9. Rules of the Competition (Puzzles)

[Fred76]

Hi Matus,

Thanks for having answered me, despite the fact that you should be quite busy with next WSPC organization.

Just a few words (EDIT: finally it's not so short).

First on the guidebook: I fully agree with you that it should not be a restriction tool. I see nothing in my propositions that are restrictive and would curb the creativity of the organizers. I'm not a fan of rule which set a maximal percentage of innovations, for example. Lot of things can still be done in another way that it has been done before.
But I think the guidebook should give the foundations of what are WPC and WSC. Once we know what it is about, it's easier to innovate without having the fear to be out of context. In my opinion, it's not satisfying to say that the competition has to end up with play offs without saying for which purpose it is and without clarifying what it should be (this can be done without fixing the play offs system, so that organizers have still room to make it the way they want).

I don't understand your point about uniformity. You speak about layout for example, it's just done in a way that it's comfortable for players. You need a minimal size so players can write notes in cells (I remember a hard rossini sudoku in WSC 2011 which was too small to play it in a convenient way in my opinion), and if it's too big it's also not convenient (round 1 of WSC 2012 had perhaps too big grids). I hope you don't think that putting illisible font is a fun way to make a puzzle harder. About uniformity of rounds length: While most of the rounds in WSC 2013 and 2014 were timed between 45-60 minutes, I don't agree with you: we had also short rounds 20-30 minutes and long rounds 80-90 minutes. But finally it's up to organizers to propose a balanced schedule, knowing that some players don't like too short rounds (especially those which contain only one puzzle) and others don't like too long rounds. I don't think guidebook should fix rounds length.

About classic sudokus: WSC is born thanks to sudoku boom in 2004. (As a player, I'm also a kid of the sudoku boom and I think I would never have heard about WPF without it). While the puzzle world and the WPC model provided great things to WSC (top-quality handmade sudokus, WPC model with rounds being timed and each sudoku being tested and assigned with points, etc..), and helped the WSC to be a perennial (I hope) competition, we shouldn't forget what are the origins of WSC and we should not fear that the WSC can be slightly different from WPC. That's why I think the guidebook should define what should be the role of classic sudoku in WSC. I could imagine a WSC without classic sudoku: I surely would have fun, but I think it would not really be a World Sudoku Championship. In my opinion, the World Champion must have 2 skills, that are related but still are a bit different: He has to be one of the fastest classic sudoku solver in the world and he must have skills to solve (fast) all the type of sudoku variants. Thus, even if the nowadays champions have both skills and without having classic sudoku rounds the ranking would probably not change that much, I think both aspects of the competition must be present in a WSC.

Trying to define the border between Sudoku and Not Sudoku types is not a pleasant topic.

I personally feel that we are taking a way on which it'll soon be essential. Some authors consciously create sudoku variants that integrated puzzle things that are not related to sudoku. The reason is perhaps they like puzzle competitions and want to treat sudoku competitions the same way? Then sometimes the result (to my inexperienced puzzle player's eyes) is a puzzle tournament on the theme of sudoku and not a sudoku tournament. I think about some tournaments on LMI. They are probably great tournaments and I've no problem with that, I only regret that nobody have the courage to classify them as puzzle tournaments and not sudoku tournaments.

I respect your opinion on magic squares and puzzlish sudoku variants. However, are these issues essential or just resulting from your frustration?

I would say no pun that my frustration comes from the fact that I consider these issues to be essential. I can ensure you that I can make a difference between my frustrations that are due to my poor performances (and I was in no way speaking about that here), and my frustrations of seeing inappropriate puzzles while discovering instruction booklets.

Yes, in Sofia, there were at least two sudokus that definitely omitted one of the basic Sudoku rules but I am not sure whether their caused the main problems of the championship.

Without speaking about organizations issues that could have been pointed out during this championship, I think the 2 main problems of this WSC were the cancelled team round and puzzles that were not sudoku. Other competition aspects were nice and fair: The quality of sudokus was globally good, the point distribution for each sudoku was globally fair and rounds were nearly well timed.
I understand that lot of players that are experienced puzzle players don't bother that much about puzzles not being sudoku. But I would have more trouble to hear from an organizer that having non-sudoku puzzles in his sudoku competition isn't an important issue. I also think it can give a poor image of the discipline at the outside.
Yes, 4th round had unreasonable point distribution. For me it's an issue that is far less important that the fact that it's questionable to be a sudoku (and for me it's clearly not a sudoku).

Of course, we will not force you to solve dozens inappropriate puzzles that are trying to look like sudoku.

I'm only half reassured, because I'm not sure we understand the word inappropriate in the same way. On your blog, you made an announcement of next WSC/WPC: http://www.slovaksudoku.com/en/blog/201 ... -2016.html.
(I'm not sure it will really be useful to practise the archive of your blogs as mentionned, because the championship will surely not be "great parade of sudokus reminding your blog collection", but that's not the important point).
You mentionned the online competitions you organized in the past, and that's where I begin to fear because I found that some of these sudoku competitions contained a few non-sudoku puzzles (for example, I'll never consider a puzzle where I've to draw a closed fence as being appropriate in a WSC).

Sometimes I feel a bit like a stranger as a sudoku player in the puzzle community, perhaps all these stuffs are my own problems and I'm just not in the right place.

Fred

[Fred76]

Hi,

I know the deadline for discussion concerning the guidebook was end of January, and I know the guidebook was not published since end of March.
But the discussion that had started here incidentally restarted on my facebook wall when I said I'll not take part in WSC 2016. My facebook wall isn't the appropriate place to discuss about it, so I allow myself to copy this discussion here. I don't know if the WPF board still feels concerned about WSC.

I don't want to expatiate here, but just wanted to clarify that this confusion was just a small element added to my feeling of kafkaesque world of WPF.
I still have no answer to all of the questions I asked after WSC 2015 (basically on the WPF forum if you don't understand what I mean). WPF promised a guidebook (it was "the top priority" for this year - GA minutes 2015) to be finalized before end of March. Where is it???
That make me think the WPF just want to use sudoku to promote general puzzling, they don't care about WSC and promoting sudoku, and now I think the WPF is not a good organization to supervise the WSC. Think about that: nor the WPF neither WSC 2016 organizers are only able to state that WSC has to be 100% about sudoku. Of course they fear the consequence that is: to define what is a sudoku... The only constraint coming from the WPF about puzzles for WSC is that they should be "cultural - and language-neutral". Lot of authors are now using this lack of regulation to make the sudoku tournaments fun for puzzle players who are "bored to solve sudoku". Please puzzle authors, don't be hypocritical, we all know it's so easy to take a non-sudoku puzzle and put a bit of sudoku inside to argue this is a sudoku... Don't feign that you don't see the difference between a kropki sudoku and a tripod sudoku.
I think now the WPF should make a clear choice: either the purpose WSC is to designate the best sudoku player(s) in the world, either it is a warm up tournament for WPC players, and the hope is that the WSC will help WPC to be more popular.
This led me to decide a few months ago not to take part in WSC this year and I think I'll not take part in this competition in the future unless there are some big changes inside the WPF or some strong guarantees from the WSC organizers. The only sudoku thing that is working now from the WPF is the sudoku GP.
If you have some comments, please use the WPF forum or send me an email, here is not the appropriate place to debate.

I don't take this so seriously, but totally understand your point. The idea of having WSC with sudokus only is something that must be in my opinion. We already have a puzzle championship. Having sudoku variants can keep it exciting enough and having non-sudoku puzzles rather scare sudoku-lovers away. And unfortunately having few difficult and high rated non-sudoku puzzles in a contest can affect the results too much and unfairly.
Unfortunately It clearly affected your result in the last WSC, I know it and I understand how you feel, but I hope you consider participating again because it's always good to meet and compete with you. And I believe in Slovakian team and Indian team who are doing it next 2 years. They will create excellent sudoku-puzzles and quality WSC.

Thanks, Tiit. For me the question is more important than my result, that's what I want people understand. Of course I was not happy last year after WSC, although I still had fun because lot of sudoku were of high quality. But what affects me more is the absence of reaction from what should be the captain of this ship, the WPF.
I wish you lot of success in Slovakia

I would like to say, shortly, that people with an opposite opinion also exist in the community.
I am sad when somebody is building a wall with a barbed wire between sudoku and puzzles. I am sad when puzzle-like sudoku is disappearing from sudoku competitions. I am sad when sudoku-like puzzles are disappearing from puzzle competitions.
I am sad when organizers of sudoku & puzzle competitions are frightened and restricted rather than encouraged and supported.

I think no-one is building a wall between sudoku and puzzles. And having a WSC doesn't mean that there shouldn't be sudoku puzzles in WPC. Sudoku is one of many puzzles and is defined quite clearly and it has a championship of its own. I think it's more like about a principal issue which makes some people emotional and scares some people who are not familiar with non-sudoku puzzles away. There is no reason why True puzzle lover should feel sad if there are only sudokus in WSC though. In my opinion it may actually bring more people more together.

The main question is: which disturb more people:
- having just sudokus on WSC (serving hardcore Sudoku-lovers like Fred)
- or having some non-sudokus on WSC (in order to serve other, who don't like - especially hard - Sudokus, because they don't want to specify to just 'one' type).

Jan: I know opposite opinion exist and I was hoping a discussion on WPF forum last year... I'm a bit sad to see that the discussion comes only when you're saying "I don't take part in WSC this year".

István György: I totally agree. I'll add that a competition having "non-sudokus in order to serve players that don't like sudokus" ....
Well...
I'm sorry but I'll not label this one as "World Sudoku Championship"...
Perhaps it's just the wrong name.

As a long-time puzzle lover, I might have slightly different opinion from you but I expect WSC fill the role of taking sudoku lovers into the puzzle community.
However, it has nothing to do with sudoku types presented in WSC; hosting WSC and WPC continuously would be enough to achieve my desire. In fact, many WSC participants stay after the WSC then take part in WPC.

Having non sudoku in a world sudoku championship is plainly ridiculous - the clue is in the name. But I agree there is a grey area. I think the problem is that puzzles in this grey area are often the most difficult, have the most points and therefore become crucial to the whole competition. One of the only bad points about the American WSC round was the last round, which contained exclusively guessing puzzles. My problem was not necessarily the inclusion of guessing puzzles (although they are certainly not to my preference), but that they were given so many points.

Perhaps one solution for people who want to include "non traditional" sudoku variations is to reduce their importance to the competition by giving them half points?

I'd also add in defence of puzzle-ish sudoku variants that some puzzles have very successfully combined with sudoku. For example: kropki, skyscrapers, star battle, futoshiki, maybe even battleships. I would argue there has to be a space for authors to be creative with new ideas.

I hate this word: "puzzlish sudoku" or "puzzle-ish" sudoku, because it can mean so many different things.
My complaint is absolutely not about some variant coming from other puzzles. And Kropki and Skyscrapers are absolutely fine for me. They are sudoku variants, because they obey sudoku rules and you don't have anything else to do than placing digits into cells according to extra rules that are some contraints for the placement of these digits.
The big problem, as described by Prasanna below, is when you have other object to place in the grid, or other things to do for solving the puzzle, like fiding the limit of the regions, shading some cells, etc...

Most odd/even variants are most helpfully thought as shading variants I would argue, and I don't think there is anything particular about skyscrapers which fits naturally with sudoku. And for me, most skyscrapers sudoku are pretty tedious and don't come close to realising the potential of the best skyscrapers puzzles.

I don't think there's an easy definition beyond (generalised) rows/columns and a third regional constraint. Even with regards to placing objects, what if the objects are configurations of numbers, as in figure sudoku?

I think you have to be very careful when you think about imposing rules, and the unforeseen limits on creativity that follow on from that. I don't think you should hope for the rigid guidance you are apparently seeking.

Tom: Ok you have the point about imposing rules. And I'll try to believe it is possible without imposing rules. There are so many sudoku tournaments that are 100% about sudoku, including some on-site championship like German and Polish sudoku championship, it should be possible for the WSC, too. It was the case in WSC 2014 and I don't think there was some criticism about the championship being 100% about sudoku (or "puzzlish sudoku" not being represented).

I think the last point Tom made is an important one to consider because you want to have innovative variations at a WSC. And unless there is a dedicated review team, ideally consisting of primarily Sudoku solvers, I don't know how the organizing team can always be right or give assurances of whether or not the new ideas will be received well universally.

Its just important to define the problem here. From what I understand from discussions with Fred, his particular problems are of two kinds.
1. Where the base rules of 1-X in row, column and region are drifted away from.
2. Where there is an external puzzle type as a variant which does not mesh well with the Sudoku rules and requires a person to have the skill of solving that puzzle type too.

Both points have a gray area, and will cause differences in opinion. That is all fine, and unavoidable.

The important thing here is, does the WPF consider these as issues, and if so, they should define to what extent it is an issue. OR, the WSC organizers of a given year can define to what extent they consider it an issue. This will give solvers like Fred good insight to make an informed decision on whether the WSC matches with their personal goals or not, and therefore whether they will participate or not.

That's it !
I invited the Slovak team in the discussion on the WPF forum. I had an answer of Matus (not in the name of the organizing team...) Some of these points were not very clear to me, or at least was not clear about what the Slovak team wanted to do about WSC, so I decided not to take part this year.

I think it is definitely a mistake to have innovation at the WSC simply for the sake of it. I think the WSC is relatively mature now and people have a good feel for what sudoku is, even if it hasn't been written down anywhere. The innovations have to make sense.

For example, when I was in charge of the WSC on 2014 I had some criticism for not including many novelties. However, the novelties that were introduced, such as eliminate, were those that I judged felt like sudoku.

Such judgements are clearly subjective, and I think the governance structures of the WPF are hopelessly inadequate in terms of being able to provide guidance. Until the WPF has a proper executive committee (not the board, and more than just Hana) together with a properly qualified advisory panel armed with a deadline I think the only option is to leave this to the discretion of the individual organisers.

All that said, from my own experience as an organiser, I was certainly very happy to be trusted to do a good job rather than be burdened with an extra layer of WPF bureaucracy.

I agree with you concerning innovation.
However I'll dispute at the higher point that this discussion is about innovation. This would mean the only innovation possible now comes from
1. mixing sudoku with other puzzles
2. stretching more and more the basic sudoku rules.
I totally disagree with that, even if I'm not an author that innovate much. Of course it's hard to innovate with sudoku, because so many things have been done. However I see that some authors are continuously finding new ideas. For example the series "A or B sudoku on Bram de Laat's blog.
But of course if you're not able to stay in the sudoku field when you innovate, your puzzle should not appear in WSC.

Fred Stalder The problem here is, no matter how mature the WSC is, there will always be some gray area there. Look up at this same thread. Tom has mentioned his list of puzzle types which became Sudoku variants, and he says "maybe even Battleships" whereas you were very strongly against Battleships Sudoku, if I remember correctly. So its not that easy to just say at the time of innovation that "this" is where the line is drawn. Not unless there are some definitions at the start going in.

Maybe we say that shading/loop types are off limits from a point Jan made below. Thats concrete. Its something which can't be argued upon if set. No gray area there. Then maybe we say that the line "1-X in row, column and region" has to be there. Again that's something concrete. but then you have Surplus, Deficit, Blackout, etc. going out of the definition.

In the end I'll make a point as an author - any puzzlish variant can be made more Sudoku-ish by an author. Its just about the logic that drives the start and then the bulk of the puzzle - this logic should be Sudoku logic or a simple non-puzzle-like logic (e.g. consecutives/odd-evens). For example look at the two Disparity Sudokus here - http://logicmastersindia.com/lmitests/?test=M201411S . Personally I'd say that the top one is Sudoku-driven whereas the bottom one is puzzle-driven (i.e. the Region Division puzzle genre).

You both misunderstand me. The question isn't about deciding what is or isn't acceptable as sudoku now. It's very clearly subjective and will differ from person to person. Even the apparently 100% concrete definitions you lay out prasanna I definitely disagree with (odd labyrinth sudoku is my immediate counter example)

The question is about WPF guidance on the subject. I don't doubt Fred's ability to disagree with even an expert advisory panel but the point is we are nowhere near that. Until then we are in the hands of the organisers. And to be honest I don't think we have anything to worry about with Slovakia. Any progress with the WPF is essentially dependent on volunteers so I don't see things changing significantly anytime soon.

Prasanna I agree it can be a grey zone, for common variants as well for innovation. Concerning your example, I agree and I think I gave my opinion in the thread of this tournament. But my point is that not all innovations are in the grey zone or "puzzlish". Some innovations are clearly sudoku and I would like to see more of them (but it's the harder to acheive, as always).

My point wasn't that these definitions would work but that they are something concrete. The definitions can differ and my point is more that there should be "some" definitions of this sort because its a very valid problem here.

I was just giving examples of concrete definitions versus saying "Sudokus with puzzle elements and puzzle solving" which just can't be worked with because it is completely subjective. Of course there is a process of discussion here to word those definitions better and consider their implications. But I think it is possible, and a discussion about defining things is worthwhile since as you said we do not have any signs of an expert advisory panel happening yet.

Once things are defined (and again, the definitions themselves can be much more lenient and differently worded than the examples I gave) it will be easier for Sudoku specialists to make a decision on whether or not the Championship is for them. At least the decision to make is based on consistent factors to an extent, rather than, as Fred is saying now, not being clear on the opinion on the other side.

Tom: I agree with you. But the WSC organizer has to decide what is or isn't acceptable. The WSC is now the result of the vision about sudoku of organizer. In his message on the WPF forum, Matus said things like "Trying to define the border between Sudoku and Not Sudoku types is not a pleasant topic." or "There were at least two sudokus that definitely omitted one of the basic Sudoku rules but I am not sure whether their caused the main problems of the championship." I didn't know how to interpret that. Adding to that the fact that their advertising contained links to previous tournaments like "logidoku" (I have nothing against this competition, but in my opinion it's clearly not 100% about sudoku). If you don't think we have anything to worry about with Slovakia, you may have more information than me.

I think the WSC organizer would be kind to share his vision of sudoku before the event, so that players like me, who don't like to take part if this vision is far from mine, can take an enlightened decision about participation. And next year I hope Indian organizers will be able to share their view very early before the championship, so that I'll be able to take the right decision.

If you make a sudoku specialist solve sudokish puzzles with a weak region constraint, I see no reason why he couldnt cope with it. After all, you use sudoku techniques to solve latin squares.

However, I agree with you when it comes to puzzlish sudokus. If you have a masyu sudoku in a sudoku competition then its clearly unfair to those who never played masyu.

A common argument is the precedent of sudokus with puzzle origin like kropki and skyscrapers. It is no wonder that some latin square puzzles were adopted into sudoku but it cant be used as justification for adopting for example object placement puzzles or shading puzzles. Moreover, there is no difference between kropki and genuine sudoku variants like consecutive or XV. And though the solving of skyscrapers might feel puzzlish, if you write the rules as follows: "numbers outside the grid indicate the number of increasing numbers in that direction" then it really sounds like a sudoku.

I would agree here that anything that requires you to draw anything inside the grid is not sudoku (this interpretation covers tripods, psycho killers, battleships, tapa sudoku, masyu sudoku etc.). I would still make some exceptions here. For example, star battle sudoku is still ok (for example on one chinese website you can find this sudoku type with numbers 1-7 and two 8s where the absence of objects makes it even more sudoku), and arrow sudoku with missing circles (as it was presented in the Serbian LMI test) would still be ok.

Even though I think these puzzles dont belong to a sudoku competition I still dont protest if I see them. I know there will be a whole round of puzzlish sudokus in this year´s Czech championship and I dont mind it. But I understand that some players get irritated. I get irritated by other things. For example very strange time bonus system in the Polish championship is one of the reasons I would probably never attend this competition. And I think this year´s GP (which you praise for being pure sudoku) was more damaged by non-existing normalization and strict and arbitrary partial bonus rules than any amount of non-sudoku puzzles can do.

I appreciate you put pressure to WPF as it would be good to have these things clarified but I am not sure it is a good idea to boycott Slovakian WSC (I attended Slovakian national championship this year and may confirm the puzzles were 100% sudoku according to your criteria).

The boundary between common variant sudoku and puzzlish sudoku might be like a sort of “national selection”, frequency in other words; more or less for a sudoku of new rule, its first appearance gives some feelings of discomfort, but as it appears many times the discomfort eventually diminishes and that sudoku recognizes as a common variant sudoku.

There is so much personal taste in this discussion. I for myself would draw a clear line between Tripod and "Naked" Killers and the other puzzly types you mentioned. These are clearly types that set people at an advantage who have experience in constructing Irregular Sudokus by hand. Why is that not a skill you want so support in a contest/championship? As some people mentioned, it's also a matter of difficulty. If you make the innovations easy, they feel uninteresting and somewhat pointless. If you make a nice and medium to hard instance, they get too much influence fast compared to the classic variants.

Jan: Please don't use the word "boycott". I'm not boycotting anything. I decided not to take part because I was not sure it'll be a competition for me. I'm not sponsored in any way. Taking part in WSC is a non negligeable amount of money for a musician living in Switzerland (no, I'm not a banker), I've to pay fees at the swiss puzzle federation, the trip and the fees to take part. This year I decided to take a week's holiday in Italy in summer instead of spending my money to take part in WSC.
I've seen the sudoku of Slovakian national championship and yes, they are 100% about sudoku according to my criteria. That's not a guarantee for me, national champ. of WSC organizer are often published, and believe me, it's sometimes far to be the same competition (but in lot of cases this is better).
Of course I would have liked that their answer was "We agree with you and we'll do a WSC that is 100% about sudoku". Apparently they're not, at least from what I understood in Matus message on WPF forum, or at least they don't want to say they are (if the WSC is 100% about sudoku, that will probably mean they are) so what other choice I have than not take part?

Yuhei : I totally disagree, or at least I was not using puzzlish in the same way (well, I'm not using puzzlish at all, because it can mean anything). Seeing a lot of tripod sudoku will not make it less puzzlish in my opinion. It's always not about filling digits in cells, even if in the end the solution is a sudoku. If you want to embarass a sudoku player, the tripod sudoku of the Italian round of sudoku GP 2013 will be perfect.
Some variants that have nothing "puzzlish" might have been seen very rarely.
I say again that for me the problem has nothing to do with novelty or innovations.

[Matus]

Dear friends,

As we were mentioned several times in the ongoing discussion, I would like to write a statement on behalf of the WSC organization team. Please, note that we are fully engaged in WSC&WPC organization which will start in 10 weeks and there is so much work to be done prior to championship. We are not very thrilled of being involved in such a hateful discussion, so please, respect our right to remain silent. If the discussion proceeds, we can join after the event.

The puzzles for the 11th WSC are ready and we guarantee all of them are absolutely appropriate for this competition. I personally feel very sad to be judged by one forum post rather than the actual work we have done and also, I am very sorry for anyone deciding not to take part in our championship for such reasons.

No, we do not think publishing the Instruction Booklet before the registration is closed would be appropriate. The reason is that it would not be fair if some participants could study the booklet and practice longer than the participants who qualify and register later (and may not see the booklet). Needless to say, it might be an issue for most of the organizing teams to have the puzzles, examples and points ready and tested for such a long time in advance.

Also we do not think we are eligible to state what exactly a sudoku is and where exactly a border between a sudoku and a puzzle lies. If such a definition would be made by the WPF, we would fully respect it. But as this is not the case, we think it should be remained to the WSC authors’ judgment to prepare a set which is fully appropriate for the World Sudoku Championship.

As we are not to define the borders, I am afraid you cannot possibly know our opinion on every possible sudoku/puzzle ever created. The only thing I can do now is to react to some of the examples mentioned above. However, we do not think our opinion must be correct and do not think everyone will agree with it.

· We do think Skyscrapers Sudoku and Kropki Sudoku belong to the classic variants and therefore are suitable for the WSC.

· We do not think the 1-9 and full regions rules are so crucial. In our judgement, the puzzle in the Round 4 at WSC 2015 was appropriate for the WSC. As I mentioned before, the scoring of the round was the trouble here but this is not the topic.

· We do think Battleship Sudoku, Fence Sudoku or other puzzles used in the LOGIDOKU contest are interesting puzzles completely suitable for an LMI test. At the same time, we realize using such puzzles at a WSC might be questionable, if not controversial. If we wanted to use such puzzles at the WSC, we would make sure the “sudoku” element is crucial for the solving as being the best sudoku solver in the world should not require having other puzzles solving skills.

· We do think a “logical” element should not be restricted in the sudoku variants. Drawing the regions into the killer does require a bit of logic but it does not make it less sudoku.

We believe WSC authors should not be restricted on the number of puzzles of different category to create. For example, the WPF Sudoku GP is a great project but the rounds are not so memorable as some LMI tests as too much requirements might kill the creativity. If the authors is experienced enough, they should be able to create a balanced set of puzzles, so that the rounds are interesting, points distribution is balanced and there is a fair number of classics vs. variations and well-known vs. new puzzles.

We are confident our WSC authors are experienced enough to create such a set. Personally, I am proud of ourselves – I think the WSC rounds are both interesting and quality and I cannot wait to see your reactions and experiences with them.

Shall you have any questions regarding the upcoming WSC and WPC, please contact us directly and do not discuss our opinions without us. Examples of the appropriate places to ask us are WPF forum – WSC&WPC 2016 thread, Facebook page, Twitter page, the official or our personal email addresses.

Thank you very much for your opinions, we are looking forward to see you in Senec.

Best regards,

Matus Demiger,
WSC & WPC director

[Fred76]

Dear WSC organization team, dear Matus,

First let me say a big THANK YOU to finally answer clearly to my message posted on 25th October 2015. ALLELUIA ! Even if very late, I hope you'll believe me when I say I'm very happy to finally know your opinion on the subject.

I don't know exactly what you find hateful in the discussion, I hope it is not my messages, in that case I can only say I'm sorry if I hurt you, and I beg you to believe that it was not intentional. I may have seen some harsh discussions about the WSC/WPC in the past (for example here : http://wpc-2013.blogspot.ch/2013/08/aro ... 4636741128 ). I hope this kind of communication will not become frequent in the puzzle community and I hope I didn't contribute to it.
I reread the discussion and I've to say that, even if some of my comments are rough, mostly against the WPF or WPF board, and if I was very insistent, these are only the reflection of my thoughts and I hope it's not disrespectful. And I don't regret to have been insistent because it led to the 1rst real answer, 288 days after I ask the question. To be honest, I find that the only disrespectful comment in the discussion was against me : I'm not building a wall with a barbed wire between sudoku and puzzles. Please be sure I'll fully support you if someone use the same kind of argument against you because you said: “being the best sudoku solver in the world should not require having other puzzles solving skills.“

I personally feel very sad to be judged by one forum post rather than the actual work we have done and also, I am very sorry for anyone deciding not to take part in our championship for such reasons.

I'm sure you'll believe me when I say that I was not judging you and the quality of the WSC 2016 based on your previous message on the forum. You are smart enough to understand that I can judge your work only after the WSC, and I've to take the decision of my participation before it. I quoted your post on the forum only to explain why I took the decision not to take part. The real reason not to take part was not your post, but the absence of answer to my questions. Silence can be a deterrent. I now consider that you fully answered me and will respect your silence from now. I'm still curious to know your work on WSC 2016, and I hope I'll be able to test the rounds once the puzzles will be available on the WPF archives. Only after, I'll be able to have an opinion about the quality of WSC 2016. I hope you'll not be hurt if I say you, Matus, that your first answer on this topic was not clear enough to give me the desire to spend lot of money to take part in WSC.

While I don't have exactly the same opinion as you concerning some puzzle types, I'll not discuss about that now. Be sure I'm very happy to finally know your opinion on the subject and I respect it.

I agree with you when you say that without any guideline from WPF, it's up to WSC organizers to decide which puzzles are appropriate for WSC. I still think WPF should be clear about the goal of WSC, even if I don't expect a strict definition of sudoku from WPF. A clear guideline could however remove some pressure on the WSC organizer, who, I can imagine, already has a huge amount of work to organize such an event.

the WPF Sudoku GP is a great project but the rounds are not so memorable as some LMI tests as too much requirements might kill the creativity. If the authors is experienced enough, they should be able to create a balanced set of puzzles, so that the rounds are interesting, points distribution is balanced and there is a fair number of classics vs. variations and well-known vs. new puzzles.

Funnily, even if I don't totally disagree with your opinion, I think the opposite is true: The creativity of an author, if he's experienced enough, should not be killed by these kinds of requirement. For example, being creative in building a set of classic sudoku should be the kind of challenge an experienced author will like.

In conclusion, I want you to be sure that, even if I don't take part in WSC 2016, my dearest wishes are that it'll be a wonderful event for all participants,

Best regards,
Fred