Puzzle No. 484-487 : Polish Qualifier Puzzles [Ex-Contest]

Check this post for reference on this blog’s 3 main types of posts from now on. I’ll post smaller sets like this one here, and keep I’m hoping to start a patronage system of my own for bigger sets. More on that later.

Right, just about got this in today. I won’t be home over the weekend, so whether I get a sample of the Instructive tagged post out depends on getting an internet connection where I’ll be staying. I’ll be back on Monday though, so will have it up at latest by Monday night.

This set might seem to have some tough puzzles for a National qualifier (not finals), but I was told that there were many easy puzzles already. Two of the puzzles are types I saw in a book purchased from team Japan at the WPC. It is a collaborative work featuring Serkan Yurekli and many Japanese authors. I’ve changed one rule slightly for Heyawacky block (more an omission than a change) but I prefer it this way personally. Anyway, here they are. Enjoy!

Rules –

484 – Yajilin.

485 – Heyawacky Block – Blacken some cells so that all remaining cells must be connected orthogonally. Any single horizontal or vertical line of white cells cannot traverse more than one thick line. Numbers indicate the amount of black cells in that region. If there is no number, there can be 0 or more black cells. Inside each region, all black cells are connected orthogonally. But black cells must not be orthogonally connected beyond the border lines.

486 – Nurikabe.

487 – Snake BY – Draw in the grid a snake, not touching itself, even diagonally. Each outlined region must contain exactly 3 cells occupied by the snake. The regions that contain the head and the tail of the snake are marked by grey color.

P484

P485

P486

P487

 

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Puzzle No. 420 : Heyawacky

Oh btw, I placed 2nd in the Times Sudoku Championship National finals here in India, with Rishi Puri winning it, Rohan Rao coming in at 3rd and Jaipal Reddy completing the top 4.

There were a few articles covering us, I’ll just post the ones related to the finals – here (Times of India, 1st page of Times Sport)  and here.

The rounds themselves were nicely organized by LMI, with the 1st round being a sprint round of 6x6s (classics and mostly variants), the 2nd round just 9×9 Classics, the 3rd round had 9×9 variants and the 4th round was a piece-placement type mechanical round. It was all great fun, especially since I was competing against 2 of the best Sudoku solvers in the world in Rishi and Rohan. I goofed up bad on the 1st round and so did Rohan (even worse). Rishi was super consistent throughout the 4 rounds. Rohan made up a lot of his deficit in round 2 and a little more in round 3, and I had an excellent round 3, meaning we were all really close come the final round, which didn’t have much separation unless one of us didn’t finish it at all. We all finished, and so there wasn’t much change by that round. In the end, I tied with Rohan, but the 3rd round was prioritized and since that was the round where I excelled, I ranked ahead of him. Rishi was a little further ahead.

So to the puzzle. This Heyawacky has quite a tricky start. After the tricky start, there isn’t a whole lot to it, but still a good flow to the end I think.

Heyawacky rules.

Rated – Medium.

Enjoy!

P420