USPC Results Thoughts

[motris]

So before the test I posed a few questions. Now that full results are out, I thought I'd revisit them.

Comments

generosity

[joshuazucker]

Thanks, Thomas, for all the time you spend on this blog and creating puzzles in general. It's really clear that you feel your role is not to beat everybody (although you usually do) but rather to make as many people as possible capable of achieving their best. You want to work your hardest at improving but you also want to share your techniques and help everyone else learn too.

I'm sure that if I practice more of your puzzles here and read your advice, I'll keep progressing too.

Re: generosity

[motris]

It's weird to wear a lot of hats, so I appreciate that you can see this dichotomy

Re: generosity

[joshuazucker]

That's great, thanks! I'd love to have more puzzles like the easier TomToms that I can use with students who are easing into the idea of mathematics as problem/puzzle solving rather than as algorithms to memorize.

[ext_209009]

I'll certainly be watching out for you going for that sixth title... From how much scores increased this year while yours fell a bit, I think it's pretty clear that you've had better days performance wise. Meanwhile, I don't think I've ever had a level of focus like that in my life, even including some of my better LMI rankings. If I had to guess, had we been in similar levels of form I probably would have gotten a close second, just like I would have in both of the last LMI tests had I not made so many errors. Meaning I also feel like I have things to work on if I want to put up a good defense next year

[onigame]

I certainly wasn't looking for pity with my comment; I just thought that people might want to know why my score was where it was. If anything kept me from a fourth-place finish, it was missing the two diagonal 2x2 squares that overlapped the middle

[thedan]

"If anything kept me from a fourth-place finish, it was missing the two diagonal 2x2 squares that overlapped the middle :)"

That same miss kept me from a third-place finish, so perhaps not, all things being equal. ;)

[ext_771515]

The US results were really heartbreaking, Dan. Sorry. :( Amazing performance this year, even though you were denied yet again!

[mammothali]

Wow, I logged into livejournal just now for the first time in a few years, just to leave you a comment! I don't think we've run into each other since BANG 21 a few years ago, but I moved back to Chicago - and closed my facebook - so hello

[thedan]

The I in LMI stands for India, so your German issues shouldn't be relevant. (Croco-puzzles is the site I've avoided because I don't like dealing with translations.)

[mammothali]

Yup, I see I wasn't clear, but that's what I was referring to (croco-puzzles in German). I will definitely be checking out LMI.

[thedan]

Oh. Right. Yes. Sorry.

[jdyer]

Do you think we'll ever have a year where everyone is exempt (say, every US player gets in the top 8)?

[motris]

While it's possible that there would be enough top US scores, I believe the fact there is no written standard except for "feel" means there would still always be open spots. In the years I've competed, the closest cases were Rio and Belarus:

In 2008, all US members made the playoffs (which were 17 people in total) but Zack in 14th didn't get an exemption.

In 2007, we did even better but the playoffs were normal sized with 1, 4, 6, and 12 after general qualification. Only one spot, again Zack's from 12th, was available on the USPC the next year.

It looks like the best US team performance ever was in the early years of the event: 1996 we had 2,3,5,7 with Zack, Wei-Hwa, Ron Osher, and Nick Baxter as anchor. This was before playoffs, but in the modern era they would all have been in.

[ext_209009]

I think Nick mentioned to me at last year's WPC that the policy had been that if you made the playoffs you were on next year's team, but after 2008 things started to be done by "feel" as you say, since that year wouldn't have allowed any turnover.