Division D 2020-21

[pinkagape]

Hello again

Here is Round 3 of Division D of the 2020-2021 UK Puzzle League.

Please download and print the puzzles. You can complete them in any order at any point between now and Tuesday 15th December.

For each puzzle, remember to time yourself honestly as to how long it takes.

When you are finished all of the puzzles, or as many as you are able to, please email adam@ukpuzzles.org your times for each puzzle and the answer key for each puzzle (to ensure that you have understood how each solution is supposed to look).

If you are not in Division D, your times will be entered onto an all-comers scoreboard, which will not score points in the UK Puzzle League. If you are in Division D, the solver with the most points will receive 10 credits, the second will receive 9 credits and so on. If two or more solvers score the same number of points, then the fastest total time (spent on completed puzzles) will score the higher number of credits. If you are new to the UKPA, you can join in Division D late.

If you have any questions, please ask via email (adam@ukpuzzles.org)

Please do not discuss the puzzles in the forum until the competition is declared closed.

Have fun!

[Asandhu1]

Hi, I’ve sent my solutions for Division C and D now. Please let me know if they didn’t come through since my email wasn’t working well last month. Thanks.

[pinkagape]

Got them Adam, thanks.

[puzzlemad]

Thanks - I'm sorry I didn't manage to submit this time. Incidentally, I find it interesting and mentally challenging that blocking out stuff is actually a positive rather than negative aspect to this puzzle. Perhaps I need to think of it and/or mark it in a different way, as I naturally think of the act of blocking something out as excluding/negative rather than including/positive.

People have many different ways of marking areas of puzzles that are say either of the actual used solutions cells or those that remain empty. The better solvers may be able to keep much of that information in their heads. I tend to use different notation in different types of puzzles, perhaps a dot to identify that a particular cell must be empty or include some (as yet undetermined information), sometimes a slash through or a circle showing that a cell is empty. Different notation techniques are interesting in team rounds as you have to remember to discuss what you're going to do before it starts. I've also slipped up on 'combined' puzzles where I say use dots in one type of puzzle to mean one thing, but then I use a dot to mean something else in another puzzle type.

[pinkagape]

This competition is now closed. I hope you enjoyed it. Again, eight puzzlers attempted the puzzle set and all of them completed them all correctly! Thank you to Emma McCaughan and Neil Zussman for testing the puzzles.

The times were as follows:

Sam Cappleman-Lynes 9m22
Tom Collyer 12m10
Laura Baxter 13m46
Maurice Blount 16m8
Jeff Dick 18m12
Eva Myers 23m43
Adam Sandhu 29m47
David Collison 45m53

If anybody else thought they had sent me their solutions and they are not in the above table, please let me know.

The names in red are Division D competitors, so congratulations to Laura for an outstanding performance, and the fastest time of all for puzzles 7, 8 and 9.

Here is the Division D league table after Round 3



Round 4, to be held over the weekend of 16th and 17th January, will focus on Skyscraper puzzles. Please see the Puzzle Rules board for instructions.

[pinkagape]

Happy New Year!

Here is Round 4 of Division D of the 2020-2021 UK Puzzle League.

Please download and print the puzzles. You can complete them in any order at any point between now and Tuesday 19th January

For each puzzle, remember to time yourself honestly as to how long it takes.

When you are finished all of the puzzles, or as many as you are able to, please email adam@ukpuzzles.org your times for each puzzle and the answer key for each puzzle (to ensure that you have understood how each solution is supposed to look).

If you are not in Division D, your times will be entered onto an all-comers scoreboard, which will not score points in the UK Puzzle League. If you are in Division D, the solver with the most points will receive 10 credits, the second will receive 9 credits and so on. If two or more solvers score the same number of points, then the fastest total time (spent on completed puzzles) will score the higher number of credits. If you are new to the UKPA, you can join in Division D late.

If you have any questions, please ask via email (adam@ukpuzzles.org)

Please do not discuss the puzzles in the forum until the competition is declared closed.

Have fun!

[pinkagape]

This competition is now closed. I hope you enjoyed it. It was another clean set of submissions with one player having a total blinder. Thank you to Emma McCaughan and David McNeill for testing the puzzles.

The times were as follows:

Sam Cappleman-Lynes 6m51
Matthew White 12m57
Jeff Dick 14m23
Thomas Powell 20m49
Liane Robinson 21m15
Eva Myers 21m32
Adam Sandhu 23m54
Laura Baxter 25m17
David Collison 38m46

If anybody else thought they had sent me their solutions and they are not in the above table, please let me know.

The names in red are Division D competitors, so congratulations to Adam for his second winning round.

Here is the Division D league table after Round 4



Round 5, to be held over the weekend of 13th and 14th February, will focus on Minesweeper puzzles. Please see the Puzzle Rules board for instructions.

[LauraB]

Daft question but are Minesweeper puzzles like the old Microsoft ones? I had a look in the Puzzle Rules board and couldn’t find any examples in there. I could easily have overlooked them though!

[LauraB]

Congrats to Sam too! That’s an amazing time!

[jupilogy]

I liked this one I used to play skyscrapers a lot on Simon Tatham's puzzle app, so I have a bit of experience for this round.

Daft question but are Minesweeper puzzles like the old Microsoft ones? I had a look in the Puzzle Rules board and couldn’t find any examples in there. I could easily have overlooked them though!

I'm not making the puzzles, but I think it will be just like minesweeper on the computer. Except you can't uncover clues as you go along, haha. And you won't have to guess at the end of a massive game... thank god.

[detuned]

Hi Adam - I forgot to enter - is it worth bothering to send answers in late anyway?

[puzzlemad]

Daft question but are Minesweeper puzzles like the old Microsoft ones? I had a look in the Puzzle Rules board and couldn’t find any examples in there. I could easily have overlooked them though!

I have seen two common versions of minesweeper puzzles. The more common (I think) is where you won't know the actual number of mines to be found and the other version is where you are told how many mines there are.
In both you can use the information about clues that are near each other to be able to rule in/out cells for the solution. In the latter version, keeping track of how many mines have been used is vital.

[pinkagape]

Sorry - I was a little slow in uploading the example this time. It's there now, and yes, it's pretty similar to the old Microsoft game.

Tom - there's not much value in submitting your answers now, but the puzzles are still there if you want to race Sam's time!

[pinkagape]

Daft question but are Minesweeper puzzles like the old Microsoft ones? I had a look in the Puzzle Rules board and couldn’t find any examples in there. I could easily have overlooked them though!

I have seen two common versions of minesweeper puzzles. The more common (I think) is where you won't know the actual number of mines to be found and the other version is where you are told how many mines there are.
In both you can use the information about clues that are near each other to be able to rule in/out cells for the solution. In the latter version, keeping track of how many mines have been used is vital.

Good point Liane. I have seen, but don't particularly enjoy, the ones where you're told the total number of mines, so that won't be used in Round 5.

[detuned]

There's no catching Sam on this set from me - I reckon that I've unofficially clocked in a smidge over 9 minutes for the set.

[Puzzle_Maestro]

That’s a pretty impressive time Sam! I was barely able to beat you with a time of 6m 45s (though I was copying out the puzzles as well as doing them :p)

[pinkagape]

Here is Round 5 of Division D of the 2020-2021 UK Puzzle League.

Please download and print the puzzles. You can complete them in any order at any point between now and Tuesday 16th February.

For each puzzle, remember to time yourself honestly as to how long it takes.

When you are finished all of the puzzles, or as many as you are able to, please email adam@ukpuzzles.org your times for each puzzle and the answer key for each puzzle (to ensure that you have understood how each solution is supposed to look).

If you are not in Division D, your times will be entered onto an all-comers scoreboard, which will not score points in the UK Puzzle League. If you are in Division D, the solver with the most points will receive 10 credits, the second will receive 9 credits and so on. If two or more solvers score the same number of points, then the fastest total time (spent on completed puzzles) will score the higher number of credits. If you are new to the UKPA, you can join in Division D late.

If you have any questions, please ask via email (adam@ukpuzzles.org)

Please do not discuss the puzzles in the forum until the competition is declared closed.

Have fun!

[pinkagape]

Hi everyone

Round 5 is over now. The times were relatively close for most puzzlers, with the last three puzzles being the deciding ones really. Thanks to Liane for testing the puzzles for me.

The times were as follows:

Sam Cappleman-Lynes - 50 points - 5m37
Matthew White - 50 points - 7m46
Jeffrey Dick - 50 points - 7m58
Eva Myers - 50 points - 8m42
Laura Baxter - 50 points - 9m25
Keith Lothian - 50 points - 25m37
Adam Sandhu - 49 points - 16m32

This has left Division D going right to the wire, with whoever finishes highest out of Adam and Laura in Round 6 winning the division.



Round 6 is Masyu and will take place over the weekend of 12th to 15th March. See the Puzzle Rules board to learn more about Masyu.

[jupilogy]

Good luck to you both for the final round!