LMI June Puzzle Contest (4-5 June 2011)

[PuzzleScot]

Logic Masters India announces June Puzzle Test — Fillimino Fillia
Author : Grant Fikes (mathgrant) & Palmer Mebane (mellowmelon)
Date : 4th and 5th June
Length : 120 minutes
IB and Submission Link : here

This will be the third contest in the set of 4 LMI monthly Puzzle contests (April - July 2011) that will determine 2 of the places in the UK team for the 2011 World Puzzle Championship.

Therefore, if you are seriously considering competing for a place in the UK team this year, it is strongly recommended that you download the puzzle instructions when they become available, and ensure you are registered on the LMI site. This is especially important if you have already missed an eligible puzzle contest. The latest UK Puzzle ratings table is here.

You should ensure that you are familiar with the puzzles being used before the contest starts, as it will be a race against the clock!
Remember you can choose the time to compete within this window that most suits yourself.

An overview of UK WPC/WSC team qualification is available here, with full details here

[sknight]

Note also that Grant and Palmer are going to be posting further examples of all the puzzle types from this test on their blogs this week (4 on each blog).

Mellow Melon's blog is here: Melon's Puzzles
MathGrant's blog is here: A Cleverly-Titled Logic Puzzle Blog

Solvers wanting to feel fully prepared for the test should probably check the blogs and try the examples before taking the test itself.

[dickoon]

Very strongly recommended, so long as you don't hate FIllomino. This contest contains the first puzzle at LMI that I've ever given a full ten stars to; it's completely logical, it solves very neatly and yet it borders on "so ridiculous it's hilarious", which is something you don't usually get from a logic puzzle. To say which one it is would be a spoiler, but I think you'll like it too.

I'm not convinced that in principle it's a wise thing to have a quarter of, er, half of the UK qualifying mechanism being based on puzzles and variants on a single puzzle format, but I'll take what I can get (at LMI or elsewhere) and am very grateful to the puzzle constructors for offering it to us. Go and get solving! So far I'm top of the UK standings for this test, which is a clear sign that something's wrong! (Admittedly first of two, but - as I said - I'll take what I can get...)

[MellowMelon]

The concern about the test being themed when more than one ratings list depends on it is acknowledged. The test concept is mathgrant's and I don't know when the idea formed, but I first learned about it in early March. Back then I didn't realize the UK would have such a qualification scheme.

I don't know how much consolation this is, but we knew well in advance that the issue of keeping enough variety in the skills being tested had to be addressed. Types like Shape, Sum, and Star, which respectively touch on word fill-ins, arithmetic, and row/column deductions, may not have made it in if we hadn't been paying attention to that. The issue of someone who tanks on Fillomino being out a test in your qualification system couldn't really be corrected, but we did our best to keep things balanced.

I saw the 10 rating; I'm not ready to reveal who made that one, but I'm sure both of us are glad to see that you enjoyed it regardless.

[detuned]

I've not had a go at this test yet, but as a general comment I think the tests at LMI (or elsewhere) would greatly suffer if any authors worried too much about how their test might play into a completely external ratings system. I don't think it's at all your responsibility Palmer (and Grant) to worry about how fair your test might be to our ratings system or not.

[drsteve]

Completely agree with Tom - people setting such wonderful competitions as appear on the LMI website should pay no heed to what we, or others, might use them for.

I do appreciate the point that a completely Fillomino contest would bias the contest in favour of those who are experts in the field, but a) it does reflect a typical WPC round and b) there's enough variation in the solving techniques here to level the playing field.

I'd be a bit more concerned if the contest was based on a more popular variant, such as Slitherlink, as some of the LMD contests have been, as a Nikoli regular could potentially notch up a significantly high score on such a speciality contest. These are the sort of kinks that hopefully will get ironed out in the long run though in our qualifying procedure - in the future, I'd expect we'd be able to do maybe best four out of six contests, starting a bit earlier, and give everyone a chance to have a contest that suits their strengths.

Besides, looking at the scores so far, no UK contestant has streaked into an unassailable lead, so nothing to worry about anyway...

[PuzzleScot]

I've updated the UK Puzzle Ratings database.

A very tricky contest that mixed up the table a little, though the fight for UK puzzle team places remains a close contest!

I have retrospectively included kiwijam (James McGowan). He is a British citizen living in New Zealand, so had slipped under the radar by declaring his country as New Zealand, rather than UK, on previous LMI contests.

However, I have not included Ushanka (S. Ettinger), of the British Overseas Indian Territories, because that person has not registered on this site to declare a British representative status.

[MellowMelon]

Sam Ettinger is a friend of mine from college that was probably having fun with the country column. He's not British.

[PuzzleScot]

Sam Ettinger is a friend of mine from college that was probably having fun with the country column. He's not British.

We figured that out Thanks anyway...

[Janix]

ok Chris - which one did you give the 10 to - was it the "Greater-Than" one? I thought that was the best - and having wasted my time on the 20 pointer - went around in circles in the centre and lost my way - went back to the Greater-Than one at the end and ran out of time just before finishing it. I got the constraint immediately on coming back to it. Very nice idea.

[dickoon]

Yep, the higher-up (easier!) "Greater Than" one, for surprising inclusion of something that I would have thought improbable in a 10x10 grid.

I'm always slightly surprised by the tendency for the highest-rated puzzles, by the masses, to be the more difficult ones. By and large I enjoy puzzles that I complete rather more than ones I don't, and - pretty much - I can only do the easy ones. Surely it's a remarkable achievement for a puzzle to be both interesting and relatively easy?