Purpose

LMI has been running monthly contests for a long time now, but we have had little success in attracting many Indian players. During the Time Sudoku Championship, we had a chance to interact with many Sudoku lovers, and we realize that there are 2 main problems for which many Indian players do not seriously participate in these monthly tests. 1) Most of the variants are new to them 2) Sudokus are in general tougher than what they have solved in news papers.
Keeping these in mind, we decided to start "LMI Beginners' Sudoku Contests" - where our target participants are players who have mostly solved Classic sudokus in the past. These contests will be held once a month, and will contain mostly easy / medium level Sudokus.

Round Structure

We will start with 2 rounds per contest, exactly the same way the Qualifying rounds were held in different cities.
Each round will be of 30 minutes and 30 points. (Edit : Changed to 40 minutes each round)
First round will have 4 Classics.
Second round will have 4 variations.
As mentioned above, Sudokus will be much easier and we expect many players to get bonus points (which will be 1 point per every minute saved if all 4 Sudokus are correct). This will be computed upto seconds.
Every month 2 variations will be repeated from last month, and 2 new variations will be introduced.
The contest will open for one week, so that players can participate at their own comfort.

Difficulty of Sudokus

We will target to have 75% easy Sudokus and 25% medium level Sudokus. The timing of 40 minutes is set such that most solvers will be able to solve at least 75% of the Sudokus, and good solvers can certainly aim for time bonus.

Frequency

We'll run one contest once every month, till end of this year.
Beginning 2013, we will review if we need to increase / decrease the frequency.

What about top Solvers?

Any solver with a LMI rating of 500+ will have their own target to match. For example, a solver with LMI rating 800 will be expected to solve all sudokus with 15 minutes bonus in each round. Details will be available in the Instruction booklet when we release.

Suggestion - Keep a target for everyone, including newcomers, so that everyone has something to play for.

This is a very good initiative. I think this will improve my Sudoku solving skills.

Regards,
Ravi

How can you keep a target for everyone? We would have no clue about the skills of newcomers. And if a newcomer does not achieve her/his target, there is disappointment for the player which is exactly what we have to avoid.

In fact, we can keep it open for longer, so that more players can submit all sudokus. Completing all sudokus within time certainly gives pleasure and I don't see any reason why we cannot have 100 players submitting before time. The time-stamp will anyway separate them with ranks.

1) Lets try to replicate the same model we had in Times Sudoku Championship.
2) I'm not exactly for keeping it open for longer period. The competitiveness might die.

Like the topic start says, ratings. By newcomers I didn't necessarily mean people who're participating for the very first time.

About keeping it open longer, I think we must balance competitiveness with interest in solving. So, I suggest some way of keeping the submissions and grading open for the duration of the contest even after the half an hour, unofficially, just to know if the person has solved it right.

Edited by prasanna16391 2012-07-19 3:47 PM

PERFECT FORMAT.....we may add 6x6 sprints also in some of the rounds...maybe later on

Edited by neerajmehrotra 2012-07-20 11:34 AM

how to register for lmi begineers sudoku....
and when is the test

Edited by mahaveer 2012-07-20 12:29 PM

No special registrations required. As long as you are a member here you can participate. The test will be held at the end of each month and this month's will be announced soon.

Edited by prasanna16391 2012-07-20 1:06 PM

is their any prize for the winner or it's just for practice .......

NO PRIZES......it is only for practice.....

Practice, fun, thrill of competition. ;)

That is a good question in my opinion. Why should someone participate every month?

I hope you were not expecting any monetary prize. LMI struggles to pay for running this website itself.

no problem,i am still an LMI fan & will participate every month.

good initiative

Great initiative... i too was confident before the contest.. but reality is different from newspaper sudokus and Nokia's 100 sudokus!!

agree with you

giving participants a decent target to achieve in general would help them to ipmrove and on achieving the target, they would be motivated to participate again

Great Initiative...Even though i used to have time to attend the contest, but sheer time that was needed to be spent in familiarising with the variants & working out the strategies prevented me from writing them. This will make things a lot easier.
Perhaps, u can also continue to have the previous monthly tests but with lesser frequency (once in three months)....

Just to clarify, the monthly tests will continue to exist as earlier (i.e. once a month, with no change in format). That has a different set of audience.
And we expect that "beginners" start participating in monthly tests after they feel more comfortable, in due course of time.

Edited by debmohanty 2012-07-23 10:14 AM

wen r the july ones starting??

Last week of July (25th to 31st July)

will round2 be immediately after round 1?? n what is the difficulty level of sudokus given in the above link i.e. http://logicmastersindia.com/BeginnersSudoku/types/201207.asp

Round2 can be taken later, even on another day. In fact you can choose to take Round2 before Round1.
The difficulty level of the examples is easy. Can someone else please confirm?

Edited by Organisers 2012-07-24 2:25 PM