US, UK and other world puzzle championship qualifications Saturday 21st August

Just a quick reminder to anyone keen on taking part (or just fancies trying out what is bound to be an interesting set of puzzles) that the US, UK and some other countries' world puzzle championship qualifications take place tomorrow, Saturday 21st August. For details see www.ukpuzzles.org if you're in the UK, or wpc.puzzles.com in the US.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 08/21/2010 12:29AM by gareth.

RAD!!. Is this an alternative to Will Shortz's Xword tourney in Connecticut?

Some of y'all might have seen a documentary called "WORDPLAY".

Jeff L

A good set of puzzles, well worth a look, if you didn't take part.

Been there, done that.

practice makes perfect.

Gareth, fodder for Xtras and Pros, perhaps?????

Signed,
online newshound, info miner

I'n most probably missing something extremely obvious, but I have visited the above link and can't actually find the puzzles. Is there a direct link to them anywhere?

guaranteed recipe 4 fun:

wpc.puzzles.com
Links
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don't 4get ukpuzzles.org
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jl

Hi Christine,

The direct link is http://wpc.puzzles.com/uspc11/

You need to register but it's free and instant and I'm sure you don't need to fill in all the details if you're not interested in being selected for the US team! The UK team are also using the US test to select members.

TIA.

Hi Gareth, thanks for the link. Have been and registered and had a look at the puzzles. Believe me I have no illusions whatsoever about trying for any UK team!!!!!! I think there are only about four or five puzzles on there that I would even attempt - the masyu being the first. I've not really got into puzzles which are not of the japanese variety, and just to look at some of those made my brain hurt! On the positive side, a few years back I never did any puzzle other than standard sudoku so there's room for development!!

On another note, whilst browsing round I did find the sample puzzles for the 5th sudoku world cup in Philadelphia earlier this year and have downloaded those to try out. They look more my cup of tea. I've got the puzzle booklets from the first three sudoku championships and have managed to do quite a large selection of those (I just need MUCH more time that you get in the competition).

To go off the subject, have you seen the Christmas sudoku book by conceptis which is availale for pre-order on Amazon (picture of a reindeer on the front jmade up of overlapping sudoku grids?) Just a thought - I bet you could come up with a few Christmas shaped sudokus for the December issue of Xtra!!

On Saturday I literally realized that the USPC was going on when there were only 20 minutes left to submit answers. Boo Next year, I suppose.

Ah, I was waiting for the results to see if you'd competed Dave! Well if it makes you feel better I forgot entirely too until late on Friday night when I got an alarm I'd set on my mobile phone.

Personally I think it would be great if reminders were sent by email the day before. Sure they shouldn't be "needed", but are we really testing someone's diary skills or their puzzle solving ability?!


Gareth

Some of the puzzles are challenging, it's true, Christine! But most of them aren't bad at all:

1) Battleships - easy
2) Sudoku - moderate; not a hard Sudoku
3) Count me in - VERY hard if you ask me!
4) Islands - very easy
5) Groundhog day - very easy; just a case of taking the time
6) Hex equation - everyone seems to have found this hard. I think it's just a case of being organised - I'd say moderate.
7) Mirror mirror - not tried it! I imagine it is logically easy but in practice very fiddly and confusing!
8) Masyu - moderate
9) Rectangle maze - you need to think about how you might construct a competition puzzle like this, then it's not too bad
10) Digitile - luck which I haven't yet had
11) Route - not very hard actually, when you consider where evens must go and think about how all squares are used
12) Takeout - easy
13) Corral - moderate; not a hard corral, but if you're not used to them you'll find it moderate
14) Sukoro - actually easy enough
15) Constant sum - not done it but apparently it is pretty easy and mostly a case of writing out some sums
16) Criss cross sums - easy; it may not look it at a glance but it is MUCH easier than it looks
17) Pentapath - hard, I think
18) Sukazu - hard, I think
19) Hex masyu - moderate, but difficult to wrap your head around!
20) X-agony - I think this is pretty hard
21) Four square - not anywhere near as hard as it appears. You need to realise that the snake must turn an even number of times per row and column, except for the start and end. This is how you solve it.

DOC M: A SUGGESTION, not AN ORDER, announce wpc.puzzles.com tourney in June or July....so ppl have more lead time. Like deadline is TOO LATE) :-)

I wanna find that addy 4 Wiill Shortz's American puzzle championship.

Did ya ever C "WORDPLAY" (?) A documentary on Shortz, the APC, NYT devored a clue to former prez Clinton,... <CUT!!!! I have "an e-CUE CARD. JL, ROTFL!!!)

Ciao.

Well, the main issue wasn't so much needing a reminder as needing access. I don't have internet access at home and it's incredibly tough to get anywhere since my bus route doesn't run on weekends either. Had the competition been on a weekday I may have been better prepared for it.