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?	Renban - Palindrome (50-50) Sudoku
Of the puzzles you solved/attempted, how well did the point values reflect the difficulty?	Most puzzles were worth the right amount

A well-balanced set with the right mix of hard and easy Sudokus. I found the Killer-Little Killer hybrid tougher than the Renban-Palindrome one.

Thanks Kumaresan for the wonderful set!

Thanks for a test.
Somehow I found the 4-point classics harder than the 8-point classics.
The Linked portion was very nice, I thought the Overlap 2 was probably undervalued because there was so much to fill in.
The Hybrids were really fun. The 50/50 nature of the Renban/Palindrome made it really prone to guessing.
So I agree with a lot of comments that the Little Killer/Killer was harder - because it is difficult to bifurcate around such a wide open grid.
Nonetheless, the 9x9 Little Killer/Killer was beautiful and I'm glad to have found what I think is the intended solution path.

I would like to extend further thanks and congratulations to LMI and the authors who ran this year's SM.
Looking forward to future years.

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?	Linked Sudoku
Of the puzzles you solved/attempted, how well did the point values reflect the difficulty?	Most puzzles were worth the right amount

Extremely elated to have finished SM on a positive note.

For some reason, I decided to start with the Killer Little Killer (after finishing the 6x6 KLK) and could't get the logical start for about 14 minutes.I stopped it and decided not to 'risk' at this point to go to the Renban Palindrome and waste more time. Instead, I hungrily lapped all other points available from rest of the sudokus.

At the end, I had 30 minutes to get LK(14) and both the RP. Another hard look for about 4 minutes yielded nothing in the KLK. I went to the RP and finished the 6X6 with ease.With the clock ticking down, I decided to guess,if needed, very early in Renban palindrome and after 2 guesses and contradictions, I got the logical flow and finished it.

KLK seemed insurmountable until I saw the absolutely devilish piece of logic involving 12 in Boxes 7&8. Even after that, the sudoku wasn't budging and I guessed,got a contradiction and moved on with the logical possibility and finished.

To sum up, this round was a rugged ride and anything but smooth but I enjoyed solving the set very much.Will be trying out both KLK and RP later to find the logical paths.

Thanks to Kumaresan for a beautfiful hybrid round with absolutely fantastic & handcrafted solvepaths and to Rakesh who has been the pillar for organizing SM and PR rounds !!

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?	Killer - Little Killer Sudoku
Of the puzzles you solved/attempted, how well did the point values reflect the difficulty?	Most puzzles were worth the right amount

It was great test. I could not solve Killer-Little Killer during the test. I solved it off line and enjoyed it. It was very logical and nicely constructed Sudoku which makes it my favorite in this test.

Nice set of Sudokus. It was fun solving. LKL (9x9) was too tough..........should have been assigned more points.
I had made a claim on 6x6 Killer-Little Killer. When can I expect the result of that???

It was resolved at 10:50 pm today

Congratulations to Prasanna Seshadri, Tiit Vunk and Kota Morinishi for taking the top three places.

Thanks to the 304 participants from 39 countries. Shambo Debnath (India) was the first to start the test and Jhonny Cruz (Peru) was the last person to start the test. 30 participants completed the set within the allotted time, and 283 participants (93.09%) scored non-zero points. The median score of the test was 52.

Top 3 for countries with 10+ participants:

India(104): Rohan Rao, Kishore Kumar and Pranav Kamesh (2nd-4th)
Japan(21): Takuya Sugimoto, Hideaki Jo and Endo Ken (2nd-4th)
USA (19): Walker Anderson, Jenna Rivet and Todd Geldon
Italy(18): Chiara Nuzio, Giullia Cossutti and Laura Tarchetti
France (14): Timothy Doyle, Anne Limoges and Yannick Meyapin
Germany(12): Michael Ley, Robert Vollmert and Martin Merker
Poland(12): Tomasz Strozak, Anna Wasowska and Judyta Stepaniuk
Slovakia (10): Jaroslav Grajciar, Veronika Kolvekova and Natalia Chanova

Thanks R Kumaresan for the sudokus!

Participants may share feedback on the results page and rate the puzzles on the contest page.

What was your opinion of the distribution of easy/hard puzzles?	Too many medium difficult puzzles
What did you think about the puzzle quality of the test?	Fairly Nice
Which set of puzzles did you like the most?	Odd Even - 2Odd2Even Sudoku
Of the puzzles you solved/attempted, how well did the point values reflect the difficulty?	Many puzzles were worth too much or too little

At the outset I thank one and all who participated in the contest.

Most of the participants were happy with 50-50 concept, which was introduced in ASC2020 (Asian Sudoku Championship).

At the same time most of the contestants found the Killer-Little Killer 9x9 hard. In that puzzle a very simple logic (12) was kept in boxes 7-8-9 but it was unnoticed by most participants, which was surprising to me. If you haven’t put 4 in r8c2 then you will not have any logic path in this puzzle. After putting 4 in r8c2 then in box9 14 cage in row7, 86 can be eliminated and you can put 95 there.

In the left side little killer there is 19 and 31...both are sum of all maximum possibility of the cells. After the above, in box1 10 cage in row3 will be 1 and 9 as it is the only possibility.

Congrats to the top 3 ranked Indians as well as in the overall category.

Kumaresan.R

What did you think about the puzzle quality of the test?	Fairly Nice
Which set of puzzles did you like the most?	Odd Even - 2Odd2Even Sudoku
Of the puzzles you solved/attempted, how well did the point values reflect the difficulty?	Most puzzles were worth the right amount

Hi all ! We have added a video on the KLK solve in our Youtube channel : Unshackling Sudokus & Puzzles.
Do watch the video and please subscribe to the channel if you are interested in seeing more of such videos.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Nu9bNdSNiGk  

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?	Killer - Little Killer Sudoku
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 distribution of easy/hard puzzles?	Just right
What did you think about the puzzle quality of the test?	Fairly Nice
Which set of puzzles did you like the most?	Classic Sudoku
Of the puzzles you solved/attempted, how well did the point values reflect the difficulty?	Most puzzles were worth the right amount

Hello everyone ! Added a follow-up video to the above one .
The following video covers the Renban Palindrome (highest pointer) from the same round. Do check out.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=onfB6JyCW58

Please share sudoku booklet without password for leisure solving or share the password in the downloads section

Please try now.