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Administrator
Posts: 3567
   
Country : India | Contest extended
Due to the issues with the site, the contest has been extended by 48 hours.
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shankarsudhir
Posts: 6
Country : India | Just wanted to confirm if the deadline for the test has been extended by an extra two days ? |
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AndreyBogdanov
Posts: 44
Country : Russia | | How well did the variants represent the theme of the test ? | variations represented the theme well | | | What was your opinion of the distribution of easy/hard puzzles? | Too many easy puzzles | | | What did you think about the puzzle quality of the test? | Fairly Nice | | | Which set of puzzles did you like the most? | Summed Snake | | | Of the puzzles you solved/attempted, how well did the point values reflect the difficulty? | Many puzzles were worth too much or too little | | | What was your opinion of the booklet formatting and printing? | Just right | |
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AndreyBogdanov
Posts: 44
Country : Russia |
Thank you. Sorry, I didn't understand, that I can click on the "Timing" word. Edited by AndreyBogdanov 2015-12-28 9:02 PM
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Administrator
Posts: 3567
Country : India | shankarsudhir - 2015-12-28 8:20 PM
Just wanted to confirm if the deadline for the test has been extended by an extra two days ? That is right. |
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bob
Posts: 59
Country : United States | bob posted @ 2015-12-28 10:43 PM | How well did the variants represent the theme of the test ? | variations represented the theme well | | | What was your opinion of the distribution of easy/hard puzzles? | Too many hard puzzles | | | What did you think about the puzzle quality of the test? | Fairly Nice | | | Which set of puzzles did you like the most? | Graffiti Snake | | | Of the puzzles you solved/attempted, how well did the point values reflect the difficulty? | Most puzzles were worth too much or too little | | | What was your opinion of the booklet formatting and printing? | Just right | |
Well, that was annoying. I'll be honest, I have never cared much for snake puzzles--too much intuition (=bifurcation for me ). I solved all of the grafitti snake puzzles, which seem the most logical. I did the first three regular snakes. I wasted about 30 minutes on the last one but never got the right combination of turns. I then wasted about 30 minutes on the first "easy" toroidal snake and got nowhere. Summed snake--all the "fun" of trial and error combined with lots of arithmetic? No thanks, and there was no time anyway. Ugh, thoroughly frustrating and now I dislike snake puzzles more than ever. To those that can magically do these, kudos to you! |
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AndreyBogdanov
Posts: 44
Country : Russia | Summed snake--all the "fun" of trial and error combined with lots of arithmetic? For my opinion summed was most logical puzzles in this contest. |
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BohemianCoast
Posts: 16
Country : United Kingdom | I'm feeling a tiny bit hard done by because I started the contest, the site crashed almost immediately (as I was entering my first answer) and didn't come back until long after my 90 minutes were up. No worries really; I'm rubbish at Snake puzzles anyway. |
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Bram28
Posts: 35
Country : The Netherlands | Bram28 posted @ 2015-12-29 2:49 AM Not a good time for my printer to refuse printing ... had to do them all by hand. Oh well! Nice puzzles anyway!! |
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prasanna16391
Posts: 1864
Country : India | Bram28 - 2015-12-29 2:49 AM
Not a good time for my printer to refuse printing ... had to do them all by hand. Oh well! Nice puzzles anyway!!
Interesting. If my printer had issues I'd just do this on MS Paint. In fact, I was debating with myself about solving this round on paint because I actually thought I'd be faster, but then I thought solving on paper will help me more with offline competitions and went with that. Still, I personally think Snake is a puzzle which can be done with the fill option on paint. The only variant from the contest for which I'd say its better on paper is Summed Snake. Our notations while solving the puzzle probably differ though. |
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Pratyu2812
Posts: 5
Country : India | Taking basic snakes puzzle , when there are numbers outside the box, say 5 , what I generally do is find combinations : 2+3/ 3+2, 4+1/1+4 and find similar combinations with other rows/columns and with trial and error fit it in.
Is there any other logical way to work around? Maybe knowing this will help me with other puzzles too. |
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swaroop2011
Posts: 668
Country : India | Pratyu2812 - 2015-12-29 8:28 AM
Taking basic snakes puzzle , when there are numbers outside the box, say 5 , what I generally do is find combinations : 2+3/ 3+2, 4+1/1+4 and find similar combinations with other rows/columns and with trial and error fit it in.
Is there any other logical way to work around? Maybe knowing this will help me with other puzzles too.
Yes, there are quite a few ways or few places to look for.
For classic snakes,
1 ) Look where the head of snake can move
2 ) Look where the tail of snake can move
3 ) Look for Big number clues
4 ) Look for group of clues together in adjacent rows.
Of course most of solvers , visualize an rough sketch of path as well. But for this contest at least, you don't need that, it moves logically all puzzles.
But in generally knowing these techniques is not enough, but applying it. So in particular if you face any issues for any puzzle, post that and puzzlers here will help you through solving it. |
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anithra
Posts: 5
Country : India | anithra posted @ 2015-12-29 2:31 PM First timer . Will the solutions be posted?. |
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swaroop2011
Posts: 668
Country : India | anithra - 2015-12-29 2:31 PM
First timer . Will the solutions be posted?.
yes , after the test is over. |
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Hotel
Posts: 11
Country : Japan | Hotel posted @ 2015-12-29 2:42 PM | How well did the variants represent the theme of the test ? | variations represented the theme well | | | What was your opinion of the distribution of easy/hard puzzles? | Just right | | | What did you think about the puzzle quality of the test? | Very nice | | | Which set of puzzles did you like the most? | Graffiti Snake | | | Of the puzzles you solved/attempted, how well did the point values reflect the difficulty? | Most puzzles were worth the right amount | | | What was your opinion of the booklet formatting and printing? | Just right | |
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anithra
Posts: 5
Country : India | anithra posted @ 2015-12-29 2:52 PM Great!. Thank you. |
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Hotel
Posts: 11
Country : Japan | Hotel posted @ 2015-12-29 5:01 PM In this test, I think toroidal snake is most difficult. In particular I couldn't find even the first step of two puzzles on page 6. Anyone knows how to start? |
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debmohanty
Posts: 1868
Country : India | Hotel - 2015-12-29 5:01 PM
In this test, I think toroidal snake is most difficult. In particular I couldn't find even the first step of two puzzles on page 6. Anyone knows how to start?
We are planning to document steps for as many puzzles in this contest, but that will take a while.
In the mean time, here are the steps for Toroidal - 3 (9X9 )
(Logic and images from Prasanna )
| Step 1 : The snake can not turn left from R2C2 because of the 7 clue of column 3. |  | | Step 2 : Since column 2 acts like a border, column 1 will have 5 contiguous cells. We can mark 4 of them. |  | | Step 3 : Column 9 has 2 snake cells. They can not be any of rows 1,2,3 |  | | Step 4 : Considering the 2 clue of Row4 and 2 clue of column 9, the snake can not go to R4C1 from R5C1. Instead it must turn and go to R5C9, and then further to R5C8. |  | Step 5 : The snake must go to R9C9 from R9C1, and then further to R9C8.
Also, only one of R1C3 and R3C3 can be a snake cell. There will be remaining 5 snake cells in column 3. Since column 2 acts as a border, these 5 cells have to be contiguous |  | | Step 6 : No more snake cells in row 7. Only one way to put the remaining 2 cells in row 6. |  | | Step 7 : Minor book-keeping should lead to the final solution. |  |
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Hotel
Posts: 11
Country : Japan | Hotel posted @ 2015-12-29 7:56 PM debmohanty - 2015-12-29 6:47 PM
Hotel - 2015-12-29 5:01 PM
In this test, I think toroidal snake is most difficult. In particular I couldn't find even the first step of two puzzles on page 6. Anyone knows how to start?
We are planning to document steps for as many puzzles in this contest, but that will take a while.
In the mean time, here are the steps for Toroidal - 3 (9X9 )
Thanks a lot! It's really useful for me to learn some techniques.
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puzzlemad
Posts: 28
Country : United Kingdom | Thanks. As always an enjoyable set - and no answer key mistakes from me either |
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kiwijam
Posts: 187
Country : New Zealand | kiwijam posted @ 2015-12-30 3:55 AM prasanna16391 - 2015-12-29 12:10 PM
Interesting. If my printer had issues I'd just do this on MS Paint. In fact, I was debating with myself about solving this round on paint because I actually thought I'd be faster, but then I thought solving on paper will help me more with offline competitions and went with that. Still, I personally think Snake is a puzzle which can be done with the fill option on paint. The only variant from the contest for which I'd say its better on paper is Summed Snake. Our notations while solving the puzzle probably differ though.
I did the first couple of classics in Paint while I waited for the printer to print (which is why I had a wrong submission, I didn't colour in the first tail cell specifically and thought it was empty when entering the answer key...! )
But I think all of Horse, Toroidal and Summed benefit from extra notation (Toroidal especially, I like to replicate the cells on the far sides of the grid to better visualize what the snake is doing ) so decided that paper solving was best. |
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prasanna16391
Posts: 1864
Country : India | kiwijam - 2015-12-30 3:55 AM
prasanna16391 - 2015-12-29 12:10 PM
Interesting. If my printer had issues I'd just do this on MS Paint. In fact, I was debating with myself about solving this round on paint because I actually thought I'd be faster, but then I thought solving on paper will help me more with offline competitions and went with that. Still, I personally think Snake is a puzzle which can be done with the fill option on paint. The only variant from the contest for which I'd say its better on paper is Summed Snake. Our notations while solving the puzzle probably differ though.
I did the first couple of classics in Paint while I waited for the printer to print (which is why I had a wrong submission, I didn't colour in the first tail cell specifically and thought it was empty when entering the answer key...! )
But I think all of Horse, Toroidal and Summed benefit from extra notation (Toroidal especially, I like to replicate the cells on the far sides of the grid to better visualize what the snake is doing ) so decided that paper solving was best.
Ah, I forgot about Toroidal. I'm generally just good with those without replicating the cells, and it was the same here. |
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An LMI player
| An LMI player posted @ 2015-12-30 6:06 PM | How well did the variants represent the theme of the test ? | variations represented the theme well | | | What was your opinion of the distribution of easy/hard puzzles? | Too many hard puzzles | | | What did you think about the puzzle quality of the test? | Average | | | Which set of puzzles did you like the most? | Horse Snake | | | Of the puzzles you solved/attempted, how well did the point values reflect the difficulty? | Most puzzles were worth the right amount | | | What was your opinion of the booklet formatting and printing? | Just right | |
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An LMI player
| An LMI player posted @ 2015-12-31 5:46 AM | How well did the variants represent the theme of the test ? | variations represented the theme well | | | What did you think about the puzzle quality of the test? | Fairly Nice | | | Which set of puzzles did you like the most? | Summed Snake | | | Of the puzzles you solved/attempted, how well did the point values reflect the difficulty? | Most puzzles were worth the right amount | | | What was your opinion of the booklet formatting and printing? | Just right | |
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Administrator
Posts: 3567
Country : India | |
@ 2015-12-28 7:41 PM (#20395 - in reply to #20267) (#20395) Top