The New Sudoku Players' Forum

[CathyW]

Im a little confused now, can anyone confirm the starting numbers?

They've got it right in the online version of The Times http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,2-1829507,00.html and it as per Paul's post earlier.

Cathy

[stuartn]

Its an interesting one - seems to rely very heavily on pinned candidates from the outset - and little else.

(By pinned candidates I mean this: - if a block has 2 or 3 identical candidate digits in ONE unit only -ie one row or column - then that digit must lie within that block and on that row or column in the grid)

Also hidden singles seemed to feature quite heavily.

Observations welcomed - especially from tso who always seems to get the same result but from another direction!

stuartn

[tso]

Since you asked ... it's one thing to blow smoke up our butts in the daily papers -- but this was the national championships. The two puzzles from contest printed in the Times for ROUND ONE and GRAND FINAL, though rated with the silly hyperbolic label ULTRA FIENDISH -- were completely ordinary. Pappocom's software rates them as MEDIUM and HARD. At the very *least* they should have been Very Hard. But they weren't even has hard as the "Superiors" printed on Sundays that the general public are exposed to. Of course the competitors all felt that these were harder than any they had come across -- they were *told* so. I know what would make a great finish -- have the final two solve a SUPER DELUXE MAXIMUM XXX 2000 DEATHSTAR rated Sudoku -- which of course, is actually a Pappocom EASY. That way, they'll solve ever so fast and seem oh so brilliant.

Sorry, but it puts a stink on the whole thing for me.

[Pappocom]

Pappocom's software rates them as MEDIUM and HARD.

That's not right. Both are rated Hard.

- Wayne

[PaulIQ164]

And you can't fairly give people Very Hards or above, because this is the Times championships, and people playing Su Doku in The Times have never seen an X-Wing before, let alone a forcing chain or whatever. So it's hardly fair to expect them to invent their own new logical techniques in competition settings.

[emm]

I wish I’d gone to Chelt’nham
For the puzzle test,
I knew I wouldn’t win it
‘Cos I know I'm not the best,
But the thing I mostly wondered,
To put my mind at rest,
Was 'What do they actually look like!'
Wayne ‘n Paul ‘n Pi ‘n Kites ‘n Mike ‘n Captain ‘n the rest?

[lunababy_moonchild]

I was led to believe that 9X9 was taking his camera so I wondered where the photo's were.

Luna

[PaulIQ164]

At the very *least* they should have been Very Hard. But they weren't even has hard as the "Superiors" printed on Sundays that the general public are exposed to.

It's worth mentioning that The Sunday Times is strictly a different publication to The Times. A lot of competitors at the Championships won't get the Sunday Times (me for one) and therefore might never have seen an X-Wing. Seems unfair to penalise them for this. If it were The Sunday Times Sudoku Championships it's be another matter, but it wasn't.

[tso]

Pappocom's software rates them as MEDIUM and HARD.

That's not right. Both are rated Hard.

- Wayne

I stand corrected. I entered the first puzzle incorrectly.

And you can't fairly give people Very Hards or above, because this is the Times championships, and people playing Su Doku in The Times have never seen an X-Wing before, let alone a forcing chain or whatever. So it's hardly fair to expect them to invent their own new logical techniques in competition settings.

The Times as called it: "first National Su Doku Championships" as well.

From: http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,2-1611106,00.html

"FANS of the logic puzzle that has captured the nation’s imagination will have the chance to pit themselves against the most fiendish Su Doku yet devised at the first National Su Doku Championships."

... and suporting my point directly ...

“I am looking forward to setting the most fiendish puzzle yet for the championships,” Mr Gould said yesterday. "

While where the line should be drawn is of course subjective, I completely disagree that the line should be unmoved from the level of an everyday puzzle. Puzzle championships traditionally have harder puzzles than are available elsewhere, *often* requiring the solvers to be creative and develop tactics during the competition. Many of the puzzles in the various world puzzle championships are new variations of existing puzzles never seen before -- as well as brand new puzzles.

The contestants have solved puzzles from various sources -- the chance that more than a handful of them limited themselves to just the Times daily puzzles is too small to consider.

Besides:

This is the "Superior" from the Times October 16 Sunday Times:

Code: Select all

 8 . . | . . 2 | 3 6 .
 . . 2 | 9 . . | . 8 .
 . . . | . 1 . | . . 5
-------+-------+------
 . . . | 6 . . | 4 . .
 . 5 . | . 7 . | . 1 .
 . . 9 | . . 5 | . . .
-------+-------+------
 4 . . | . 8 . | . . .
 . 1 . | . . 3 | 5 . .
 . 6 8 | 2 . . | . . 3


http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,18209-1813682,00.html

Pappocom rates it "Very Hard" and it DOES require an X-wing.

I repeat -- this is the absolute minimum level of difficulty the championship round puzzles should have been.

How do you defend the "Ultra Fiendish" rating for puzzles that are objectively only "Hard"? These two points must be considered together. If everyone agrees with you that the puzzles must not be harder than what is printed during the week in the Times -- then they should be labeled as such! It's funny -- I'm advocating having harder puzzles and labeling them correctly. What they did was LIE to the contestants, possibly throwing some of them off their game.

The Times article on the championship includes this gem: "Wayne Gould, the creator of Su Doku". Really? What exactly did he create? Extensiver research leads to the conlusion -- he invented the space between "su" and "doku". From now on, please refer to me as TSO, the creator of Ch Ess, Ch Eckers, Cr Ossword Puzzles, Sl Iced Bread and the Ki Tchen Sink.


Oh, and I'm not surprised that so many more men entered and so many women bested them. The difference in intrisic logical ability between the genders is vanishingly small and meaingless on an individual basis. BUT, because we live in a sexist society, boys are often brought up to believe that it is their right to do anything they please while girls are not given nearly the same encouragement. Girls often are made to feel as if they must be "good enough" before they can join in. They are more likely to pre-judge and disqualify themselves -- not because of any gender difference, but because of gender discrimination. And when the do join in, win or not -- all the men can talk about is the fact that they are women. How do you think that makes a person feel, to have their accomplishments examined in terms of their gender? From the pictures on the Times site, it seemed as if most of the entrants were white. Would it be apropriate to go on and on about a minority of non-white entrants besting most of the whites? No, of course not. Both of these reinforce that the "default" person is still a straight, white, male. Everyone else is described by how they differ from the default. It isn't fun. It isn't cute. It's patronizing.

[9X9]

Luna - all explained in my post in "the journey to Cheltenham" thread.

[PaulIQ164]

Right. This'll take some going through, but here I go:

The Times as called it: "first National Su Doku Championships" as well.

Perhaps. But the point still stands that it was a Times Su Doku championships. Perhaps it would help if we made a distinction between "sudoku" (the puzzle in general) and "Su Doku" (the puzzle as it appears in the weekday Times - note the Sunday Times calles it sudoku.) This was a Su Doku championships, so requires Su Doku puzzles.

and suporting my point directly ...

“I am looking forward to setting the most fiendish puzzle yet for the championships,” Mr Gould said yesterday. "

If you disagree with the use in the first place of terms as pejorative as "fiendish" then that's fine and I won't argue, but there's an understanding of what constitutes a 'fiendish' (used as a noun, note), and it would be unfair to introduce a puzzle that doesn't fit this definition.

While where the line should be drawn is of course subjective, I completely disagree that the line should be unmoved from the level of an everyday puzzle. Puzzle championships traditionally have harder puzzles than are available elsewhere, *often* requiring the solvers to be creative and develop tactics during the competition. Many of the puzzles in the various world puzzle championships are new variations of existing puzzles never seen before -- as well as brand new puzzles.

Sure, but those are puzzle championships. This was a Su Doku championship strictly, so there have to be some constraints on what is considered. See my above writings for why I think limiting to Pappocom Hards is the only fair thing to do. Compare with a Times Crossword championship. They don't give you anything harder than you'd get in the paper. The championship is purely a test of who is best at the neswpaper puzzle.

The contestants have solved puzzles from various sources -- the chance that more than a handful of them limited themselves to just the Times daily puzzles is too small to consider.

I think you've seriously missed the boat here. I would consider it highly likely that the majority of people there have never seriously tackled puzzles from anywhere except Pappocom (myself included). There were only about three people from these forums here, for example. Where do you expect the other people were getting their puzzles from? Other papers and books don't do puzzles any harder (and the one that has done expects you to use trial and error anyway), and I doubt more than single-figures of people there trawl the internet looking at advanced puzzles. You should have heard the murmurs of confusion when someone at the subsequent discusion asked a question about swordfishes and XYZ-wings. No-one had a clue what they were on about.

Besides:

This is the "Superior" from the Times October 16 Sunday Times:

Code: Select all

 8 . . | . . 2 | 3 6 .
 . . 2 | 9 . . | . 8 .
 . . . | . 1 . | . . 5
-------+-------+------
 . . . | 6 . . | 4 . .
 . 5 . | . 7 . | . 1 .
 . . 9 | . . 5 | . . .
-------+-------+------
 4 . . | . 8 . | . . .
 . 1 . | . . 3 | 5 . .
 . 6 8 | 2 . . | . . 3


http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,18209-1813682,00.html

Pappocom rates it "Very Hard" and it DOES require an X-wing.

I repeat -- this is the absolute minimum level of difficulty the championship round puzzles should have been.

I disagree. If this were the case, Sunday Times readers would have been at a clear and huge advantage. There's no way around it.

[quote]
How do you defend the "Ultra Fiendish" rating for puzzles that are objectively only "Hard"? These two points must be considered together. If everyone agrees with you that the puzzles must not be harder than what is printed during the week in the Times -- then they should be labeled as such! It's funny -- I'm advocating having harder puzzles and labeling them correctly. What they did was LIE to the contestants, possibly throwing some of them off their game. [quote]

There is an objective difference between a "fiendish" and an "ultra-fiendish" (and again I'm not defending the use of those terms). While they both require you to draw from the same pool of tactics to solve them, Ultra-fiendishes require these tactics to be used more, and in more complicated combinations then regular fiendishes. Do you seriously think the organisers simply pressed for two new Hard puzzles on the computer program and used those? I am sure that they didn't.

The Times article on the championship includes this gem: "Wayne Gould, the creator of Su Doku". Really? What exactly did he create? Extensiver research leads to the conlusion -- he invented the space between "su" and "doku". From now on, please refer to me as TSO, the creator of Ch Ess, Ch Eckers, Cr Ossword Puzzles, Sl Iced Bread and the Ki Tchen Sink.

I obviously won't sefend that - that was a piece of poor journalism, but unrelated to the point at hand. (PS: I don't think Wayne even invented the space. I imagine The Times are responsible for that.)

Oh, and I'm not surprised that so many more men entered and so many women bested them. The difference in intrisic logical ability between the genders is vanishingly small and meaingless on an individual basis. BUT, because we live in a sexist society, boys are often brought up to believe that it is their right to do anything they please while girls are not given nearly the same encouragement. Girls often are made to feel as if they must be "good enough" before they can join in. They are more likely to pre-judge and disqualify themselves -- not because of any gender difference, but because of gender discrimination. And when the do join in, win or not -- all the men can talk about is the fact that they are women. How do you think that makes a person feel, to have their accomplishments examined in terms of their gender? From the pictures on the Times site, it seemed as if most of the entrants were white. Would it be apropriate to go on and on about a minority of non-white entrants besting most of the whites? No, of course not. Both of these reinforce that the "default" person is still a straight, white, male. Everyone else is described by how they differ from the default. It isn't fun. It isn't cute. It's patronizing.

I tend to agree with this bit. Well, some of it, anyway.

[Pi]

Pappocom's software rates them as MEDIUM and HARD. At the very *least* they should have been Very Hard. But they weren't even has hard as the "Superiors" printed on Sundays that the general public are exposed to..

The Puzzles at the championship were much harder than a normal fiendish

I Didn't do the Championship puzzle myself in cheltenham as i competed in the junior section, however i downloaded the puzzle and have not yet completed it after 15 mins of trying, whereas i can sometimes do a fiendish in under 6 mins

I do not see why you need a "Very Hard" Puzzle as those can in fact be easier than some of the "Hard" Ones

[quote=em]
Was 'What do they actually look like!'
Wayne ‘n Paul ‘n Pi ‘n Kites ‘n Mike ‘n Captain ‘n the rest?
[/quote]

There was a group picture taken of myself, the champion, wayne and the
Junior top three but TT didn't print it

[Karyobin]

I really did want to write a long and well-crafted post here, but in the nicest possible way I can't be bothered, coz I'm hungry. In a nutshell it was going to read as follows:

We do difficult ones, newspaper readers don't. Of course it's annoying to read the contradictory drivel written over the past few days, but it has to be that way, and in our media-savvy hearts we all know why. The point quite simply is - how/when are we going to reveal ourselves? What we saw yesterday was akin to a speed-chess tournament - a skill in itself, but a tiny part of a huge pantheon. I rarely throw down gauntlets but I'm going out on a limb here and challenging Wayne directly: how about getting The Times to print your hardest? Make the public aware of the existence of X-wings and the aquarium. Challenge the silly notion that 'doing working out means you're cheating'. Open the public's eyes to the existence of what they're missing, let's face it - nearly every paper print three or more on a daily basis anyway, let's just get them to make one of our standard.

Right, teatime.

[PaulIQ164]

In my humble opinion, advanced sudokus aren't really suitable newspaper fare. They belong, if anywhere, in dedicated puzzle magazines. To be honest, I think the status quo is fine. You can't please all of the people all of the time, as they say, and I think the way it's being done is the best compromise.

Edit: and as a last thought, don't forget that it's utterly pointless to have a puzzle in a speed competition that needs techniques that are slower to use than T&E.

[Karyobin]

Point accepted, but what I'd envisage would be nothing more than the introduction of a few medium-level filtering techniques - the X-wing or Turbot Fish, for example (with explanations). Pencil and paper and candidates are all that's needed to solve them and it invites a wider audience who,

(a) don't buy puzzle magazines because they think they all have happy puppies holding joke telephones on the cover (me, until recently)
(b) aren't averse to using candidates and have developed their approach up to the higher hidden strategies, but rarely get challenged in the paper
(c) people who just might like to know their world is a bit bigger than they thought it was.

Don't get me wrong - I'm not into making anyone feel inadequate, but chess puzzles are invariably from Grand Master games and the Bridge is a bloody foreign langauge. Why are our puzzles dumbed-down to the extent that the only room for improvement is to lower your own time?

And as you say, a speed comeptition would always require the puzzles to be solvable by the speediest and simplest techniques.