croco-puzzle

Calavera · Post by **Calavera** » Sat 26 Feb, 2011 6:16 pm

PuzzleScot wrote:Berni/Calavera, Is it possible to replay old daily puzzles?

Only the ones of the previous day by logging out.

Post by **drsteve** » Sat 26 Feb, 2011 8:33 pm

Purely me showing off, but Yay! Cracked the top 500 today and finally earned a little green arrow!

ronaldx · Post by **ronaldx** » Sat 26 Feb, 2011 9:18 pm

hehe congratulations Steve! welcome to the addicts!!

berni · Post by **berni** » Sun 27 Feb, 2011 9:14 am

motris wrote: If only I'd known I had that record from my great Jan 31st Rundweg solve, I would be more bothered to lose it on a day like today. By my rough estimate 20 solvers broke the record today. So this is just a super outlier day with two very easys, much like that 4s solve must have been. I've not seen any puzzle in the 200 I've played yet where even knowing the solution I could replicate a 4s time, except when I jump over to say the 2007 Advent puzzles and go to the easiest category.

Well ist was a 6x6 Heyawake, but half of the grid were zeros making it a 6x3 actually. You needed to place 5 black squares.

I know the puzzle type is determined randomly by an assigned formula depending on first/second group, but are the grid dimensions randomly chosen in a biased way where certain sizes are much more likely? For example, a 10x10 Tapa is 40% likely while an 11x5 is 4% likely while a 5x5 is .4% likely? Certainly some puzzle types (Doppelstern) can't go below 9x9 without a serious problem or 8x8 at all, but what is the smallest grid that a surprise puzzle can be? I'm guessing you limit it to 4x4 on the Latin square types, but could something like a 3x3 Hochhaeuser ever appear?

Until december I decided manually, which sizes/difficulty levels to use. Meanwhile I've got a program which does the job, but I'm still refining it. I tried the program to do the same I did before. But it might sometimes lead to rather strange grids (have you ever solved a 10x11-puzzle?). The available sizes are dependend on the puzzletype, with squares being more likely. I think I never accepted 3x3 grids. That's really too small. There is also an upper limit, which is the time the computer needs to calulate the puzzles. After 5 minutes calculation is stopped and a new puzzle is tried to create (same type, but other constraints). This is necessary to handle NP-completeness(*).

(*)In computer science some problems are classified as NP-complete which is true for most logical puzzles. Problems of this class tend to have examples that need very very long computing time to solve.

dickoon · Post by **dickoon** » Sun 27 Feb, 2011 9:24 pm

Have people yet discerned the identity of this new solver kirarin who has been putting in sparkling performances recently? Two top-6 performances (so far!) today, a first and a second on Thursday and plenty of other top 20 performances dotted around the place. It's not a name on the LMI puzzle rankings - though, conceivably, it could be someone who solves under another name at LMI and elsewhere. Is it a name in use at nikoli, for instance?

Post by **detuned** » Sun 27 Feb, 2011 10:25 pm

It is not a name I've noticed before...

Post by **drsteve** » Sun 27 Feb, 2011 10:41 pm

So much for my good streak... I think Ronald was right using the word addict...

EDIT: A big thank you to everyone else who messed up the slalom. I'm actually on a plus score now. Cheers!

motris · Post by **motris** » Mon 28 Feb, 2011 3:04 am

dickoon wrote:Have people yet discerned the identity of this new solver kirarin who has been putting in sparkling performances recently? Two top-6 performances (so far!) today, a first and a second on Thursday and plenty of other top 20 performances dotted around the place. It's not a name on the LMI puzzle rankings - though, conceivably, it could be someone who solves under another name at LMI and elsewhere. Is it a name in use at nikoli, for instance?

I certainly noticed the name on day 2 of play (18/02/11), when kirarin cost me a double top (and as I recall was a late score on that day when most of the regulars being done suggested it was mine in hand - never thought the Heyawake time would be the one of the two that day to fall). No idea who it is, but there are only a handful of solvers who could be that good. My first impression from puzzle style performance suggests much more familiarity with Japanese/nikoli.com-like puzzles, but it would be a new nom for a nikoli.com solver or any WPC solver I know of.

I'm not asking for that solver to break anonymity or to have it announced (my first two weeks were far less spectacular - learning applets and such - but started similar murmurs), but I'm guessing at some time we may find out who it is.

dickoon · Post by **dickoon** » Mon 28 Feb, 2011 10:42 pm

I'll say that the first results you get from searching for "kirarin" seem to be related to a Japanese manga, of which an anime was made. I'm hoping that the nom hides known (one-time and still-current?) anime fan, and four-time World Puzzle Champion, Wei-Hwa Huang, mostly because it would be delightful to me for him to be playing at croco-puzzle and putting out world-class and occasionally world-leading performances. If not, there are many outstanding Japanese solvers who might be using an anime-related name. Worst case scenario is that it's a cheater who's doing a very measured job at cheating to the point of being an impressive impostor of these usual suspects.

Post by **detuned** » Mon 28 Feb, 2011 11:22 pm

I'm fairly sure Wei-hwa usually goes by Onigame (?) - it's certainly a name that crops up on the front page of nikoli.com every so often anyway.

It'll be interesting to see how the masyu time holds up today/tomorrow. There's perhaps a little slack in my time today, but not a huge deal. I have an unfounded hunch on this one, one which will be greatly supported by a 20-30s chunk (or more!) being taken out of my masyu time

Post by **drsteve** » Tue 01 Mar, 2011 7:41 am

detuned wrote:I'm fairly sure Wei-hwa usually goes by Onigame (?) - it's certainly a name that crops up on the front page of nikoli.com every so often anyway.

It'll be interesting to see how the masyu time holds up today/tomorrow. There's perhaps a little slack in my time today, but not a huge deal. I have an unfounded hunch on this one, one which will be greatly supported by a 20-30s chunk (or more!) being taken out of my masyu time

If twenty seconds had been taken off that time, someone must have been cheating! Excellent score, Tom

Post by **PuzzleScot** » Tue 01 Mar, 2011 9:21 am

Tom and Stefano currently topping the leaderboard (currently). A great day... (and I got my 16th Kyu)

Post by **drsteve** » Tue 01 Mar, 2011 2:11 pm

OK, I'm sure it's been explained elsewhere, but what's this kyu stuff? How does one qualify for a kyu thing?

motris · Post by **motris** » Tue 01 Mar, 2011 4:17 pm

detuned wrote:I'm fairly sure Wei-hwa usually goes by Onigame (?) - it's certainly a name that crops up on the front page of nikoli.com every so often anyway.

It'll be interesting to see how the masyu time holds up today/tomorrow. There's perhaps a little slack in my time today, but not a huge deal. I have an unfounded hunch on this one, one which will be greatly supported by a 20-30s chunk (or more!) being taken out of my masyu time

Wei-Hwa is not on my list of suspects for many reasons.

Great time Tom. Sorry I couldn't spoil it for you. I was trying to avoid the Masyu-acre that got 4 of the top 5 solvers so I checked my loop a bit much maybe. Still I think I would have been 5 seconds slow, so indeed a solid time. Of course, while I avoided being caught in a noose with the loop puzzle, I got avalanched with the Slalom. Ugh.

motris · Post by **motris** » Tue 01 Mar, 2011 4:22 pm

drsteve wrote:OK, I'm sure it's been explained elsewhere, but what's this kyu stuff? How does one qualify for a kyu thing?

The kyu/Dan are ranking names, originally used for Go I think, but then also Judo. They are titles earned "for life" once you demonstrate a certain level of proficiency.

These rankings are earned after your 200-day average (the red score on your rating page) reaches each 100 point level. An average of 100 earns you a 20th kyu award, 200 earns you 19th kyu, up to 2000 for 1st kyu. Then you can earn the higher Dan rankings of 1st Dan, 2nd Dan, to theoretically 10th Dan for 2100, 2200, ..., 3000.

Post by **drsteve** » Tue 01 Mar, 2011 4:57 pm

motris wrote:
drsteve wrote:OK, I'm sure it's been explained elsewhere, but what's this kyu stuff? How does one qualify for a kyu thing?
The kyu/Dan are ranking names, originally used for Go I think, but then also Judo. They are titles earned "for life" once you demonstrate a certain level of proficiency.

These rankings are earned after your 200-day average (the red score on your rating page) reaches each 100 point level. An average of 100 earns you a 20th kyu award, 200 earns you 19th kyu, up to 2000 for 1st kyu. Then you can earn the higher Dan rankings of 1st Dan, 2nd Dan, to theoretically 10th Dan for 2100, 2200, ..., 3000.

Cheers, Tom. Still a way to go, then...

Post by **detuned** » Tue 01 Mar, 2011 10:11 pm

I didn't want to speak too soon, but I suppose I'll take the disappointment of having my unfounded hunch knocked back like that if it means a #1

Post by **detuned** » Wed 02 Mar, 2011 11:49 am

Although interestingly kirarin has nailed the Masyu today. Which is interesting, as that was a more cerebral Masyu puzzle than the day before. I think I have my money on Palmer at this stage...

Post by **PuzzleScot** » Wed 02 Mar, 2011 12:45 pm

Real names (or at least nationality! Just a little flag would do) would be very handy!

Post by **PuzzleScot** » Thu 03 Mar, 2011 12:31 am

Firefox issued an update today, and 'strongly advised' to update Flash Player. Now I'm having issues loading the croco puzzles. Anyone else?

uvo · Post by **uvo** » Thu 03 Mar, 2011 1:22 am

Me too, but since croco-puzzle is based on Java instead of Flash, that Flash Player update can't be the reason. However, there was a regular Firefox update today (version 3.6.14).

Anyway, if you are experiencing problems (Java applet not loading): just restart Firefox. For some reason I can't start two applets (or even the same applet twice) without restarting Firefox.

uvo · Post by **uvo** » Thu 03 Mar, 2011 1:30 am

Whoever kirarin is, he begins to annoy me. I didn't expect to lose that Kakuro top spot today

Calavera · Post by **Calavera** » Thu 03 Mar, 2011 2:07 am

Well, I'm generally annoyed by nearly all Kakuro-times

. I guess I really have to train using the NumPad or else I'll never get even close to these...

berni · Post by **berni** » Thu 03 Mar, 2011 7:47 am

uvo wrote:Whoever kirarin is, he begins to annoy me. I didn't expect to lose that Kakuro top spot today

But it still earns you points in the kakuro rating. Anyway, without kirarin you would have taken all-out top position from pwahs (with tapa) again...

PS: I don't know who he/she is, but I guess it's someone from japan.

sf2l · Post by **sf2l** » Thu 03 Mar, 2011 2:39 pm

guess who overtook me yesterday near Chester

UK Puzzle Association

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