Friday Puzzles #78

Yes I post this entirely shamelessly, offering the fine excuse that yesterday I was rather busy having lunch and dinner in Oxford. There was a maths conference there too at some point, I think.

Anyhow, please believe me when I say that I really can’t keep this up forever. After this week I’ll give Masyu a break for a while. I can’t really compete with the Juno standard anyway. But this isn’t bad :)

    #101 Masyu – rated medium

I’m also going to repost the pick of the puzzles from the recent UKPA Sudoku Championship. Many congratulations must go to our first champion Warren Harvey, a long-time reader of this blog. He topped the British contingent with a winning score of 100 points.

There was an incredible international participation too, the size of which took us aback. The top three of the table in a field of genuine world beaters were in third place Hideaki Jo of Japan, who completed the set and scored 240 points. Just a minute quicker to solve all of the puzzles was Yuhei Kusui, also of Japan with 242 points. However the clear winner was Florian Kirch of Germany, top of the pops with 256 points, completing the puzzle set with a most impressive 8 minutes to spare. Many congratulations Florian, if you’re reading, and good luck to all my other German readers who used this as a warm up to the forthcoming German championships.

As to the reasoning behind these pick of the puzzles; it’s simple. The puzzles I made I wanted to be unique amongst the background of their sub-family of Sudoku variants. With these, I succeeded and then some. I haven’t seen any puzzles anything like either of these two. Enjoy!

    #102 Killer Sudoku – rated hard

    #103 Arrow Sudoku – rated hard

All puzzles © Tom Collyer 2009-10

Friday Puzzles #32

EDIT (May 2022): I have noticed from blog analytics that this post has been continually and regularly viewed over the last couple of years.  

I suspect someone has bookmarked a link with the idea of trying to discredit or blackmail.  I am not stupid, nor do I think I should airbrush my past.  For better or worse I choose to blog, and that means living in something approaching the public domain.

So if you are the sort of pathetic being looking to discredit or blackmail me - or simply have vague plans to do so - please come out of the shadows.  Analytics already lets me know where you are based, which in itself is already quite telling.  Rest assured I am long-prepared for any contemptible shenanigans on your part.

EDIT:  Before you jump to any conclusions, please read this:
http://tcollyer.blogspot.co.uk/2010/03/communication-breakdown_8893.html

Welcome to Friday Puzzles, where I am pleased to announce the Puzzled Medium TM 2010 Sudoku qualifiers!!!

The prize you, dearest reader, could win is a once-in-a-lifetime chance to lick your very own elbow, under world championship conditions, whilst looking at this lovely picture of some Philadelphia cheese!

Well, let me temporarily avert your excitement, whilst I lay out the law of the Puzzled Medium TM 2010 Sudoku qualifier. It’s very important you pay full attention to the rules. These can never be broken. NEVER!

First off, this is only the first round. The top 50 entrants will be invited to part two. If I can be bothered to write a part two. Which I probably can, it’ll be good practice for the UK 2010 WSC qualifier, as kindly run by Puzzler Media. By the way, that is in no way affiliated or endorsed by anyone involved with Puzzled Medium TM.

Next is that although the aim of this competition is to find the best and most deserving people to lick their own elbows, do note that one place is already reserved for one of my cronies – who in all fairness has impeccable sudoku pedigree, but never mind the principle of competition or anything. Just bear in mind I do have another crony, who has pretty good (though admittedly not impeccable) sudoku pedigree, including another notable victory in a national sudoku championship (whose puzzles, by the way, were supplied by us at Puzzled Medium TM) and excellent performances when licking their own elbow in the past.  He They will definitely not be getting special treatment. We have principles regarding competition!

The eagle-eyed amongst you might have caught on to the fact that being a good sudoku solver has nothing to do with successfully licking your own elbow. This is where you’d be wrong (even though I said fact!) Here at Puzzled Medium TM, we know best, and have a proven track record in previous years of selecting the best people to lick their own arses elbows. Honest.

Oh, please don’t cheat. Here at Puzzled Medium TM, we have never ever ever had any problems with cheating, and it’d be a shame for it to start now. Even though are lots of easy ways to hypothetically do so for example by using the solvers at Scanraid and then submitting a plausibly competitive time. I shouldn’t really tell you that, but there we are, I’ve crossed it out. You were probably far too stupid to work that out for yourselves anyway.

And before I forget, let me tell you how to submit your answers. After completing the puzzles in an innocent fashion, select 18 digits from each puzzle and send them to me, along with your time. Hopefully your time-keeping device works in a similar sort of way to the ones we keep at Puzzled Medium TM…

Actually, you’ve already seen puzzles 1-4 in this first round of qualifiers in the last three weeks:

Puzzle 1: #036 Sudoku
Puzzle 2: #037 Sudoku
Puzzle 3: #034 Diagonal Sudoku
Puzzle 4: #035 Diagonal Sudoku
Puzzle 5: That’s this week’s novelty – enjoy!

    #038 Killer Sudoku – rated hard

All puzzles © Tom Collyer 2009-10