That is an interesting observation. Not sure if Prasanna designed it that way.

Puzzles were nice. Alas, I was hung up on the Frame Sudoku for quite a while due to my own silliness (when you need 2 pairs for a 7-sum, don't pick 2+6 and 3+5 :))

Hi :)
I'm new to LMI
I prefer to solve online but I'm not familiar with your online interface, can you please tell me how can I delete a pencil mark?
I tried "Delete" and "Backspace" and none of them can delete a pencil mark :p

For removing a pencil mark, you can press Ctrl+digit or Ctrl+leftClick. Its given in the "How to Submit?" section of the submissions page. :)

Thank you :)
found the point and solved the test online last night :D

Disappointed in my performance in part one. Decided to give it a try after getting my 10-month old to bed, and he of course woke up 30 minutes into the thing. Having to shoo the neighbor's cat off a couple of times didn't help. Oh well. Guess I may eventually learn not to do these when I'm the responsible caretaker. :)

Beginners' Contest February is over. DavidCollison, Bram28 and Tokeiya take the top spots among the Beginners. f4han, Timothy and Gotroch take the top 3 Seasoner spots with some incredible times as always. Congratulations to all the winners.

This Beginners' Contest had a high participation of 318, among which 135 are beginners.

This was the first Beginners' Contest where I contributed as an author, and as I still needed work on my Classic side, Deb kindly agreed to contribute that half and came through with some high quality classics. As for the variants, I feel Frame Sudoku can be an inherently difficult type, because a lot of it involves triplet-thinking, and so I tried to make the other variants on the easy side. This particular Frame sudoku has a tricky few steps around the 3rd box, but otherwise its pretty smooth. Its important to note the hidden sums too in Frames, and there were a few helpful ones here, like the hidden 24 in row 1 for example. Anyway, I hope everyone enjoyed both the classics and the variants.

Thank you all for participating!

Thank you to you, Deb and the other organisers for a very enjoyable contest. Finding a Windoku as the Extra Regions puzzle was a pleasant surprise. I found the Frame puzzle heavy going for a while, but it really taught me the value of triplet-thinking as you mention : in general when dealing with variants, it's normally helpful to also remember to apply the basics such as rows, columns and blocks summing to 45 (including the middle block in this case).

David

If I read the Renban rules correctly, a line which is a closed loop in a 3x3 block is impossible (since consecutive digits in a block must be a chain, which cannot possibly close as a loop). What am I missing?

Please note that order of digits inside the line does not matter.

Passwords removed from booklets.

About one month ago, Deb came to me with idea to prepare Variants for March test.
I usually don't make sudokus (and puzzles), but in last few months I created some sudokus and puzzles and decided to confirm to Deb.
I have some troubles and errors during test preparation, but at the end I'm glad that I succeeded to finish sudokus for test.
Deb, thank you!

One of the Variants (Renban) left from sudokus I created for Serbian round of WPF Grand Prix (Nikola, Cedomir and Zoran made rest), so I use a chance to invite all of you to play also in about two weeks from now.

Branko

Beginners' Contest March is over.

Congrats to nyoroppyi (Japan), dp_94 (India) and affpuzz (USA) for achieving the top positions.

Among the seasoners, janoslaw (Poland), Timothy (France) and Gotroch (Czech Republic) lead the standings.

Thanks to Branko Ceranic for authoring an enjoyable set of Sudokus.

On a personal note, the Frame and then the Renban were my favorites. I'm quite surprised at a top 10 finish, I didn't think it went all that well while solving. Looking forward to the Serbian GP now :)

June Beginners' Sudoku Contest started.
Here are the links
Submission : http://logicmastersindia.com/BeginnersSudoku/
Score page : http://logicmastersindia.com/BeginnersSudoku/score.asp

hi....i am not able to start the test....please guide as to how to enter the championship

If you haven't yet, go on the Submission link given by the Admin above your post, and click on "How to participate?" on that page. If you've read through that and done everything thats written there and you still face problems, let us know and we'll look into it.

Yes i went through that but I am not able to see a "Start Classics" or "Start Variants" button as suggested in step 2...

Yes i went through that but I am not able to see a "Start Classics" or "Start Variants" button as suggested in step 2...

We can't see anything wrong at our end, and your profile's Country field is empty, so you've not done Step 1 completely. Do remember that if you are participating for the first time, filling out the Country field is mandatory.

Hi e1...
I am not sure if its on my end or not, but i cannot access the variant Sudoku?
I see the 'start classic' button and under it is 'You have completed Classics'...
Thanks in advance for ur help

If you are on the submission link given above, you will see somewhere around the top, "Click here for Variants", containing the link to the variants page.

Here is the link for variants : http://logicmastersindia.com/BeginnersSudoku/?Part=V