UK Puzzle Association

For the mintonette, every cell needs to be used, so you can fill in the top left corner. This creates another effective corner next to the circle, which gives a couple more lines. The ruleset for these I've seen before has the amount of turns vary and can be specified with a number in the circle, bu...

Results and solutions now posted, thanks everyone for taking part! Hope you enjoyed the puzzles

Many thanks to Liane and Tom for their help in the competition setup.

Congratulations to Freddie Hand for winning this year's UK Sudoku Championship, with David McNeill and Sam Cappleman-Lynes making up the remaining podium positions. 1. Freddie Hand 794 pts 2. David McNeill 608 pts 3. Sam Cappleman-Lynes 598 pts For the international side of the competition, Kota Mor...

Contest starts in about 1 hour, good luck everyone!

Not sure if this is the best place, but how do we get started on the example Search Nearest Nine? I got the 9 right in the centre, which I thought was very elegant, but I can’t get anything else. The break-in involves the diagonal arrows in boxes 2,4,6 and 8 and how they interact with box 5. To be ...

The instruction booklet has now been uploaded to the contest page.

https://www.ukpuzzles.org/contests.php?contestid=75

The instructions do give an exception to the normal rules in that you can use scissors to cut out the nets, which might help with visualisation. For the star battle I coloured each region which made it a little clearer. Although now that the points totals are out I see that you can get up to 724 wit...

The 2026 edition of the UK Sudoku Championship will take place slightly earlier than in previous years: specifically, between Friday 22nd and Monday 25th May. The contest page is here: https://ukpuzzles.org/contests.php?contestid=75 Instruction booklet available on the contest page Questions and dis...

This is the discussion thread for the 2026 UK Sudoku Championship. Duration: 2 hours Dates: Friday 22nd - Monday 25th May 2026 Contest Page: https://www.ukpuzzles.org/contests.php?contestid=75 Instruction Booklet: [to add] Please post any questions about the competition here. The puzzles are current...

I should probably have asked this before the last Puzzle GP round, but I don't think I understand how to approach these puzzles (3 in the last GP and one recently uploaded to the LMI expo). I think I understand the idea that in a directed loop all pieces on the edge of the grid will go round in the ...

Minor point, but the first puzzle listed in Sudoku Round 5 would just be 'Clock Sudoku' rather than Clock Faces.

Clock Faces is something different with increasing numbers going around dots.
Unless that's what Sam set, and this is an incorrect example?

Thanks! It's the first month I've been using the site and I think it went pretty well except two puzzles (and I see they are rated less than 1/5 in the archive, so it wasn't just me)

pinkagape wrote: ↑Tue 02 Dec, 2025 8:26 pm Who is Incredie, do we know?

Looks like a new-ish Chinese solver
https://logicmastersindia.com/forum/vie ... &uid=23393

Thanks for all the work you've put into running this Tom, great set of puzzles.

Well done Sam, Zoe, and Mark!

The Crocodile Hunters is missing a rule about all cells needing to contain a rope.

And the solution for the Barns Hex appears to be upside down?

Congrats Tom! I've never particularly liked the kind of classics that they used where there's no real pattern or flow to the solve, but I did enjoy the challenge in a way. It was a good excuse for a day out in London anyway, not sure I'd do the same next year when I think they said the venue is movi...

I might make the journey down for this, as I would like to get a few more in-person competitions under my belt.

Just got to figure out the best way to get there for that early in the morning

From memory and the solutions I've still got lying around, 10 extra regions: The starting point was the three cells in box 4 that are part of the region mostly in box 1 and asking where they go in the other boxes and extra regions. There's a symmetrical deduction on the right half of the grid. 13 re...

Good thoughts from Tom, I think the point about hidden/naked logic and changing up the way you're looking at a puzzle is important when things aren't flowing smoothly. With regards to sourcing classics, I feel that competition puzzles feel different to the computer generated ones you'll find. The Lo...