World Puzzle Championship 2016

The 25th World Puzzle Championship (WPC) was held on 20th - 22nd Oct, 2016 in Senec, Slovakia.

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Indian Team

The Indian team was selected from the Indian Puzzle Championship 2016 (IPC). We had two complete teams this year.

The A-Team is same as last year's.


Preparation
Similar to my WSC experience, I didn't have too much preparation or expectation this year. As a team, we were hoping to get into a single digit rank, which we missed last year with our 10th place.


Puzzles
Similar to my WSC experience, puzzles were fantastic all around. Some beautiful themes and well-crafted puzzles.


Performance
The Indian team performed well this year. Prasanna improved on his (and India's best individual rank) by finishing 18th (one better than last year's 19th), which is also his fourth consecutive finish in the Top-25. It is quite creditable considering no other Indian has ever crossed the 25th mark.

I finished 28th, which is my best WPC rank ever! Yoohoo! 8yrs later, when I'm old and on the verge of quitting, comes my best performance. Haha, well, it certainly felt good but I'm not sure if I'll ever be able to cross the 25th mark.

I made a single digit error in two high-pointers, one of which was the Full Scrabble. Had I got that Scrabble right, it would be the first WPC round I'd have convincingly finished (ignoring the single puzzle rounds). Well... maybe some other time.

Amit finished 39th and Swaroop, a disappointing 72nd.

We finished 10th in the team standing, equalling our best team rank last year. Missed single digit yet again.

The unofficial players: Rakesh did well in 69th, Ashish in 108th, Rajesh in 119th, Kishore in 133rd and Jaipal in 151st.

Prasanna has been in tremendous form in the GPs, but had an average WPC this year.
He's doing well in elections too! (Yes, he got elected as a board member in the World Puzzle Federation, but more on that later)


Winners
Last year, we saw Ken Endo (Japan) pip Ulrich Voigt (Germany) in the playoffs. This year Ulrich pipped Endo to take his 11th WPC title. Absolutely incredible, and he still continues to be on top after all these years.

Endo had a huge lead in the preliminary rounds, over Ulrich and Palmer. Scoring 1000+ points over Ulrich is truly a great achievement. It felt like the start of Endo's domination after his string of magnificent performances in online contests throughout the year. But it was not to be...

I missed the playoffs due to a Machine Learning hackathon I was competing in, but Endo unfortunately fell to third, with Palmer finishing 2nd.

View Complete Results


Puzzle GP
I've loved the GPs and its high-quality puzzles, and I've shared most of my thoughts on my WSC blogpost.

This was the first time I competed in Puzzle GP, only because I really enjoy the Casual-type puzzles. After the first two rounds, it was evident there wasn't much competition here (well, the Competitive section is what really matters), but I thought I'll go ahead and compete for the Casual winner.

And I won! There were no playoffs for the Casual section, but the Competitive section playoffs was quite entertaining.

Endo raced through the puzzles for an easy win, but it was a fight to the finish for 2nd and 3rd, with 7 of the 10 players on the last puzzle. Ulrich finished 2nd, just 3 seconds before Will Blatt (USA).

View Casual GP Results
View Competitive GP Results
View General GP Results


Organization
Kudos to Matus Demiger, Matej Uher, Peter Hudak and the entire Slovak team for hosting this wonderful event. It was excellently organised and a lot of fun! Thanks a lot!

There were far too many Kropki puzzles (ask Przemyslaw about it), but well, every team have their preferences.


Next Year
Slovakia have set the bar high, and the Indian team will be hosting all you wonderful people next year during the same week (15th - 22nd Oct, 2017) in Bengaluru, India. I look forward to it as much as many of you, and hope it is a successful and enjoyable WPC.

Feel free to write to me: rohanrao88@gmail.com in case of any help/queries/questions regarding next year's event. We'll have our webpage out soon, and the LMI forum is always available and active for other discussions!

And now, back to boring non-puzzle life :-|

P.S. Read about my WSC experience.

Indian Puzzle Championship 2016

The Indian Puzzle Championship (IPC) 2016 was held on 17th July, 2016 in Chennai.

The championship was an offline event (after four years of having it online), where the top-50 qualifiers of Puzzle Ramayan were invited. Prasanna is undoubtedly the best puzzle solver in India today, and has been last 3yrs.

View Top Qualifiers

Last 2yrs were exciting competing with Amit. He won the 2014 edition and I came in second, while I won the 2015 edition and he came in second. I was expecting him to be the biggest challenger for the title, since Prasanna, being the best Indian at the World Puzzle Championship last year, gets a wild card for the national team this year and hence, decided to organize the national event.


Puzzles
The championship consisted of four rounds. When you have Deb and Prasanna authoring puzzles, you know you're in for a treat. Really nice set of puzzles.

The 3rd round Sprint was my favourite, and also, the only round I topped.
The 4th round was Casual-type puzzles, many of them visual, and supposedly one of my strengths. But, I did horribly.

Those of you who'd like to solve these puzzles can purchase it here (Unfortunately due to certain reasons, they are not publicly available this year).


Results
I expected it to be a close fight between Amit and me. But, after the first two rounds, Amit had a big enough lead over me and it was pretty hard to catch up from then. I did cover up a few points in the third round, but had a terrible fourth round.

Amit won his second IPC and I stood 2nd (for the third time, after 2009 and 2014).

The ever-consistent Rakesh stood 3rd with a strong performance. Ashish's performance was disappointing, but just made it into the B-Team with his 6th place finish.

View Complete Results

The winning trophies were really cool! Custom-made puzzles by Prasanna (and one by me, the second one, which I ended up getting :-| ) printed on the trophy with the themes '1', '2' and '3'. Thanks to Sumit Bothra for getting these made.

Organization
Thanks to Deb Mohanty and Prasanna Seshadri for organizing this event smoothly. Also, a big thanks to Varun, Ezhilarasi, Ashish, Kumaresan, Rakesh, Kishore, etc. and the other folks in Chennai who helped out with the event. It was a big success!

Puzzle Grand Prix 2016

The WPF Puzzle Grand Prix 2016 is here! After successful editions in 2014 and 2015, the 2016 edition consists of eight rounds held across the first seven months.
The top-10 finalists will be invited for the GP playoffs during WPC 2016 (Slovakia).

The format has changed a bit this year, with the contest having two sections. A Competitive section which is the main section on which the toppers will be decided, and a Casual section, comprising of more 'culture-neutral', non-grid based puzzles, geared towards leisure solvers. Its very unlikely competitors will be able to participate in both sections, so, I guess most players need to choose one.

I think I'm better at the 'Casual' sort of puzzles, and hence, will be competing only in that section.

Scoring System
There has been some discussions regarding the new scoring system for the GPs. Historically, normalization of scores for a championship consisting of various rounds has worked well due to the unreliability of having similar rounds in terms of scores and difficulty.
The GPs did use normalization in the previous editions, and it was universally accepted.

I'm not convinced there was a need to go ahead without normalization this year, so it remains to see whether or not it will work. You can find some pros/cons being discussed about the new scoring system on the GP Forum.
Being part of the organizing team of Sudoku Mahabharat / Puzzle Ramayan (which are very similar to the structure of GPs), we had to change the scoring system during this year's rounds, due to the inconsistencies without normalization. So, I'm not particularly in favour of dealing with raw scores.

View Championship Page
View Current Rankings



Round 6: Serbia (10th - 13th Jun, 2016)
As the competition is getting heated up, I was fairly comfortable with the puzzles in this round. Enjoyed the set and managed to finish all but one puzzle (Weights).

Before this round, I was leading with ~ 25points over Adam Bissett and ~ 50 points over Yuhei Kusui. Ironically, all three of us scored the exact same points: 344, in this round, keeping the standings the same.

It now boils down to the last two rounds to decide the winner.

Round 5: USA (13th - 16th May, 2016)
I was afraid that I barely managed to score 200 points in this hugely big 500+ pointer round. But it seems like it was too hard and everyone struggled.

The concept of Escape The Grand Prix is really nice, but not suitable for a time-contrained online puzzle round. This is easily going to be the discarded round for most of the top players.

Kudos to Randy Rogers for scoring 254 points, and Sinchai Rungsangrattanakul for scoring 242, way above the rest of the lot, while I scored just 205. Which is my poorest round so far.

Round 4: Hungary (15th - 18th Apr, 2016)
An easy set here. Managed to finish all and score full points, thus keeping my lead intact.
Nice puzzles too.

The four rounds so far have been worth 293, 402, 420 and 259 points. What in the world is the logic of not having normalization. That is the biggest failure of this year's GPs.

Round 3: Germany (18th - 21st Mar, 2016)
What an amazing set of puzzles. Just wow! This is the best set of puzzles I've solved in a long time... each and every one of them is a beauty.

The Instructionless Machine puzzles... exceptionally interesting and well-made. I think it was the sheer fun of the round that made me perform so well. I topped with 420 points, scoring over 100 points more than everyone else, except Jarett Prouse who scored 382.
Which means, I'm back in the top-3.


Round 2: Slovakia (19th - 22nd Feb, 2016)
Bad round. Lost time on the scrabble puzzles and wasn't able to complete them at the end.

Scored 283 points which is bad compared to the highest being 402. Hopefully, this could be one of my discards.

With no normalization, we have two rounds, one worth 293 points and the other worth 402 points. I just don't get it.


Round 1: India (22nd - 25th Jan, 2016)
It was a spur of the moment decision to participate in this round, since, being authored by Indians, I just assumed I couldn't compete. But Prasanna informed me that I was the test-solver only for the Competitive section and I could, in fact, participate in the Casual. And I did.

I finished 4th with 262 points. The highest score was 275 points by Adam Bissett of UK. Not a bad start.

The puzzles were excellent. The Buttons and the Number Series really got me scratching my head for a long time, and ultimately ended up missing out on two Number Series and a minor error in Shape Count.

Its quite funny that considering normalization is not being used this year, you'd expect the rounds to at least be similar in terms of points. The Competitive section was worth 697 points while the Casual section was worth 293 points. So, I have no clue where this is going. Lets hope its not too bad.

Classic Tapa Contest 2016

Classic Tapa Contest (CTC) 2016 was held in Jan-Feb, 2016 on LMI.

Championship Page

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View Results

1. sai (Japan)
2. EKBM (Japan)
3. Prasanna16391 (India)
4. deu (Japan)
5. Psyho (Poland)
6. Para (Netherlands)
7. nyoroppyi (Japan)
8. willwc (USA)
9. kiwijam (New Zealand)
10. anderson (USA)

View Complete Results

sai won the last CTC and this time completely dominated at the top. After a horrific start, Endo blew through the middle days and just managed to overtake Prasanna in the last week to finish 2nd. And phenomenal performance by Prasanna, who takes 3rd, after an extremely consistent run of two months.

I was in the race to get into the Top-20, but unfortunately missed a few days due to personal matters. Nevertheless, I'm quite happy with my performance and enjoyed the Tapas.

I'm sure a lot of people are going to miss CTC... it just gets on you after 50 days :-)

Puzzle Ramayan 2016

The online rounds of Puzzle Ramayan 2015-2016 have ended! This is a national level event aimed at encouraging puzzle solvers of India to participate and compete with the top solvers to gain experience and improve competition in the years to come.

NOTE: This event serves as a qualifier to participate in the Indian Puzzle Championship 2016

The championship consisted of 8 online rounds (Sep-2015 to Mar-2016) from which the top solvers will be invited to participated in the national finals.
Championship Page

National Finals
The finals will be held on 17th July, 2016 in Chennai.

View Finals Page


Online Top-10
1. Rohan Rao - 597.3
2. Amit Sowani - 575.8
3. Swaroop Guggilam - 477.4
4. Rajesh Kumar - 458.3
5. Rakesh Rai - 411.2
6. Ashish Kumar - 374.2
7. Kishore Kumar - 372.1
8. Jayant Ameta - 344.2
9. Jaipal Reddy - 302.7
10. Devarajan D - 277.2

View Complete Results

P.S. Prasanna's name is removed from list since he has a wild card for the WPC next year on being the best Indian performer at the WPC this year.


Round 8: Placement (26th - 28th Mar, 2016)
Author: Rajesh Kumar
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Nice puzzles, but on the harder side. A little disappointed that I wasn't able to finish the set.
Horrible answer keys, I struggled a lot with it, so did a few other players.

Overall, a decent end to PR.

The Top-10 look more-or-less as expected, but really good to see Ashish and Kishore improving and a great job by Devarajan for maintaining his top-10 position throughout the rounds. Looking forward for an interesting and fun-filled finals in Chennai in July.


Round 7: Loops (27th - 29th Feb, 2016)
Author: Prasanna Seshadri
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Wow! Another wonderful round. I'm not very good at Loops, but I could solve this very smoothly. Puzzles were excellent, and a very well-balanced set and PR round. Probably the best so far.

I finished the set in 47mins, with Swaroop in 57mins and Amit in 65mins.  Swaroop now has increased his lead at 3rd place above Rajesh and should be able to hold on to it since the last round is authored by Rajesh.

Hope to end it well.


Round 6: Shading (23rd - 26th Jan, 2016)
Author: Swaroop Guggilam
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Wonderful! What a perfectly balanced round this was. Kudos to Swaroop for authoring this set, my favourite round of PR so far. Prasanna finished the set in 44mins, I finished in 58mins and Amit in 65mins.

Lot of swaps in the points table after this round. Also due to the rankings being updated after discarding the worst two scores. I regain the top spot over Amit. Rajesh is less than a point above Swaroop. A disappointing round by Rakesh allowed Kishore to move above him.

With the last two rounds to go, it will be an interesting finish, especially crucial for Swaroop, who needs to be in the Top-3 to be eligible for the NRI wildcard.


Round 5: Snake (26th - 28th Dec, 2015)
Author: Ashish Kumar
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After a great Round 4, I had an absolutely disastrous Round 5. Snakes is not a type I really enjoy, and it showed here. I scored a poor 57 points, compared to Amit's 88. Prasanna did well by finishing all puzzles just within 90 minutes.

Puzzles were top-notch quality from Ashish, but they were too hard for PR. I'm not surprised to see the participation low, but a little surprised by some regular names missing, including ones in the current Top-10.

Lot of changes in the top-10 after this round. Amit takes the top spot with a good lead, Swaroop moves to 3rd, above Rajesh, and finally, Rakesh moves above Kishore.
Its getting interesting, and I hope the remaining 3 rounds are better, way better. 


Round 4: Regions (28th - 30th Nov, 2015)
Author: Rakesh Rai
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This was one of my better performances in a puzzle contest in recent times. The puzzles were of my liking. Yin Yang, Spiral Galaxies, Area Division are in my all-time favourites, and it was wonderful to solve this set. Puzzles were really fun and it was a better set than the last 3 PR rounds.

I topped the round by finishing in 48mins and was ranked 11th internationally, which is my best rank after Twist way back in 2011. Amit did well by finishing in 56mins, Prasanna finished in 64mins and Swaroop in 83mins.

That put me on top in PR rankings and also got me my best LMI Rating in Puzzles! So, a pretty good weekend!


Round 3: Evergreens (31st Oct - 2nd Nov, 2015)
Author: Amit Sowani
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That was hard! Especially for the type of rounds expected in PR. Well, it was time to improvise. Since this resulted in a very low scoring round, the scoring system was changed to add a bit of normalization so that such variability in the difficulty of tests can be overcome to some extent.

Even though I topped the round (among Indians), it didn't feel like a smooth performance. Felt like I could've added some 8-10 points more to my score of 73.

Prasanna tested the puzzles, so you won't his name on the scorepage. Congrats to Rajesh and Swaroop for their good performances.


Round 2: Number Placement (26th - 28th Sep, 2015)
Author: Deb Mohanty
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I didn't do too well. Couldn't finish the round, and got stuck up in too many puzzles during the test.
Puzzles were really nice. Much better than Deb's SM round :-)

Congrats to Prasanna who finished the set in 72 minutes and Amit who just managed to finish it before time. I scored 97.4 points.

This was supposed to be one of the rounds I was most comfortable with, and it bombed. Hope to cover-up in the next few rounds. I also hope this is the worst performance which will get discarded (along with R1 which I authored).


Round 1: Classics (5th - 7th Sep, 2015)
Author: Rohan Rao
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Congrats to Prasanna, Swaroop and Amit for completing the set. Prasanna finished in 50mins which put him in 12th place worldwide. Swaroop and Amit were very close and finished just one second apart in the 77th minute.

Its nice to see my three team-mates, who will represent India at the WPC along with me, performing at the top among the Indians.

Congrats to Endo, Ulrich and Hideaki who take the top-3 international spots.

Overall, I'm glad the feedback was positive and most participants enjoyed the puzzles. There was some discussion around one puzzle, Hitori Blocks, being a tad harder than the rest for this set. I agree it was a little outlier, but it didn't affect rankings and performances much. Most of the results were as expected.

Seems like a good start to PR... 57 Indians with non-zero scores and totally 304 participants. I hope these numbers increase in subsequent rounds. And I'll be participating in the coming rounds! :-)

Indian Puzzle Championship 2015

The Indian Puzzle Championship (IPC) 2015 was held on 9th August, 2015. It was open and free for all. The winners would be selected to represent India at the World Puzzle Championship (WPC) 2015 in October, 2015 in Sofia, Bulgaria.

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Password will be released later

View Complete Results

I won! Yay!
I must say that this was possible only thanks to Prasanna organizing. He's been the best Indian in the puzzling circuit last couple of years, and still continues to spearhead the Indian contingent in puzzles.
So, I stood 1st with 930 points, with Amit in 2nd place with 774 points and Swaroop in 3rd with 725 points. Just the team I predicted, and I'm glad we made it. Definitely the best team in India today.

This is my 4th IPC title (after 2010, 2011, 2012), and it feels good to be back on top, after missing out in 2014 and the terrible performance in 2013.

Old-school Rajesh Kumar was 4th with 659 points.
Impressive performance by Ashish Kumar who stood 5th with 611 points. Certainly a hot prospect to represent India in the near future.
The usual suspects Rakesh Rai, Jayant Ameta and Jaipal Reddy complete the top-8 with 582, 560 and 506 points respectively.

Lets hope we can rock at the WPC this year and get India a top-10 rank.

"With Prasanna organizing the IPC once again, it is down to the top-3 of IPC who will join Prasanna to form the Indian team for the WPC. I fancy my chances this year, since I've been in touch lately (at least in Sudoku, by winning TSC and coming 3rd in ISC) and I'm confident of making it to the team. I was runner-up last year to Amit Sowani, with Swaroop Guggilam in 3rd.

I think Prasanna, Amit, Swaroop and me would make a strong team and I hope we finish at the top :-)
Good Luck to all participants!"