Cranium-Crushing Numberlink

This giant Numberlink puzzle is so difficult it will appear in your nightmare.
You have been warned.

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Results of SOTR Holiday Quiz 2017-18

Happy 2018 everyone!
How are your holidays?
I still had to work throughout New Year’s but because of that, I’m currently enjoying my share of break (albeit a week later than everyone else) back home. As per tradition, we find out our first winner of the year by announcing the results of the SOTR Holiday Quiz!

Here are the answers.

Q1: Bonjour [2 points]
The 2015 French Scrabble Championship was held in Louvain-la-Neuve, Belgium. What was especially peculiar about that year’s championship?
It was won by Scrabble god Nigel Richards who spent nine weeks memorizing the French lexicon and he doesn’t speak a word of French. Back in 2015, he won the Classic Match Play division and just last year he beat Thierry Chincolle of France in the finals of the Elite division. Woah!

Q2: Secret Santa [4 points]
Who is this person dressed up as Santa Claus?

Only two of you recognized South Korea’s number one sudoku solver, Seungjae Kwak. He won the 2017 Grand Prix final held in Bangalore, India. To be fair, the picture on the left does look somewhat like Hideaki Jo (which a lot of you submitted).

Q3: Puzzle Spy [3,2,2,3,2,3,3,3 points]
Shh! Take a peek at these grids. Can you name these puzzles?
Some of these maybe debatable, but since these pictures were taken from actual puzzles, no points were given to different answers.
1 is Visionary Tapa, I didn’t accept Colour Tapa (my creation!) because the clues aren’t arranged in an arc.
2 is Odd-Even-Big-Small Sudoku, I tried covering up the Kanji but most of you still got it.
3 is Hidato, also accepted Hidoku. I’ve also seen another name for it: Mazuko. Are there any other puzzles with numbers this high?
4 is It’s Yours, created by Ko Okamoto.
5 is Slovak Sums, which was also the inspiration for this question. I was solving Slovak Sums and couldn’t get over how awesome the layout looks.
6 is Tight-Fit Killer Sudoku, a tricky one. Killer Sudoku is not accepted because there is a slash that separates a single cell.
7 is Sums Fillomino, another personal favourite.
8 is Pills, taken from the Swiss Puzzle Grand Prix. If you look carefully, the dots aren’t uniform.
Only James McGowan and Giovanni Pagano identified all 8 puzzles. Well Done!

Q4: Yokai [4 points]
An invisible Japanese monster who appears in front of passersby to block them from traveling, gives its name to which puzzle?

The pictured yokai is Nurikabe, whose name means “painted wall”. Legend of the Nurikabe dates back since the Edo period, the much younger Nurikabe puzzle was created in 1991.

Q5: Anecdote [2 points]
In 2006, a journalist tried competing at a particular national competition for the first time and won. He later recollect how he won the finals:
“…At the front door, I saw my friend Liz vivisecting a pig. Just inside, the Incredible Hulk rode a stationary bike while a pair of oversize, loopy earrings weighed down his earlobes… In my brother’s bedroom, I saw my friend Ben urinating on Benedict XVI’s papal skullcap…and at the foot of my parents’ bedroom door, myself moonwalking with Einstein…”
What on earth is he talking about?

In Moonwalking with Einstein, Joshua Foer chronicled his adventures practicing for, and later winning, the 2006 U.S. Memory Championship. The excerpt above is a common technique mental athletes use to memorize a deck of cards. An image is assigned to each card and multiple images combine to form weird scenarios that stick in your mind, hopefully long enough for the competitor to recall the entire deck.

Q6: Cryptic Crossword [3 points]
This crossword appeared in the Guardian back in 2013. What was so special about it?

Appropriate answers are highlighted.

Reverend John Graham, crossword writer for the Guardian under the byline “Araucaria”, announced in a crossword that he was terminally ill. The crossword ran in January 2013 before the 92-year old constructor passed away in November the same year. He had been providing cryptic crosswords for the Guardian since 1958.

Q7: Infographics [3,2,4,2,2 points]
Below are five graphs, each depicting some information. Can you decipher what each diagram represent? A short sentence briefly explaining each graph will be acceptable. (Click to enlarge).

A: Individual WPC titles won by each country. The 11-title German slice were all from Ulrich Voigt, while America’s 6 titles were between Wei-Hwa Huang (4), Ron Osher (1) and Palmer Mebane (1). I predict that in the next decade Japan’s slice will grow due to the arrival of Ken Endo.
B: Count of different cell shapes in a standard Battleships puzzle. There are 20 ship segments in Battleships. 4 are submarines (circle), 4 are squares (middle segments) and the rest are the curvy ends of the ships.
C: Progression of the 3x3x3 Rubiks Cube world record. The current record stands at 4.59 seconds by SeungBeom Cho (South Korea) during ChicaGhosts 2017 held last October. Competitively-speaking, cubists duel it out over 5 attempts and taking the average time, while excluding the fastest and slowest time. In that case, the current record is 5.80 seconds by Feliks Zemdegs (Australia) – who is also the record holder of several other Rubiks disciplines.
D: Letters that are also pentominoes. The standard set of 12 pentominoes have letter labels. There is actually an alternate labelling proposed by mathematician John Horton Conway which uses 12 consecutive letters from O to Z. Puzzlers will no-doubt prefer the original labels because of the resemblance to the letters.
E: Reinfeld values of chess pieces. Chess clubs all over the world will teach you not to swap rooks with a knight or bishop and that the King is worth 200. However, there are endless debates and other proposed values to chess pieces but let’s stick to the basics for now.

Q8: Cryptogram [8 points (1 each)]
Can you work out what these 8 entries are?From top to bottom: PIXEL PUZZLES, OEKAKI, KARE KARALA, PI-CROSS, PIC-A-PIX, PAINT IT BLACK, HANJIE and NONOGRAM. These are different names for the same puzzle depending on where you get your puzzles. Online cryptogram solvers could not decipher this so if anyone hacked their way through this, please share your experience!

Q9: Sequence [3 points]
What comes next in the following sequence?
Masyu comes next. The original type was called Shinju no Kubikazari (Pearl Necklace) and had only white circles. Black circles were later added and it was renamed Shiroshinju Kuroshinju (White Pearls Black Pearls). Nikoli president, Maki Kaji, misread the kanji as “Masyu” and the name stuck.

And the winner is….!!
Congratulations to James McGowan from New Zealand!
With this win, he breaks two records!
The perfect 60/60 is obviously the highest score we’ve ever had in our Holiday Quiz and he also becomes SOTR’s first triple winner! Balloons! Celebration! Applause! James will receive the Nikoli Penpa 2018 issue for winning.

Each year I always think this quiz is harder than the last but the scores indicate otherwise. I wasn’t aiming for difficult non-Google-able questions but I tried to make sure that you have to earn these points. Was the quiz too easy? Did anyone wing through this without Google? Had fun?
Anyway, hope you enjoyed the quiz and I wish everyone a fantastic year to come. Subscribe to the mailing list on the right hand side to not miss any future events.

Happy 2018!

SOTR Holiday Quiz 2017-18

Puzzles from Nikoli Hurdles 5 have been added to the PAST PUZZLES tab above. I’ve also attached links to the previous Holiday Quizzes and the answers at the same place. This will be the last post for 2017, the year flew by didn’t it? As per tradition, we cap off the year with the SOTR Holiday Quiz!

Instructions: Answer as many questions as you can. You don’t have to answer all the questions. Submit your entry at the entry form below. The highest scorer will receive a copy of Nikoli no Penpa 2018 published by Nikoli.  You can submit multiple times but only your latest submission will count – so you can change your answers until the deadline on Tuesday 9^th January. Questions can be made by commenting on this post or by e-mail to roygbivpuzzles (at) gmail (dot) com.

Tie-Breaks: If the highest score is achieved by multiple entrants, the entry that scored the highest in Puzzle Spy (question 3) wins. If the tie remains unbroken; the entry that scored the highest in Infographics (question 7) wins. Rock-Paper-Scissors will decide any further ties.

Here we go!

Q1: Bonjour [2 points]
The 2015 French Scrabble Championship was held in Louvain-la-Neuve, Belgium. What was especially peculiar about that year’s championship?

Q2: Secret Santa [4 points]
Ho! Ho! Ho! Have you been good? Who is this person dressed up as Santa Claus?

Q3: Puzzle Spy [3,2,2,3,2,3,3,3 points]
Shh! Take a peek at these grids. Can you name these puzzles?

Q4: Yokai [4 points]
An invisible Japanese monster who appears in front of passersby to block them from traveling, gives its name to which puzzle?

Q5: Anecdote [2 points]
In 2006, a journalist tried competing at a particular national competition for the first time and won. He later recollect how he won the finals:
“…At the front door, I saw my friend Liz vivisecting a pig. Just inside, the Incredible Hulk rode a stationary bike while a pair of oversize, loopy earrings weighed down his earlobes… In my brother’s bedroom, I saw my friend Ben urinating on Benedict XVI’s papal skullcap…and at the foot of my parents’ bedroom door, myself moonwalking with Einstein…”
What on earth is he talking about?

Q6: Cryptic Crossword [3 points]
This crossword appeared in the Guardian back in 2013. What was so special about it?
Q7: Infographics [3,2,4,2,2 points]
Below are five graphs, each depicting some information. Can you decipher what each diagram represent? A short sentence briefly explaining each graph will be acceptable. (Click to enlarge).
Q8: Cryptogram [8 points (1 each)]
The letters in the 8 entries below have been substituted with another letter. All substitutions are constant throughout the list. Can you work out what these 8 entries are?Q9: Sequence [3 points]
What comes next in the following sequence?

[Submission closed]

Thanks for playing!
See you in 2018!

Results of Nikoli Hurdles 5

23 people crossed the finish line after twenty days of Nikoli Hurdles 5.

In order of submission, they are; John Davis, Swaroop Guggilam, Gavriel Hirsch, Nick Brady, Ivan Koswara, Murat Can Tonta, Edison He, Lewis Chen, Prasanna Seshadri, Kishore Sridharan Kumar, Michael Mosshammer, Grayson Holmes, Franck Wallez, Michael Tang, Michael Lasserre, Andrew Brecher, George Xing, Nikola Zivanovic, Arturo Vial Arqueros, Amit Sowani, Rakesh Rai, James McGowan and Anthea McMillan.

The winner will be determined by playing a game of Scattergories. Each player was to come up with 4 entries (beginning with S, O, T and R) for each of the 5 categories; sudoku variants, green things, body parts, sports and things you see in the sky. Each valid entry scores 1 point, but if any other solver came up with the same response – that entry scores nothing.

It was tough going through all individual entries. I was impressed by a lot of creative entries and even more impressed when other people repeat those entries! Let’s take a look at each category one by one.

[Note: a green box represents a unique entry that scores 1 point, a white box is a valid entry that has been repeated (scores nothing) and a yellow box is an invalid entry or the competitor had left it blank.]

First up is Sudoku variants:
Most popular entries were ODD-EVEN, OUTSIDE and THERMOMETERS. General judging criteria is that the sudoku type must be established and accepted among the puzzle community. A one-off puzzle on an obscure blog would not suffice. Edison’s TWELVE TONE was (frustratingly) considered valid because the “creator” went as far as having it self-published in book form.
Grayson’s OCTO-SUDOKU may have referred to the Octo puzzle, which is not a sudoku (but another sad, self-made, computer-generated clutter), or the Octothorpe Sudoku which would have been valid. Also unsure if TEMPERATURE was meant to be Thermometers but would score 0 points anyway.
Prasanna accompanied his entry (specifically ‘ROLLING THE DICE’) with a little note saying that he hopes Nikola wouldn’t enter. A few days later, Nikola submitted his own invention. Bam!

Standings: after round 1, we have a five-way tie for first between Swaroop, Edison, Kishore, Nikola and Rakesh.

Round 2: Green things.

We have sneaky entrants interpreting “green” as in “eco-friendly”, which produced a lot of creative answers; RECYCLING and TESLA. I also learnt that there are a lot of Pokemon fans among puzzlers who end up repeating each other.
You could see Andrew adopting a popular strategy of using scientific names of plants and scored a perfect 4/4. The obscure TARRAGON and RAPINI didn’t fare so well (I have never heard of both). SOTR’S BACKGROUND earns my applause but surprisingly didn’t score! STARBUCK’S LOGO and ONE-UP MUSHROOM were my favourites.
I didn’t accept RIVER ALGAE because RIVER merely acts as an adjective. Other invalid entries were OCTOPUS (too vague), SKIN OF HULK (doesn’t strictly start with S), TURMERIC (no matter how hard I try, it seems yellow to me) and RADIUM (science gurus will know that the cartoonish green glow of radioactive material is not due to radium, but to alpha particles hitting phosphor in the paint, however RADIUM WATCH DIAL would’ve been an excellent valid entry.)

Standings: Edison pulls ahead with 6 points. Nikola and Rakesh are close at second equal.

Round 3: Body parts
The amount of repeats for R was surprising, even RIBOSOMES didn’t score. RIBS and RIBCAGE were treated as the same thing. I could not find anything to validate Nikola’s RECTRICES (a flight feather) being a part of a human’s body and also gave him a benefit of doubt with SCALES (as in the plaque formed in wound healing process).
Rakesh’s OCULUS (latin term for eye) and RIGHT ATRIUM (even though “right” is an adjective, the right atrium is more clinically significant as opposed to, say, right kidney) were accepted after careful consideration.
RETINA, RADIUS and RECTUM were very common. And the alternative spelling of OESOPHAGUS didn’t score either.
There were a lot of muscles, nerves and bones you could’ve used here but a lot of points were awarded.

Standings: Edison and Rakesh leads with 9 points. Nikola and Andrew have 7 points.

Round 4: Sports
There were a lot of “games”, rather than “sports”, but as a chess fan who’ve read far too many games vs. sports debates; I’ve accepted them all. There were no invalid entries in this round. One way to score was using variants of a sport; OPEN-WATER SWIMMING, ONE-POCKET BILLIARDS, THREE-CUSHION BILLIARDS and ONE DAY INTERNATIONAL CRICKET were all valid.
Some clarifications; OLYMPIC WEIGHTLIFTING is the proper term for the discipline (ie. OLYMPIC wasn’t used as an adjective) and similarly, TEAM HANDBALL is the common term for the sport and not treated as an adjective.
ORIENTEERING was by far the most common response; another four of you came up with OINA and my favourite entry SEPAK TRAKRAW hits close to home (if your home is in South East Asia).

Standings: Edison, Rakesh and Andrew are one point from each other. Can Edison be caught?

Round 5: Things you can see in the sky
A valid entry has to be something that can be “seen”; OXYGEN and THERMOSPHERE aren’t something you actually “see”. Almost everyone interpreted “sky” as “outer space”, which I didn’t have in mind at first, so the tons of other celestial phenomena that can’t really be seen (especially with naked eye), but can be “observed”, I generally accept them as valid.
Understandably, there were a lot of constellations and birds, unfortunately you were equally creative and repeated each other. Only two scored in O; ORIOLE and OLDWIFE UNDERWING.
ORBITING SATELITTE and TOY HELICOPTER are adjectives, THE BIG DIPPER starts with a B, while OUTDOOR LIGHTING is too grounded to be something you “see in the sky”. My favourite entry was Murat’s SUPERMAN.

And scoring 15/20… congratulations to Edison He from Hong Kong!

Thankfully Edison won with such a margin that even if all of my rulings were reversed; he’d still win. Hopefully that discourages anyone who wants to continue further arguments. Phew! That was a tiring game of Scattergories. You can be assured that I’m not going to bring it back next time.

This is Edison’s first win after 10 events at SOTR. I’m extra happy when a regular visitor wins 🙂
He is second to only Nikola, who is still winless after 11 events. Other people overdue for a win are Alan O’Donnell (9 events) and Swaroop Guggilam (8 events). One day!

I hope you had fun, and please take the time to vote for your favourite puzzles to be included in the next edition.
You can pick up to 3 choices among these recent Nikoli types.
[Poll closed]

Holiday quiz coming up very soon.
See you then!

Surprise! Nikoli Hurdles 5!

Another year is zipping by and to cap it off, SOTR will run two back to back events. Starting today is the 5^th edition of Nikoli Hurdles. The format remains the same with eight puzzles to be solved in order. The answer to the previous puzzle is used to open the next puzzle. Based on the last readers’ poll; Satogaeri will make an appearance.

Tied for second were Slitherlink and Sashigane, so they both will be included in this year’s set. Solvers can enter their name for a chance to win a copy of Nikoli no Penpa 2018, once they reach the finish line. More information can be found at the ABOUT NIKOLI HURDLES page above.

The contest will close on December 20^th. Shortly after on Christmas we will have our traditional end-of-the-year Christmas Quiz. Any questions can be made using this form.

Have fun!

WPC 2017 Recap – Part 2

This is post 2 of 2 about my experience in the 2017 WPC in Bangalore, India. The first part contains the non-puzzling side of the event while this post will be my thoughts of each round.

With no play-offs, 23 rounds of puzzles (17 individual rounds and 6 team rounds) were crammed into three days. I feel most of these rounds were sadly undertimed and a lot of beautiful puzzles were missed. Or I’m just slow, but to the best of my knowledge, I don’t think many solvers were finishing these rounds.

WPC 2017 Recap – Part 1

This is 1 of 2 posts about my experience in the 2017 WPC in Bangalore, India. This first part contains the non-puzzling side of the event while the next post will be my thoughts of each round.My flight arrived into Bangalore late Tuesday night. Ashish (Kumar) and Rakesh (Rai) picked me up from the airport and caught me up on the news regarding Kota’s miraculous 3-point win over Tiit (Vunk). Once at the hotel, I got to meet a long time acquaintance Rishi (Puri), who was leaving Bangalore later that night.

See you in Bangalore!

This post was meant to go up before I leave for India. As you can see below, I’d made some frighteningly accurate predictions! Let’s see if they will hold true for the WPC as well.

  Hello readers,

Last month, I have been extremely busy with work and sorting out papers to ensure that I will be participating in the World Puzzle Championships! I’ll be heading out to India tomorrow night and join the ongoing World Sudoku Championships.

I couldn’t get a longer leave to compete in both WSC and WPC – so only one choice was possible. I opted for WPC because Thailand had already field in a WSC team (led by the energetic Sinchai), and pushing out one of our younger solvers is something I’m not eager to do. Most importantly, though, I enjoy puzzles more!

Interestingly, this will be my first time competing – which means I can potentially win the Best Debutant prize! Unless there are dark horses lurking in the Chinese or Korean team – I feel I have a decent chance.

The organizers made a bold choice by not having play-offs this year and this was reflected in the higher amount of puzzles than previous editions. We’re talking 23 rounds in 3 days! The last two weeks were spent digesting the heavy 90-page instruction booklet.

This year also sees the return of Thomas Snyder (USA) after a three-year hiatus from the championships. The new format without the finals might favour the consistent Ken Endo (Japan) over the 11-time and defending champion Ulrich Voigt (Germany). There are promising and scarily young talents; like Walker Anderson (USA) and Qiu Yanzhe (China), who make guys like Palmer Mebane (USA), Bram de Laat (Netherlands), Hideaki Jo (Japan and somehow in the B team?) or Nikola Zivanovic (Serbia) look like old guards.

The WSC is currently underway and I don’t see Jakub Ondrousek’s (Czech) or Jan Mrozowski’s (Poland) name in the starting list – so I predict another battle between Kota Morinishi (Japan) and Tiit Vunk (Estonia). However, team-wise we should also look at China who’s been steadily creeping up the world ranks with their young team.

Much excitement, can’t wait to be there. If you’re attending (or already there), please drop by and say hi!

See you in Bangalore!

Mother’s Day Meeting

 

After getting our hands on last year’s batch of WSC puzzles; me and Sinchai decided to simulate the WSC experience. Mother’s Day was coming up and with it, a three-day weekend.

A quick ask-around produced a lot more keen players that we initially expected. Joining us in the mock-event were Thailand’s leading solvers. Only 2 or 3 reasonable solvers were absent. We rented a sit-in café for the whole day and squeezed all the individual rounds in a single evening.

Tiit Vunk Wins 2017 BRANDS Queen’s Cup

[Photos in this report are courtesy of Thailand Crossword Association, Thananon Boonkrong and Yuhei Kusui]

Central Plaza Westgate was once again the venue for the annual BRANDS King’s Cup International Open. The $10,000 USD winner’s purse attracts a handful of top Scrabble players in the world each year. Held alongside is the Sudoku Queen’s Cup where the winner takes half as much at $5,000 USD. There were many side events including A-math (an equation-building boardgame) and Kumkom (a Thai version of Scrabble).