2015 Puzzle GP

Post by **kiwijam** » Sun 11 Jan, 2015 12:35 am

This year's Puzzle Grand Prix will begin this weekend, 16/1 to 19/1.

The first round is by the Serbian authors:
Nikola Zivanovic, Zoran Tanasic, Branko Ceranic, Cedomir Milanovic.

The instruction book can be found at:
http://www.gp.worldpuzzle.org/content/i ... -booklet-2

It seems it will include many easy puzzles, with three puzzles each of the eight types.

Elsewhere on that website are places to register for the GP, ask questions in the forum, or read more info.

Post by **anthea** » Mon 19 Jan, 2015 7:24 am

Thanks heaps James!

Good luck to everyone participating..

Anthea

Post by **PuzzleScot** » Mon 19 Jan, 2015 11:20 pm

Pah! It finished at 24:00 GMT+1. I should have known from past experience... 25 minutes was hardly time to do this justice.

dickoon · Post by **dickoon** » Tue 20 Jan, 2015 8:12 pm

The results are up! With 22 participants, the UK came joint sixth in terms of participation, with five of our stars cracking the top 100 of the global 387 to take part and more close behind, including some names I'm less familiar with but am glad to see. I particularly enjoyed this test for the way it had plenty at the more accessible end of the spectrum, as well as some very challenging material. Roll on the next event!

Post by **detuned** » Tue 20 Jan, 2015 9:42 pm

Haha, yeah top 100 just about.

I had a nightmare with answer entry (although it seems very few didn't) and wasn't hugely sharp anyway. I also thought the points distributions in general were a bit off for this one, although the puzzles themselves were very enjoyable!

wiiwierdo · Post by **wiiwierdo** » Wed 21 Jan, 2015 2:17 am

Yay, 339th! I'm so good at puzzles

Post by **kiwijam** » Wed 21 Jan, 2015 3:17 am

Well done to those that did well.

A great theme for all the puzzles. And I really like the idea of 8 sets of three puzzles, which allows a wide range of difficulties and should make it more approachable to beginners while still challenging the others. But those 24 puzzles were so time-consuming...

Overall rather a mess for me. My time management was rubbish and also the three puzzles I made errors on were all big ones. Sigh.
At least I can discard my worst GP results, and the high-flying winner this time might lead to others discarding this round too.
A quick check of LMI confirms I've never had a worse ranking, even when I was first getting started... hmm, maybe I'll skip 2015, and try again next January?

wiiwierdo wrote:Yay, 339th! I'm so good at puzzles

Well before you stopped early you were on track to finish much higher up in the middle of the field, so I wouldn't be too concerned!

Post by **david mcneill** » Thu 22 Jan, 2015 12:57 pm

There were some really tough puzzles in this set, some of which had surprisingly low score allocations. I'm not that strong at Nurikabe but I thought those puzzles were all much harder than the points suggested. I wasted a lot of time on the Tents puzzles which were hard to solve logically - rather quicker instinctively. I'm currently working at the Liars puzzles. The first Slitherlink is a lovely puzzle so I'm looking forward to spending more time on those. The test was so horrible under timed conditions.

dickoon · Post by **dickoon** » Fri 23 Jan, 2015 12:24 pm

kiwijam wrote:Well before you stopped early you were on track to finish much higher up in the middle of the field, so I wouldn't be too concerned!

Quite a few of us towards the bottom of the pack who may have appeared to stop early may well have continued to solve and yet not come up with anything further worth submitting between the last submission time and the end of the contest...

Whether you cracked two puzzles or twenty-two, it was great fun either way!

Post by **PuzzleScot** » Fri 23 Jan, 2015 4:05 pm

dickoon wrote:Quite a few of us towards the bottom of the pack who may have appeared to stop early may well have continued to solve and yet not come up with anything further worth submitting between the last submission time and the end of the contest...

Speak for yourself! I solved 3 of the harder puzzles in 20 minutes or so I had (started way too late).
One was a mistyped incorrect answer key, and another was a few seconds too late.

wiiwierdo · Post by **wiiwierdo** » Mon 26 Jan, 2015 1:58 am

dickoon wrote: Quite a few of us towards the bottom of the pack who may have appeared to stop early may well have continued to solve and yet not come up with anything further worth submitting between the last submission time and the end of the contest...

I didn't though, I actually had to go out a few minutes after my last submission, so poor planning on my part. Not sure how many more points I could've scored though, as flicking through the puzzles later on they seemed like they would've taken me quite a while.

Post by **PuzzleScot** » Sat 14 Feb, 2015 9:35 pm

Round 2 has started...

Post by **detuned** » Sun 15 Feb, 2015 10:32 pm

This was a really excellent contest, everything the puzzle GP should be. I'll save any more details until the time is up, but I'd definitely recommend making time for this tomorrow if you haven't already had a go!

Post by **puzzlemad** » Mon 16 Feb, 2015 9:01 am

detuned wrote:I'd definitely recommend making time for this tomorrow if you haven't already had a go!

Remind me not to make time after an 8 hour drive - mind you if I hadn't made time then I wouldn't have had any other time.

Post by **detuned** » Tue 17 Feb, 2015 11:30 pm

Results are out. Bit of a self-kick here, the 67 points in entry errors would have taken me past James

it always seems so difficult just to not be so stupid!

Post by **emma** » Wed 18 Feb, 2015 10:30 pm

I had a very error-prone round 1, so I'm relieved not to have made any this time.

dickoon · Post by **dickoon** » Wed 18 Feb, 2015 10:33 pm

I liked it a great deal too, though found it hard work. (In a good way!) Two of my least favourite puzzle styles are slitherlinks and domino puzzles, but I enjoyed the (slightly gimmicky) all-zero slitherlink more than any other one I had done before, and I think the Domino Search puzzle that I solved a couple of minutes too late was my favourite - or, perhaps, least unfavourite - example of that genre as well.

Well done, everybody, both problem setters and solvers!

Post by **emma** » Thu 19 Feb, 2015 9:46 pm

I've seen an all-zero Slitherlink before, which I think made that easier.

tamz29 · Post by **tamz29** » Sun 15 Mar, 2015 4:28 pm

Just finished Round 3's Puzzle GP.

I have to say the round had just became one of my all-time favourites. Great format, great variety and all-round nice puzzles.
The 6-puzzles-of-each-type gimmick was brilliantly executed.
Easy puzzles weren't too obvious and the hard puzzles were very fair and
didn't require senseless guessing at all.

Ok, maybe I'm just biased from the inclusion of Spot the Differences at the end.
90 minutes was way too short for me though

Post by **kiwijam** » Sun 15 Mar, 2015 10:50 pm

I used to think that 24 puzzles was a lot to do in 90 minutes, but 37 is another level again. The time taken to enter the answer key becomes quite relevant for a 2 point puzzle!

This round will finish in 24 hours.

Post by **detuned** » Mon 16 Mar, 2015 11:07 pm

just managed to squeeze this one in. i enjoyed the frantic feel of this!

Cooky · Post by **Cooky** » Tue 17 Mar, 2015 9:26 am

How frustrating - has my first go at a GP puzzle competition and my computer froze just after I had got the password - eventually had 30 minutes to get stuck in - at least it won't be like that at the weekend (I will only have my incompetence to blame)

Post by **furudo.erika** » Tue 17 Mar, 2015 10:35 am

Also this weekend I won't have to enter answer keys, which is good given I managed to botch 3 this round including some I'd 'double checked'

Really liked the all black Castle Wall.

Post by **emma** » Tue 17 Mar, 2015 10:43 am

I found it wasn't just the time to enter the answer keys, but also the scroll time - I ended with some small puzzles halfway down the list, and if it hadn't taken so long to find them, I might have got another one in on time.

Cooky · Post by **Cooky** » Tue 17 Mar, 2015 1:09 pm

A huge round of applause for Neil and James - what amazing results

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