I Got 99 Problems But a Sudoku Ain't One
So its odd to live blog the WSC from a non-competitor's standpoint. I enjoyed having yesterday off and not stressing myself over 9 hours of puzzles that ran all the way to 8:30 PM last night. Not as late as in Zilina, but certainly a bit too long for my tastes. Anyway, 6 of my expected 8 finalists were in and Kota, my pre-tournament favorite, finished first despite bombing the last TNT round. Jan M. of Poland 2nd; Tiit 3rd, Jakub O. 4th. A murderer's row of favorites, and not a surprise in the bunch despite all those puzzles. So now we mostly start over.
So this morning was my first real involvement with the tournament as I sat in for the playoffs. I can say so far these feel more like a circus sideshow, not a fitting competition. First, they started 50 minutes late (what else is new), but with one easel too high for Rohan Rao in 8th so they had to adjust the stage for him. Kota kept the original stage setting but was on his knees for a lot of his solving. Now the rounds are continuing with a person dealing better with the short stage and someone else squatting. Its acrobatics in puzzle form!
To catalog the format mistakes so far (25 minutes in): the first puzzle posted was not the correct puzzle. [I've learned specifically it was Jan's first choice, not Kota's.] This was caught before the round started, but not before all the competitors but Kota and Rohan could see it. I had most of a solution of the math steps already worked out in my head from 30 seconds of looking at it. So it may be dead for reappearing in the tournament which is horrible as the top competitors should actually get to use the puzzles they choose.
Even more critically, some fundamental competition rules have been broken. First, Walter as MC has not given clean starting signals. Right now the set-up is like this: the puzzle is placed on the easel for the audience to see while the solvers are two meters away (with or without marker). Then Walter starts some kind of sentence which in the middle might contain "start" but nowhere has a clean finish with that word. You can imagine, as not all competitors speak English, this is a problem. And its happened twice already. Let me be clear: Start is ALWAYS the last word. So instead of "And now we will get ready for the competitors to start [competitor goes to board] the second puzzle [other competitor realizes there is motion and goes himself] ... yes you can both start now it is ok." What you say is "Ready. Set. Go.". And when you make this kind of mistake once, you fix it before the next time.
Then, as described in the rules, when competitors submit, they are not meant to look back at the puzzle to be checking in that minute's time. They are meant to be sequestered with their eyes away. So far this is running sort of on the honor system, and not consistently. Why write a rule if you don't know to enforce it?
But the big coup-de-grace mistake - just 4 puzzles in - was having a wrong solution in the grader's key, which YOU CANNOT DO!!!! It's like Gargamel crushing the spirits of Jakub after he conquered the Smurf sudoku. Even in a crummy playoff format, you cannot underestimate the psychological effect of being told you are wrong, then checking your grid a lot and not finding problems. After 2 minutes when H. Jo submitted the same grid the round was eventually corrected. But at 1-1 going to a draw match I decided to take my break from watching a tournament that is upsetting to me and to the title of World Sudoku Champion I've won 3 times in better tournaments than this.
This makes me again wonder if it even matters if I win the WPC title after a playoff in a format like this. I have won the general qualification before, which is my only goal for this year as well as another team title. But thinking about how sad many WSC and WPCs make me brings my thinking back to a secret project I've been teasing this week. Which is to just run my own puzzle tournaments, with consistent formats, in "cities with people" (TM, Grandmaster Puzzles) and not just on the cheap. Considering how strong the Beijing Sudoku tournaments have been organizationally, it feels more like a world championship than this. If the WPF won't change (they have never either apologized to me for the Slovakian tournament, or in three years fixed any of the many problems allowed by that tournament and complete host-discretion), I'll just build a better federation and a better tournament. Enough of one step forward, one step back. Puzzling can be a serious and growing sport. We just need it to be recognizable and relevant.
So this morning was my first real involvement with the tournament as I sat in for the playoffs. I can say so far these feel more like a circus sideshow, not a fitting competition. First, they started 50 minutes late (what else is new), but with one easel too high for Rohan Rao in 8th so they had to adjust the stage for him. Kota kept the original stage setting but was on his knees for a lot of his solving. Now the rounds are continuing with a person dealing better with the short stage and someone else squatting. Its acrobatics in puzzle form!
To catalog the format mistakes so far (25 minutes in): the first puzzle posted was not the correct puzzle. [I've learned specifically it was Jan's first choice, not Kota's.] This was caught before the round started, but not before all the competitors but Kota and Rohan could see it. I had most of a solution of the math steps already worked out in my head from 30 seconds of looking at it. So it may be dead for reappearing in the tournament which is horrible as the top competitors should actually get to use the puzzles they choose.
Even more critically, some fundamental competition rules have been broken. First, Walter as MC has not given clean starting signals. Right now the set-up is like this: the puzzle is placed on the easel for the audience to see while the solvers are two meters away (with or without marker). Then Walter starts some kind of sentence which in the middle might contain "start" but nowhere has a clean finish with that word. You can imagine, as not all competitors speak English, this is a problem. And its happened twice already. Let me be clear: Start is ALWAYS the last word. So instead of "And now we will get ready for the competitors to start [competitor goes to board] the second puzzle [other competitor realizes there is motion and goes himself] ... yes you can both start now it is ok." What you say is "Ready. Set. Go.". And when you make this kind of mistake once, you fix it before the next time.
Then, as described in the rules, when competitors submit, they are not meant to look back at the puzzle to be checking in that minute's time. They are meant to be sequestered with their eyes away. So far this is running sort of on the honor system, and not consistently. Why write a rule if you don't know to enforce it?
But the big coup-de-grace mistake - just 4 puzzles in - was having a wrong solution in the grader's key, which YOU CANNOT DO!!!! It's like Gargamel crushing the spirits of Jakub after he conquered the Smurf sudoku. Even in a crummy playoff format, you cannot underestimate the psychological effect of being told you are wrong, then checking your grid a lot and not finding problems. After 2 minutes when H. Jo submitted the same grid the round was eventually corrected. But at 1-1 going to a draw match I decided to take my break from watching a tournament that is upsetting to me and to the title of World Sudoku Champion I've won 3 times in better tournaments than this.
This makes me again wonder if it even matters if I win the WPC title after a playoff in a format like this. I have won the general qualification before, which is my only goal for this year as well as another team title. But thinking about how sad many WSC and WPCs make me brings my thinking back to a secret project I've been teasing this week. Which is to just run my own puzzle tournaments, with consistent formats, in "cities with people" (TM, Grandmaster Puzzles) and not just on the cheap. Considering how strong the Beijing Sudoku tournaments have been organizationally, it feels more like a world championship than this. If the WPF won't change (they have never either apologized to me for the Slovakian tournament, or in three years fixed any of the many problems allowed by that tournament and complete host-discretion), I'll just build a better federation and a better tournament. Enough of one step forward, one step back. Puzzling can be a serious and growing sport. We just need it to be recognizable and relevant.