WPF SUDOKU GRAND PRIX 2013
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Round 6 will take place at http://wpc.puzzles.com/ussq2013/ You must register to participate.
Do you know if you have to print it or if you can solve it beautifully right there? (I haven't bothered to look into it.)
Solving Tips all on kirjas, et The puzzles are designed to be solved on paper, so not printing them will likely not save you any time.
Tundub, et paberil tuleb lahendada kindlasti.
Kui juba Solving Tips lehest juttu tegin, siis kopeerin siia kogu sealse teksti, et oleks kõigile kättesaadav:
Preparation
• Make sure you are familiar with the rules, especially those for procedures, scoring and permissible solving tools.
•Be sure to try the Practice Test, to familiarize yourself with the test procedures, and to discover and resolve any technical problems before the real test.
•Download the Puzzle Instructions file, with sample puzzles, and the two encrypted test files the day before the test. Read the puzzle instructions carefully in advance.
•The 2013 Qualifying Test files will be about 20 printed pages in total, generally one page per puzzle. Make sure your printer has plenty of paper, and ink/toner.
•Establish a clean, spacious, and quiet work area. This should be near your computer so that you can enter answers as you go along. Have all your solving tools handy.
•Your puzzle solving time is precious, so make sure you will have no distractions during the test.
Solving
• After decrypting the test file, print the page you want to solve first, then the rest of the test. The puzzles are designed to be solved on paper, so not printing them will likely not save you any time.
•The point values are a good indicator of the time required to solve the puzzles. More points usually implies a more difficult puzzle, but might mean there is just a lot of work. Puzzles are ordered roughly from easiest to hardest. Of course, your experience may be different.
•Don't guess -- the puzzles no longer have penalties for incorrect answers, but answer keys are designed so that it is very unlikely that guessing will do anything more than waste the scorekeeper's time.
•Be very careful when entering your answers on the Answer Page. Don't go too fast -- everyone has to do the same thing. There is nothing worse than spending the valuable time to solve a problem correctly, then losing points because of an incorrectly entered answer.
•There are two Answer Pages, one for each part of the test.
•You should enter and Submit your answers as you go along to avoid any last minute time crunch.
•From the Answer Pages, you can open the Timer Window. This shows the server time, and counts down to the overall deadline. It is provided for your convenience -- you are still responsible for submitting your answer before the test deadline.
•Relax and have fun.
Answer Entry
Each puzzle will include Answer formatting instructions. The Answer Page will only accept answer in that specific format, and you will see an error message if your answer does not conform. For the 2013 test, the following formats are used:
•Two groups of nine digits, 1-9 (All except the following).
•Two groups of eight digits, 1-8 (Isodoku)
•Two groups of six values in either decimal (0-7) or 3-digit binary (000-111) format (Binary)
•Two groups of nine digits, 0-7 (Dynasty).
•Two groups of nine letters, A-Z, a-z (Seek-and-Spell).
Each group will correspond to a row or column in a sudoku grid.
•Groups contain only digits; no spaces or punctuation,
•Enter the groups in the order specified: group A followed by group B,
•Separate the groups by space or comma.
The practice test uses all of these entries formats.
Tundub, et paberil tuleb lahendada kindlasti.
Kui juba Solving Tips lehest juttu tegin, siis kopeerin siia kogu sealse teksti, et oleks kõigile kättesaadav:
Preparation
• Make sure you are familiar with the rules, especially those for procedures, scoring and permissible solving tools.
•Be sure to try the Practice Test, to familiarize yourself with the test procedures, and to discover and resolve any technical problems before the real test.
•Download the Puzzle Instructions file, with sample puzzles, and the two encrypted test files the day before the test. Read the puzzle instructions carefully in advance.
•The 2013 Qualifying Test files will be about 20 printed pages in total, generally one page per puzzle. Make sure your printer has plenty of paper, and ink/toner.
•Establish a clean, spacious, and quiet work area. This should be near your computer so that you can enter answers as you go along. Have all your solving tools handy.
•Your puzzle solving time is precious, so make sure you will have no distractions during the test.
Solving
• After decrypting the test file, print the page you want to solve first, then the rest of the test. The puzzles are designed to be solved on paper, so not printing them will likely not save you any time.
•The point values are a good indicator of the time required to solve the puzzles. More points usually implies a more difficult puzzle, but might mean there is just a lot of work. Puzzles are ordered roughly from easiest to hardest. Of course, your experience may be different.
•Don't guess -- the puzzles no longer have penalties for incorrect answers, but answer keys are designed so that it is very unlikely that guessing will do anything more than waste the scorekeeper's time.
•Be very careful when entering your answers on the Answer Page. Don't go too fast -- everyone has to do the same thing. There is nothing worse than spending the valuable time to solve a problem correctly, then losing points because of an incorrectly entered answer.
•There are two Answer Pages, one for each part of the test.
•You should enter and Submit your answers as you go along to avoid any last minute time crunch.
•From the Answer Pages, you can open the Timer Window. This shows the server time, and counts down to the overall deadline. It is provided for your convenience -- you are still responsible for submitting your answer before the test deadline.
•Relax and have fun.
Answer Entry
Each puzzle will include Answer formatting instructions. The Answer Page will only accept answer in that specific format, and you will see an error message if your answer does not conform. For the 2013 test, the following formats are used:
•Two groups of nine digits, 1-9 (All except the following).
•Two groups of eight digits, 1-8 (Isodoku)
•Two groups of six values in either decimal (0-7) or 3-digit binary (000-111) format (Binary)
•Two groups of nine digits, 0-7 (Dynasty).
•Two groups of nine letters, A-Z, a-z (Seek-and-Spell).
Each group will correspond to a row or column in a sudoku grid.
•Groups contain only digits; no spaces or punctuation,
•Enter the groups in the order specified: group A followed by group B,
•Separate the groups by space or comma.
The practice test uses all of these entries formats.
Results: http://wpc.puzzles.com/ussq2013/results.asp?mode=intl It seems that the number of participants is starting to decrease slightly from what it was at the beginning.
You can practice before the next stage this weekend :) http://www.logic-masters.de/Wettbewerbe/details.php?id=57
You can still practice before the next stage:) http://logicmastersindia.com/BeginnersSudoku/ You can also solve online...
The 7th round is organized by Turkey. The competition will take place on the LogicmastersIndia website: http://logicmastersindia.com/2013/06S/ The competition will take place from June 22nd to June 24th. It is likely that the whole day will be solved on the 24th. If it turns out otherwise, I will definitely let you know here in good time. The competition guidelines are also available: http://www.worldpuzzle.org/files/35/WPF_Sudoku_GP_2013_Turkish_Leg_IB.pdf Good luck solving! I will also give my recommendation on what to solve first and what not to solve, so that it is easier to make a choice. Since I have solved most of them myself, I can probably assess the difficulty of the task and what surprises it may offer. It is definitely worth trying (You choose in which order, but I also tried to put some normal order by difficulty): 1-4. Classic 11. Sudoku Islands (Count how many cells there are in a row and column, and start solving. Remember the rule that each island has each number exactly 2 times!!!) 15. Odd Lab (It is advisable to color the upper and lower corners yellow with a thick felt-tip pen and also color all the odd numbers that are connected to them yellow. This is a good way to get an overview and it is probably a very easy sudoku) 8. A or B (You have to start solving from the beginning and at some point somewhere an unsolvable situation arises regarding one of the rules) 10. Sudoku Clock (The first number can only be 1 or 2, and the first of the second number can be between 1-5) 13. Just two cells sudoku (You have to find 2 numbers by solving logically. You cannot try and if 2 nr. found, then the task is complete) 14. Halved squares sudoku (Solved like a special shape, but it is important that one of the halved squares is always empty, the other has a number. Tip: There is often a situation where, for example, 3 numbers are missing in one area and there are also 3 empty squares, then all the triangles in this area can be colored.) You could avoid these for now, but if you feel good, then it is also worth trying (PS. I didn't try to rank them in order of difficulty): 5. One digit unique solution (It's possible that most of them are easy to solve and there are a couple of options in the final phase, one of which leaves a unique solution, the rest a double solution) 6. Top heavy sudoku (Actually a simple sudoku, you just have to make sure that if the numbers are directly next to each other, the bottom one cannot be bigger. What makes it difficult is that it's very easy to make a mistake) 7. Tripod sudoku (You have to start solving from the edges, you can draw the places with dots right away, where there is no dot, you can't draw a line there and these squares must be connected. Make sure that the four lines don't meet anywhere) 12. Snail sudoku (Be sure to mark the cells where there can't be any numbers. If you do that, it's completely solvable) The following are not recommended solve for those who have no experience, but at the same time it's not too bad: 16. Searchdoku (You have to start with longer words and search for the beginnings and ends of the word from the given letters. Some longer words will automatically run into the sudoku and provide a solution. Words where some letters are repeated are also useful. They must be placed diagonally or along the letters that are outside the sudoku) 17. Snapshot sudoku (A placement task, you have to find a variant that fits and solve the sudoku. It can be quite difficult to find it, but it can also be very easy) 18. Scale sudoku (A good indication is the scales, where the smaller area outweighs the larger one. You have to do a little math) 20. Irregular Sudoku Bands (It is important to remember that the shapes remain the same. You have to start breeding from the places of the given numbers) The following are not recommended unless everything else has been done: 6. Logidoku (A lot of math. You probably have to start eliminating numbers using equations first. It is important to find the operations that give the first numbers at the beginning. Most of them probably do not give anything useful at the beginning) 19. Psycho Killer (A very unpleasant sudoku. To solve it correctly and quickly, you need good experience in solving killer sudoku) 21. Sudoku Blocks (I can't imagine how difficult it can be. I have no experience in solving it. I'll probably leave it for last. You probably have to start placing it in order, and if it doesn't work, try other variants until you finally have the solution) Hopefully this helps. Since these are relatively extreme variants, I thought I'd give a few tips to encourage participation.
If you still want to try Psycho Killer, please note that the instructions contain an incorrect problem because: 1. the solution contains repeated numbers in the boxes 2. the lower right number should be 4 3. the box with a thicker line is not shown on the given grid. A correct example can be found at this link: http://www.logic-masters.de/Raetselportal/Raetsel/zeigen.php?id=000064 In addition to the solution, there are some other variants: Tripod Sudoku http://www.funwithpuzzles.com/search/label/Tripod Sudoku?max-results=3 Psycho Killer http://www.funwithpuzzles.com/search/label/Psycho Killer?max-results=3 Snail Sudoku http://www.funwithpuzzles.com/2010/05/snail-sudoku.html
Online solving is not allowed in this competition. Apparently because it is difficult to formalize such non-classical alternatives for online solving, where some kind of action (coloring squares, drawing lines) is often expected in addition to writing numbers when solving Sudoku.
The guide for the 8th round, which will take place in a week, is also out. The competition will once again take place on the logicmastersindia page. http://logicmastersindia.com/2013/06S2/ More details will probably be available once the 7th round is over.