much I'd struggled with the puzzles in the instruction booklet! I'm glad it didn't count for ratings. Even now I have only managed to finish two more sets, so I don't think 150 minutes would have helped me much.

I didn't have the best of solves, but I really haven't had any since coming back from Eger. Maybe I just drained everything there to perform what was above my own expectations/hopes in Eger. I also didn't exactly have the best planning yesterday. I was hoping to be home at 6 and then do some puzzling. I ended up being home at 10, without having had dinner. I had started at the end of the test booklet and 40 minutes in, I still had 0 solved grids and had attempted the last 4 types. So I'm pretty sure if Fred and Matus had seen my progress first hand, they would have stopped worrying about that time about me knocking them out of the top 10/20. This was also the point I thought, "Let's just stop, it's late, I could be doing something productive like sleeping". I eventually managed to work through 6 types completely, although making 2 entry mistakes and 1 solving mistake. I had fun solving the last 80 minutes and they were nice puzzles. Maybe I will be able to puzzle properly again next year.

Sorry, it was not a criticism of your performance, or anybody else performance. It's clear that your level is far better than your rank in this test, and it's also clear that mine is far worse on puzzles than my rank on this test. The circumstances were favorable, so I could make an unexpected rank. I think it'll not happen often, so I'm happy

I wait for a sudoku test to reassure myself completely (or not...).

Fred

Don't worry, I didn't see it as insulting. My (relatively) bad performance is due to my own shortcomings, and your good one deserves praise. But you better believe I'm going to work hard to avoid messing up like this again. :)

I'd love to see some hints on how to solve the dotted snakes. I managed to guess possible solutions to the left two puzzles by now, but I find snakes hard enough to solve without the added interactions between the grids. General snake solving advice would also be appreciated -- I often struggle on those croco snakes that some people throw out in a couple of minutes…

Also, thanks a lot for the test. I loved the concept of the test, and the puzzles that I solved. The puzzles were a bit on the hard side for me, so that guessing instead of staring in places would probably have been a good idea. In the end, I was surprised by how well I placed, since it didn't seem like a good performance. I sunk a lot of time into the Easy as ABC that turned out to be broken in the very end, and never felt fast.

The intended order of solving was starting from bottom right and going clockwise: in that case every single puzzle could be solved uniquely.

Thanks, I got through now. It turns out the two solved grids were ok. I realized some new things about dotted snakes in the process (particularly how they're close to "star battle" in some ways), though I didn't actually manage to prove uniqueness.