WSPC 2018

So let's start the recap of this year's WSPC. I have not been able to summarize well, thus these are short brief of the facts of the week, and some random thoughts.


WSC
A-team for the first time since 2015. My targets were team victory and individual play-off again.

Round 1
Left: #1, 2, 9, 10
Collected 25-35 points first. Not great of course, but good start from my usual?

Round 2
Left: Quadro, Windoku
Begun from Killer, then Irregular, Jigsaw Killer, Greater than and Killer. My basic strategy this year was to get high pointers, and in this round I prepared in easier similar one. I had less progress in the remaining 2 puzzles in the last minutes, so I gathered cheap ones. I wanted to avoid Greater than before to start, though.

Round 3
Left: WR Classics 2, Four pairs, Clockfaces
Started from big ones, except Clockfaces which I feared to break. It seems I started good day around here.

Round 4
Left: Arrows 2, Count different
Product last digit and Morse numbers went okay at the beginning, and decided to try Count the odd ones. I had not planned to solve the cheap Arrows, even doubted its size, but it was truly 15 points and suit for rushing in the end.

Round 5
2 minutes left.
Well, to be honest I do not have good feeling in Deficit and Surplus, and wanted to avoid significant accident here. But some lucky assumptions led me to the unexpected finish. In tactical side, I solved from Surplus (6x6), and then Deficit and Irregular at last.

Round 6
Left: Cave
Error: Odd even and killer
Started in Makodoku, and its not smooth solving brought the decision to leave Cave. Then I solved all the others and checked for 5 minutes or so, mainly in Classic rule. But 4-cell problem due to a miscalculation was overlooked. Only error of the day, but costed much.

Round 7
8 minutes left.
Just to say, I was happy to not breaking it. This round is that kind of things.

Round T1
Left: Count different
Our ordering was Keisui, me, Kota and Taro from A to D. Highest ones of each set were left for Kota, and otherwise solved from heavy ones. 2nd set was solved within first 50 minutes, thus I and Kota were free in the last 10 minutes, so maybe we could have chosen better way.

At the end of Monday, I was surprisingly in 3rd place, even with a big error. I dreamed great result at that time, but next day was not so good as expected. I felt so tired when I woke up on Tuesday, so I might spent too much in the opening day.

Round 8
Solved: Ordering, Odd Even Sum
Start of disaster. The reason is clearly that I broke Different around, which I tried in third, in the almost ending. I could not correct it, and switched to Multiples but broke it several times with impatience. Even missed "Classic"!

Round 9
Left: GP Classics (both), Next to nine, Scattered irregular, X ray
Error: Fives
From the end, but skipped X ray without progress, and Duodoku tactically (it is quite confusing for me). I could not complete a Classic in the end, and later knew 7-cell trouble in Fives.

Round 10
Left: Half-mosaic, Quadruples, One-five-nine, 3D sudoku, Prague star
Error: One bug per line
Caught in the large Classic, but the biggest problem was the error again, this time 1-cell.

Round T2
Left: Just numbers, Ellipses
Started in the heavy set. Tough round, especially because I felt ill after the lunch. I suspect that I did few in these team rounds.

Round T3
Left: Classic, Irregular
Began from Differences here. We broke a Skyscrapers grid many times, and the remaining time was not enough to try another set.

Individual Playoff
Managed to keep 9th, at least. This year we were in the quiet room, good place to concentrate on. And more importantly, cameras and commentary were provided. In my opinion, playoffs are "not necessary" to decide the best. They are for audience, and thus should be attractive for them. I was not in the main hall at all, but it seems that the streaming was accepted positively.

Talking about my round, I had a chance to choose the last one, and selected Sudokuro. Easy decision when compared to Diagonal, and with point value. (By the way, in every round, it was interesting to see who banned Classic.) I broke the first Renban and lost ranking, recovered in Sudokuro but the round was over there.

Team Playoff
Ordering was me, Kota, Taro, Keisui, from the preference of types. I made many "this seems right" guesses, and they worked so well. I joined in the team table, and checked the placement of Fortress, which Kota had brought. A problem was that all of us completely forgot that the sheet should be placed in the corners, not in the center. It was quite lucky that the central grid denied all the sheets. Anyway, I found the placement, and left it to Kota. Then I searched other progress, but in vain, so helped completing Fortress. Keisui came with Renban sheet later, and we noticed that Renban and Arrows should be in bottom two. The placements were not confirmed, but we decided to try a well-work pattern, to get a chance of victory. It was correct, and Taro came while filling the two grids, then we finished Clockfaces and submitted. But we were once marked as wrong here. While rechecking, I found filling trouble in Renban, which I completed! We had to erase the corner, but my failure was not crucial in this round.


WPC
Of course I wanted all. There were many Latins this year, so I predicted to struggle with these.

Round 1
4 minutes left.
I had not expected to paint Shakashaka for visibility. Starting from 75-85 pointers, then Coral, and the others. I broke Coral and Hitori (!), but still enough to finish.

Round 2
Error: Scrabble (3 minutes left)
Skipped Scrabble, Overlapping squares (both) and Arrows first, and then tackled on Scrabble. Badly I forgot a rule at the last moment, and it became major error. It could have been corrected. First error of the day, costed 115 points.

Round 3
Error: Skyscrapers with mirrors 1 (10 minutes left)
From the last one, skipping Sky snail and Skyscrapers with parks: common but cheap ones. Intuitive work went well, but again the first puzzle of the booklet bothered me. 1 and 2 swapped completely. Second error of the day, costed 110 points.

Round 4
Left: Half domino triangular, Hexa skyscrapers 2, Antimagic hexagon, Antimagic hexagon with double cells, Slovak Sums 2, Boomerangs
Began on Triangular combo, after searching in the booklet. Quite hard it was. Better if I could have gotten some more cheap ones, like Boomerangs.

Round 5
Left: ABC no first 2, Semitransparent snake, Condensed domino (both), Irregular math sudoku (both)
Starting from the front page, I skipped the following types in the first visit; ABC untouchable, ABC no first, Snail - odd/even, Semitransparent snake, Reduced domino with sums, Condensed domino, Irregular math sudoku. It means cheap ones and some types I was afraid of. My troubles are in Inner coral, Reduced domino with sums 2, Numbers not touching. And I noticed the first logic of Numbered snake later, which should have been prepared.
By the way, I am curious to the signature of a marker, with Japanese letters. In my understanding, it says "Hana". Hi!

Round 6
19 minutes left.
Began from Starwacky, I went to Nurikabe Tapa, two Galaxies, Kakuro domino, and then to the highest ones. I broke Nurikabe Tapa many many times, maybe with fatigue, and also erased Snail End View Untouchable twice, but on the other hand, made quite lucky guesses in Ships and fishermen, Gaps between battleships 2.

Puzzle GP Final
Audience might be impressed when I finished Tapa before the others started, but it was not good for me because it was way too easy to get more advantage there. Still I did ok till the 5th puzzle, but then I erased Pyramid Climbers once, Walls may times, and finally made a critical error while filling the last cells of Trid. I could not correct it soon and noticed Kota's finish, so decided to erase it too. Third error of the day, costed a victory.

Round 7
4 minutes left.
I started in Land and sea, and broke that cheap one! Later I had some trouble in Country road, but otherwise it was on smooth side. I left Every third turn path in the end, but it was not so crazy as feared.

Round 8
Left: Coded dissection
I was suffered from my starting puzzle, Pentominoes I, in the right side, and even skipped it once. I recovered it later and went my way, but the round ended when I learnt the start point of Coded dissection.

Round 9
Left: Numbered regions, Sandglass (both)
At first I copied Star from my notes, even without rotation or reflection. I heard that at least Germany and USA prepared the same, so this is just for avoiding disadvantage. I tried Numbered regions for a while in the middle of the round, but made less progress, so gathered points in the other puzzles. Better if I could solve one or two more.

Round 10
10 minutes left.
Started in Double nurikabe and Double shikaku. I had to erase Double latin square 2, my last puzzle, but the whole round was doable with trials and guesses.

Round 11
58 seconds left.... I spent too much time on the last Regional snake. First I skipped the cheap snake and three regional match types to avoid confusion. Regional fillomino was also confusing for me. Regional pentominoes was easily solved with assuming R4C8 (the cell finally for L) would have been painted, though I do not know the reason now.

Round 12
Left: ABC letter groups 1, ILX, Point to numbers 2
Skipped ABC letter groups, ILX (I could not have believed that it would match 35 points), Point to numbers, Worms (so confusing). I finished the round with rushing in ABC letter groups and Point to numbers, and the last one, Point to numbers 1, had multiple solutions due to a missing arrow, so it was lucky for me to leave it until then.

Round T1
4 minutes left.
After noticing the first step and filling some pentominoes, I was mainly looking for the snake, not watching Japanese sums at all. I think I was not effective here.

Round T2
15 minutes left.
We started by filling letters, and I continued this all the way, leaving Coral for the others. This time it went well.

Round 13
22 minutes left.
Started from Tapa with questionmarks, and returned to the first two in the end. We had prepared some patterns of 3x3 Coded arrows, but this time they were useless. Still, 0, 1, 2, 6 were almost obvious in that order, so I did it even without erasing a part.

Round T3
25 minutes left.
I went from County road +, and with the construction of the whole grid by Kota (he did it all, and I only solve each paper), I continued to Yajilin (tried many patterns), Snake, and ended in Battleships. We had to go backwards for a while, due to some wrong solving of so.

Individual Playoff
As far as I know, in the first round, Galaxies was not unique, Sky battleships was the same as the previous round, and Overlapping squares, which all the contestants had no trouble, was actually not unique, too. And Japanese sums in the final was missing for some reason. After the competition, I heard that Hideaki (one of the testsolvers) did not check the playoff puzzles, so I doubt there was inconsistency in points distribution. Maybe I should have expected this from the many troubles. In the puzzle choice, I purely wanted to reduce possibilities of accidents, with that I could lose one minute in every one puzzle. So I chose Nurikabe, 35 points. For ban, I feared Wrong Products (I did not think I was the best calculator in the final), Regional fillomino (I had trouble in its visual), Double coral (quite high points), but simply chose the heaviest, the most dangerous one at my glance. I messed up Nurikabe again (should I change next time?), broke Galaxies and tetrominoes, but it had no meanings, based on the final results. The last one was the cause. Still, in this video, at 2:27:06, I entered 12 correct numbers and had one more minute to save my rank, but probably I saw some illusion there.

Team Playoff
I sat on Coral. One set was obvious to determine, and I tried the other grid by trial. One of my mistakes was that I mixed the marking of given Xs and deduced Xs. I submitted both grids, before Germany started, but once marked as wrong. And while correcting, I - somehow - overpainted a given X. And in fact this was because I used wrong matching. So at this moment I broke all the efforts of my team, only by myself. Then I helped Takuya with Japanese sums, and went to team table, but of course there was no way. At the last moment, I doubted some wrong sheets, soon Takuya went to checking and brought the correct one (and noticed that it was my failure), but time run out then. My last error of the week, costed even a successive podium place.

So, what is the problem. In Senec I thought it was mental problem. But I think this year I was okay at this point, maybe too calm. In technical side, I know I still have some clear weak points, like calculation, Latin, casual, so just continue improving. And how about physical aspects. My teammates pointed it out, and this is also what I thought even before I had left Japan. Actually I was in bad state throughout the week, so if I managed to get physically better (but how? - at least it would be different from pure puzzles), I would improve all the performance. But I am not sure its efficiency to the playoffs. I am still searching for the directions.

Anyway the next season is coming. It is a pity that we will miss a great champion from competing side, but Ulrich would challenge us from another side, it must be another amuse. I would like to find my way beforehand.