Here is the recap of the unusually long week. I had much to do but finally returning to this. Some results are provided this year , so I will not write down about information available there.
WSC
Definitely for me compared to last year, but I was not certain about to what extent it would be.
Round 1
Simply chose the most preferable ones, with the genre and points. I heard Tantan used backward logic effectively, but it sounds risky expecialy in the very first round.
Round 2
Left: #1-6
Backwards as usual. No guess, not so much erasing, I was just slow. I have much to do for Sudoku basis. I broke #6 in the end and could not fix it.
Round 3
Left: Even/Odd (both), Tic-tac-toe
Error: Battenburg (partial credit), First Even/Odd (second, partial credit)
Solved from high pointers, so basically I did what I had to do. I had to restart the second First Even/Odd and still made 4-cell switch, and for Battenburg, which I finished in the very last second, soon I noticed that my final digit 4 was just below 4, and it was also the left cell of another 4....
Round 4
Left: Thermo (large)
Started from Killer, then large Outside and I broke it. It took long to fix it, and I had to choose not trying large Thermo, managed to finish the rest in the last minutes.
Round 5
Solved in the order. I know I was not that smooth, even erased a bit on the second one, still wonder what Letian did here. We prepared some logics for Diagonally NC but maybe it says more?
Round 6
Left: Same Product
From high pointers, and with a lot of guess; Arrow 0-8, Same Sum and Dot Sum. Finishable round if I did not break Upper Right Heavy Killer.
Round 7
I think everyone prepared combination pattern, actually it was much easier and doable by comparing each two grids. So it was almost about Classics, producing less upset.
Round 8
Due to the small size of paper, I and Kota sat in front, I started from bottom left, Kota from bottom right. Our usual strategy is to keep left-handed to left, not to disturb each other, so Hideaki from top left, Rintaro from top right. We all went to anti-clockwise way, I moved to bottom right, Kota even ended in top left. We had some confusion about genres, made wrong deduction and erased it several times.
Round 9
I forget who took which genre, probable Relation was for Kota. And I began with Inside Next-to, as the most puzzle type, and that seems good choice. Most of my work was just fitting pieces, once the grid is complete or near to that, it was sent to Kota or someone else.
Round 10
Left: #1-3
From 40 to 55, then returned from 35 points. Mostly with trials, it might fit better on this difficulty.
Round 11
Left: 8x8 (40/85), 9x9 (0/105)
Then big trouble occurred. I was near to finish in around 20 minutes, but found a unresolvable pattern in 9x9, then found a broken clue. I retried 9x9, broke again, once more in failure, good reason to erase 8x8. And I could not come back to 9x9. I know it may happen in such a structure, yet a disappointment to clearly lose podium with one puzzle.
Round 12
Left: Classic, Self-Joint, Pole position
From high pointers as usual, but with low tension. Good enough considering my state.
Round 13
I forget who took which set (Kota has the booklets), maybe I saw the Irregular pattern of set C. I had some trouble in the midway, somewhere around Next to Nine or so (but not regarding clue orders - we never cared about it), and received some clues from the others. I could catch up in the last Outside but Rintaro was trapped here, spent some additional minutes but managed to correct it. Good result but could have been much better.
Round 14
Same seat as Round 8. Each quadrant is almost solvable independently, but quite hard. I worked together with Hideaki in the left two, and we all gathered in the top right, probably Rintaro was not comfortable with this puzzle.
Sudoku GP Final
I was not involved but note the selection:
Tantan: pick Region Sum Lines
Kota: ban Coded
Suzhe: pick Classic 1
Tantan: ban Coded, so it goes to Suzhe
Kota: pick Classic 3
Suzhe: pick Classic 2, complete the set
Tantan: ban Determinant, so it goes to Kota
Kota: ban No Touch, so it goes to Tantan
Tantan: ban Quadruple, so it goes to Kota, and Tantan gets Parquet and Palindrome
And the orders in each round were:
Coded, Classic 1, Classic 2
Classic 3, Determinant, Quadruple
Palindrome, No Touch, Parquet, Region Sum Lines
I heard from Kota that he wanted to avoid lottery in Coded, and he likes Classic from Minako. Actually I made a lucky guess in that Classic, and I think I was not that slow at finding the trick of Determinant, but bad at filling classic part in it, and also in Quadruple. And time disadvantage is significant in such a sprint, of course.
WPC
Supposed to be my main target.
Supposed to be my main target.
Round 1
Beginning with Double Choco and Star Battle Builder, then tackled to Scrabble. Lucky to have good intuition on it. Erases in the second Star Battle Builder and the first Doppelblock Figures were the main losses.
Round 2
Error: Clouds (second)
First from Cave to Coral, mostly taking only the second ones but taking both for Easy as ABC and Domino, then returned from the end. Jumping Crosswords was time consuming but doable for me. I skipped the second No Four in a Row (I don't like this word this year) for time management, leaving a few minutes but that is okay. Bigger problem was the minor error in the Clouds, and this was the sign of my error prone days....
Round 3
Left: 4 minutes
Error: Non-consecutive (first), Domino (second)
Rather complicated strategy here, my order was Domino, Fillomino, Non-consecutive, Skyscrapers, Futari and classics. I expected the trick of the first Fillomino but still overlooked the pattern. And two errors, both of two-cell switch were critical, I am not sure what I was doing.... About the puzzles, I love Hitori with good logics, not just searching, and I am happy to see such kinds here.
Round 4
Planned to solve Pentopia, Skyscrapers, Statue Park, Easy as Battleships and then backwards. But I made no progress in Pentopia for long, even skipped once. I cannot find the reason from post-solve, what I missed?
Round 5
Eternal trial of connecting via zigzag parts. After the round I heard that Ryotaro expected the theme of the solution, that knowledge would have changed the game!
Round 6
Start position was based on the genre preference:
Top Left: Ryusuke
Top Right: Naoki
Bottom Left: Kota
Bottom Right: me
I cooperated more with Naoki, completing right half and gradually moved to left. At some point someone found broken part in top left, so we erased leftmost column, and maybe Chess too because of uncertainty. After several attempts we also erased Tapa Line part, still broke and almost concluded that the puzzle is wrong, and tried to fill the remaining parts.
Round 7
If I remember correctly, original distribution was:
me: Ice and Water
Kota: Fire and Matrix
Ryusuke: Adjacenct and Morning
Naoki: Miasma and Robotic
left: Energy
Even though I was more accustomed to the newish genres, I was ask to speed up in classical ones. I could make good progress on both, then worked on placing grids. We had to confirm the rules at some points, even in the very end we forgot the rule of Energy forbidding direct connection.
Puzzle GP Final
The selection was:
me: pick Kakuro
Thomas: pick Yin Yang
Naoki: ban Sudoku Battleships
me: pick Blokus (Given Set, Polygraph)
Thomas: ban Sudoku Battleships, so it goes to me
Naoki: pick Slitherlink (Pentominoes)
me: pick Nurikabe, complete the set
Thomas: ban Skyscrapers (With Blanks, Distinct Diagonals), so it goes to Naoki
Naoki: ban Maxi Loop + Country Road (Permaculture), so it goes to Thomas
Thomas: pick Rail Pool, and Naoki gets Pentominous
And the orders in each round were:
Skyscrapers, Pentominous, Slitherlink
Maxi Loop + Country Road, Rail Pool, Yin Yang
Blokus, Kakuro, Sudoku, Nurikabe
It might have caused no difference, but Naoki could have picked something without banning Permaculture? Regarding my choice, I did not mind any genre, only considered the balance. I wanted some number filling types and Kakuro was the most likely be taken by others, so I took it first. Sudoku would almost automatically come to me, and three number filling could be too unbalanced, especially when I did not know who would come to the fourth spot, so my next choice was Blokus, a bit skewed type but rather comfortable for me. And Nurikabe was for nothing, only to make it to three-puzzle game. Yin Yang was my preferable choice for that purpose, with less risk, but luckily for me it was already picked. Actually I had trouble in number filling part and saved by it (sorry to Freddie with my error). And even for that I had some frozen time, diagonally touching 2 and 3 reminded me of Cave and I had to check the puzzle name. I will prepare better for this new format.
Round 8
Solved: Yajilin (second), Masyu (second), Kakuro (second), LITS, Easy as
Error: Aqre (second)
Badly started the second day. Misunderstanding of number of stars in the second Easy as was a big loss, and one-cell error in the 160 pointer was much more critical.
Round 9
Left: Letter Fragment Crosswords, Pointing at the Crowd (second), Hungarian Numberlink (second), Letter Cocktail, Hexa Islands, X-Crossward
As planned, I started with Crossing Masyu, From 1 to 20, Orbits, Domino Square, Pentonuri Romanis, Pento Paint, Binary Stars and Regional Yajilin. Less problem so far. Then I tried X-Crossword but found nothing, feared to try another word puzzles, which was the bad decision. After that I just wasted time on the second Hexa Islands and grabbed some points in the end.
Round 10
Backwards, with some guesses. Tried to get back to my pace.
Round 11
With the experience of WSC Round 1, I used many backward deductions here. Some of Easy as grids were left till the end.
Round 12
This was not well performed. I was not smooth at the start, could not find the pattern of bottom left and even thought there were no solution.
Round 13
I solved Heyawake + Island Nations + LITS and Double Country Road, then helped Kota with Shikaku. At that point Kota had solved Ripple Effect + Suguru, Naoki did Ice Walk + Double Choco and Double Galaxies, Ryusuke did Scrabble + Nurikabe Snakes. After Shikaku, Kota continued checking continent puzzles, and I joined in Pangaea.
Round 14
Left: 6 minutes
Error : Solar System
Original distribution was:
me: Hidato and Black Hole Tapa
Kota: Four Winds and Kropki
Ryusuke: Simple Loop and Choco Banana
Naoki: Pentominous and Fillomino
I was not smooth on Hidato even after setting the orientation, more stuck on Tapa and Kota helped me. Still we could not do it, probably due to wrong position of outer ring. At that point Naoki found multiple solutions of Fillomino and I went to check it, we spent too much time on it. I wonder how the other teams dealt with it.... Thankfully Kota managed to solve Tapa, and we decided to leave Fillomino, but finally made a wrong setting of Uranus in the final puzzle.
Round 15
Left: 11 minutes
Error: Compass (second), Bosnian Road (second)
Solved order was Cave, Skyscrapers, Bosnian Road, Compass, Slitherlink and Akari. And I still made silly errors: the second Compass had a clue with bottom 1 in the top row, but I somehow saw it as left 1. The other error was the only proper error in this WPC and I can accept it for taking risk.
Round 16
Left: 30 minutes
Error: Aqre
Silly again. First I broke Aqre, then finished it without looking at D. In the end I knew the number of D but found it nowhere, wrongly thought it as useless clue.
Round 17
Left: 9 minutes
Error: Dice Poker (fourth)
Spent some minutes in vain by confusing 2 and 2+2 in Dice Poker. And the error came from the final filling steps.
Round 18
Left: 22+5 minutes
Went backwards. In the middle I saw another large grid, felt some similarity with the first boss, and went to next page, then I saw front page in the center of the booklet! Front page - boss combination was somehow mixed in the middle. I could not notice because the round concept was to solve what I see. I called for Pal at the front, he soon understood the situation and I proceeded. I had to correct 2-loop error in #3 but finished with 22 minutes left, and it was discussed later. Luckily I was in the front row, and the competition director was watching my solve of the boss, checked the time as 5 minutes, so I was given another 5 minutes. Maybe my second solve was faster than 5 minutes but considering the confusion I think it was rational, and the best thing was that it did not affect to anything.
Totally bad days, losing 1005 points from errors is way too much, and too much misreading. Probably I made the same mistake as in Kirchheim, but not sure about the exact reason for now. Anyway it happened again and I have some possible reasons in my mind, many things to check.
24HPC
I had to read the instruction but no power to concentrate on it. Good thing was that I had a chance to watch Road World Championship on TV, I was watching it between reading, or even reading between watching, good refresh on Sunday.
Round 1
Left: 2 minutes
Error: Tapa Egg (first)
Went forward but skipped Scrabble at first. A lot of erasing from the beginning, especially on VAMA.
Round 2
Error: Linesweeper, Capsules, Country Road (Large)
Backwards but skipping Slovak Sums after breaking twice.
Round 3
Error: Penthouse + Numbered Rooms (3/4 correct)
Went forward from Choco Banana but skipped Fillomino + Country Road after initial steps, also skipped Tapa + Skyscrapers without finding anything. And I spent too much on Magnets + Underground, very inefficient work.
Round 14
Left: 32 minutes
Backwards, good rest with comfortable solving.
Round 5
Left: Odd/Even Not-Quite-Sudoku (first and second), Antignight Not-Quite-Sudoku (first)
Error: Kropki (second)
Classics first, then variants from revealed ones and high pointers. Many erasing on this mad round, maybe more on small ones. Filling error on the trivial Kropki (switched 4 and 6 in the top right) was crazy, and actually I made a swap in the last puzzle of the round, which was saved by the warmer marking.
Round 6
Left: Twins (6/8 found)
First went from Pentomino in the Box to Tumbleweed Loop, then took 3D Scrabble, Monopoly Sudoku, Star Battle Kakuro, then mostly backwards for the remaining. I tried to find the hidden trick but failed again (or solved before noticing).
Round 7
Left: Instructionless, Countries, Count the Shapes (Jigsaw), Triple Choco, Halfdomino, Easy as (Curve Data)
Basically planned to start from Sudoku (Thermo). Big loss on Countries, I spent so much but failed in the end, then collected some cheap ones.
Round 8
Left: 0 minute (probably)
Error: Maxi Loop (third), Sudoku Minus One (first), Suguru (first)
Forgot the order but my last one was the first Sudoku Minus One, I thought I hit the guess but it was not correct at all. And many errors, Suguru was actually correct and just thin, but I was saved for empty cells for the second one, and the second Kuroshiro was also saved, and as far as I heard from Pal this year marking was a bit more rigid for top players.
Round 9
Left: 5 minutes (probably)
Basically high pointers first, word puzzles in the middle and sprint in the end.
Round 10
Left: Barriers (both), Diagonal Irregular Sudoku
Planned to start from higher ones but found nothing for Diagonal Irregular Sudoku, so changed my mind to solve all except it. I did not notice not touching Barriers till the end, almost started checking.
Round 11
Left: Arithmetic Square (both), Easy as ABC (both), Battleships (second), Context (both), Futoshiki (second), Tango (second)
Error: Scrabble
From high pointers, erasing a lot. And I missed Chiel on Scrabble, sorry!
Round 12
Left: ? minutes (busy on checking)
Combos forwards, then classics backwards. I tried Latin Combo several times and believed that it happened again on this cursed genre. I also broke Kropki and doubted if the classic rule is not that I know in fact. Skipped it and got back in the end, luckily looking over the wrong part that time.
Round 13
Left: 12 minutes
From high pointers. I felt I was apparently getting slow.
Round 4
Left: 26 minutes
Easy post-solve, glad to see their contribution here.
I was almost unsure what I was doing, just solved and survived with many sacrifices. I continued making many errors, so this is good evidence to say this was not caused from pressure or Hungarian creation, though I cannot say this is good thing. Thanks organizers for such a combination of big events, I am looking forward to visit again, hopefully in better form.
At last I will provide all of my heart rate record:
