Logic Masters India announces July Puzzle Test — Logirace

Author : Matej Uher

Dates : 21^st - 23^rd July

IB and Submission Link : here

RELAY????

The background of Logirace says 'Loops' so I think all are loop based puzzles, and also the title has the word 'race' so I think the timing for the test is also less.

Regards,
Ravi

Edited by macherlakumar 2012-07-14 10:20 PM

Logic Masters India announces July Puzzle Test — Logirace

Author : Matej Uher

Dates : 21^st - 23^rd July

IB and Submission Link : here

I can foresee "more than average" answer key errors in this test, because of the counting of answer key cells/dots being a little different than in most tests.

http://sugarroad.blogspot.jp/2012/07/puzzle-030-dutch-loop-lmi-prac... There's a practice puzzle out there for one of the slightly rarer loop variants on the test.

Hello players,

I have some small notes concerning the test, which I want to tell you

1. In Border loop, every pentomino must be formed by exactly 5 dots
2. The PB will be without examples

And if you have any questions, only ask and I will try to answer them :)

I agree with Rakesh. I think many players would 'naturally' enter answer keys in the 'loop segments' format, especially during the tense moments of entering answer keys as fast as possible.

The answer keys are certainly unconventional.Areas of cell clusters outside the loop could be a possible workaround, but it is very tedious too ?

Thanks for bringing it up. It indeed helps that we discussed this before the test starts, so that we can take corrective action.

We have decided to accept the alternate answer key for all puzzles. The alternate answer key is "Enter the lengths of longest horizontal segments for the marked rows". If there is no horizontal segments, the length is 0. We have used this in many tests in the past, so everyone should be more familiar with this one.
From the IB puzzles, here are the alternate answer key for some puzzles
Masyu - 204
Slitherlink - 311
Corral - 213
Dutch loop - 414

Puzzle will be marked correct if the original answer key or the alternate answer key is entered. You may even opt to enter different kinda of answer keys for different puzzle. (However, it will help you if you stick to one kind of key).

Hope it helps everyone.

Logirace means what puzzle whether is it sudoku because i am interesting to play sudoku competition championship

LMI hosts one puzzle test and one Sudoku test each month. The list can be found here - http://logicmastersindia.com/forum/forums/thread-view.asp?tid=60&st...

Also, at the topic start above, if you click on the logo, you will go to the test page, where if you download the "Instruction Booklet", you will get all the instructions necessary.

If you still have doubts after checking out the IB, feel free to post them.

Some puzzles of the 5 non-Nikoli genres.

http://puzzleparasite.blogspot.nl/2012/07/lmi-practise-logiraces.ht...

"Your timer will start when you click "Start Logirace" — then you will have 100 minutes (including 10 minutes of extra time) to solve and submit your answers."

I saw this mentioned in the Timing section of the Logirace page. But the Instruction Booklet mentions nothing about extra time. Is there point loss in this extra time?

Edited by Para 2012-07-21 4:52 AM

There is no extra time and all that. It is fixed 100 minutes. The submission page is rectified now.

It looks like organizers are still in Copy-Paste mode

About "Claim No Penalty" button :
For every wrong submission, there is Claim No Penalty button. Following types of claims will be accepted
1) Enter answer for puzzle A is entered into puzzle B's box
2) Getting multiple penalties for same wrong answer.

Very nice puzzles, especially country road and dutch loop !

Edited by prasanna16391 2012-07-21 7:50 PM

[deleted - question about scoring that I've already worked out]

Edited by Gareth 2012-07-21 8:50 PM

Thanks for the interesting contest and many enjoyable puzzles. Also, thanks for using instant grading which I really appreciated trying for the first time (Marathon wasn't exactly a good test since it was really a start/end thing only). I certainly appreciated the comfort of knowing I was done with a page of puzzles, but I was a little sloppy in two cases about checking my work. Then again, I think I've lost more points on dotted snakes/loops for the same reason at WPCs/LMIs than any other "easy" type, so my ability to "check" that puzzle seems to consistently fail.

I'll be interested to hear after the test what new comments people thought about instant grading or the penalty system, as I do want to implement it again in my next LMI test.

Edited by motris 2012-07-23 11:03 PM

Thanks for the loop puzzles. I found both Country Roads and both Corrals particularly nice; honestly they were some of the few puzzles I did with logic in my run. I've gone back and found logical solutions to most of them now, but I've not been able to avoid using uniqueness on the hard Masyu, and I can't get much of anywhere on the hard Comet without a guess (albeit a very educated intuitive one).

With all loop puzzles that even included a tapa variation, and an instant grading system to compensate for my out-of-form checking recently, it would have been harder to give me a better gift from a competitive standpoint...


For my feedback on the instant grading system, there is still the major issue of the penalty not being strict enough. When preparing for the test, I made the decision to have the instant grader do all of the checking for me. That choice probably boosted my score a little, even though I had two wrong submissions. There seem to be multiple reasons for introducing an instant grading system, but I don't think one of them was supposed to be to eliminate the need for checking entirely. That is basically what is happening with every instant grading system used by LMI so far. I did the same thing on Marathon, and I should have done it on motris's test last year.

For this test, if you're sticking with the flat penalty, you probably would have needed to go up to 15 or 20 points per mistake before I'd consider doing my own checking. But this penalty is more than the value of several puzzles on the test which is kind of odd. A possible alternative is to have the same 5 point penalty but also reduce the point value of the goofed puzzle if it is solved correctly later. Maybe a third of the original value for each mistake (meaning the puzzle is worth nothing after the 3rd wrong submission).

Thanks for the loop puzzles. I found both Country Roads and both Corrals particularly nice; honestly they were some of the few puzzles I did with logic in my run. I've gone back and found logical solutions to most of them now, but I've not been able to avoid using uniqueness on the hard Masyu, and I can't get much of anywhere on the hard Comet without a guess (albeit a very educated intuitive one).

Just thought I'd copy it since my feelings are exactly the same, only addition being - I liked the Border Loops a lot too.

About Instant grading, another alternative can be, once someone submits a wrong key, the penalty can keep increasing per minute from that point on till the person re-enters the correct key. This way, if its a typo you can correct immediately and not have much of a penalty, but if its a solving error, you'll have to go back on it and the penalty will be proportionately bigger. At a point where the penalty exceeds the points one can give up the puzzle and move to the next one. If you don't submit the puzzle again after the first time, you get no penalty/a flat low penalty for it.

Logirace is now over. Congratulations to MellowMelon, motris and Para for taking the top 3 positions.

Thanks Matej Uher for authoring the test. May be Matej will share his thoughts on his first LMI contest soon.

Indian top 3 are Prasanna, Rohan and Swaroop.

Out of 223 players, 156 players solved at least one puzzle correctly and 153 ended up with positive scores. Thank you all for participating.

Edited by Organisers 2012-07-24 11:22 AM

I was indeed expecting a TVC like result from you on this contest, so I am glad to have achieved at least a runaway second place, even if still clearly not as fast as first. I'm fortunate to have even found any time this weekend to take the test.

On instant grading: My most recent thinking for the penalty is to have it be high, but give solvers one cheap miss. It probably wouldn't work well on a test like this with a 6 point puzzle, but with something like my two value point system, say 20 or 50 per puzzle, I'd say 5 points for first mistake, then 15 points for each subsequent mistake. I think 15 points (~1.5 minutes of test value) is high enough that I would have checked a bit harder before the second very quick resubmit on a still not fully retweaked Dotted loop. Your comment suggests about the same.