The New Sudoku Players' Forum

[Vladikavkaz]

£25 entry?!?

Doing a quick bit of maths... that's £7500 in entry money for £1000 in prize money.

[tabber]

I haven't bought the Times today, what is the nature of entering for these Championships? I thought they were doing a Fiendish every day this week to get entry. Are you saying you have to complete it, and if you are drawn, you may enter for £25 ??

Cheers,

Tabber.

[Vladikavkaz]

Yup, £25 if you get through.

The puzzle today wasn't too hard... finished in about 25 mins, but that was with 5 minutes of 'blank staring'

They ask you to send in your answer, with the time you finished in. VERY open to cheating, I'm afraid.

[spretz]

2 things, I guess the £25 is to deter people who are no good from entering. The competition entry relies on people being truthful about the time they took to complete the puzzle. So if you make up a time you'll effectively be throwing away £25 as you'll be uncovered as cheat on the day.

Also I guess they have to pay invigilators, etc on the day.

£25 seems fair to me, after all it's not all about the prize money, more about winning the title.

[spretz]

I haven't bought the Times today, what is the nature of entering for these Championships? I thought they were doing a Fiendish every day this week to get entry. Are you saying you have to complete it, and if you are drawn, you may enter for £25 ??

Cheers,

Tabber.

There's a special fiendish one, you send your solution along with time it took in on a postcard. If your time is one of the 50 fastest each day you get an entry.

[tabber]

I'm sure more than 50 people will be tempted to lie, so I expect the 'winning' times will be under 20, or even under 15 minutes. My best on a Fiendish is about 25 minutes, but I use pencil and paper, which makes a *big* difference.

I can imagine the competition being a bit farcical (sp?) if too many people have lied. Anyone know the format of the actual comp? I assume it involves knockout rounds, but how many? Are all the puzzles Fiendish or worse? Or will they start with easier ones?

Cheers,
Tabber.

[gmc]

just what level is super fiendish anyway. Some fiendish i can do in 15-20 mins some one and a hallf hours (e.g last Friday's times)

[demdempster]

I never buy The Times during the week, but curiosity got the better of me. And how long did it take to do "the most fiendish Sudoku yet"? 13 minutes. It took almost as long to do the difficult one on the back page.

Thoroughly disappointing, and decidedly un-fiendish.

[SteveF]

If not breaching copyright, etc, could someone post the 'super fiendish' puzzles from the last couple of days?

the T2 section doesn't seem to be available here in Asterdam where I am working for most of the week.

[silvercar]

It would be helpful to know the sort of time that you need to complete the puzzle to enter. I completed yesterday's in 25 minutes. Is that going to get me anywhere near the top 50?

Yesterday's instructions said to put your name, address , telephone number and time on the back of an envelope. Does that mean the completed su doku goes inside the envelope?

[possum]

Here is today's:

[Edited by Pappocom: It is a breach of copyright to show today's puzzle today]

I still haven't finished this.

[bongerman]

Do you think they'll let me in the final if I say I managed to do the puzzle in 1 minute and 18 seconds? At least that's how long it took me the second time!!

[silvercar]

Just done today's entry in 12 minutes! By best time for a fiendish (or even super fiendish, whatever that means). Is it worth entering?

[possum]

I took half an hour to do today's. Thought I'd done it in 10 minutes, then realised that it was the 'mild' one.

[Yellowbelly]

Your forgetting that the £25 is from Every one who enters, not just the ones that get through. So the Total could be a lot higher than £7500.

As I'm only doing each one in about 30 minutes. I don't think I'll enter