Friday Puzzle #176 - Arlington Sudoku Tournament Puzzles

[motris]

I know everyone has been anxiously awaiting these results from Virginia. Congratulations to Carolyn Offutt (1st), Lindsay Cooper (2nd), and Anne Etter (3rd) for their results at the 2nd Arlington Puzzle Festival Sudoku tournament. Here are the puzzles I provided, for three 20 minute rounds and then one live final on stage

Comments

[anonymous]

Do you have their solving times we could compare to?

[motris]

(from the competition site)
The best times on the puzzles were:
Puzzle 1: 3.6 minutes
Puzzle 2: 7.3 minutes
Puzzle 3: 9.2 minutes

These are very good times, but many of my regular blog readers will certainly chime in their own lower numbers. I assign "world champion" level par times of ~2 minutes, ~3 minutes, ~3.5 minutes.

Not sure of the final puzzle time, but the large format can affect things. I rate it again at world champion par time of ~3 minutes on paper, or equivalent to the second puzzle in difficulty.

[toddetter]

Final winning puzzle time was just over 6 minutes, I believe.

[ext_295627]

Nice sudokus. Thanks for sharing.

Here are my solving times:

Puzzle 1: 2'20
Puzzle 2: 2'52
Puzzle 3: 3'56 (It took me some time to find a pair...)

Final puzzle: 2'32

Perhaps your par times are a bit too big.

Fred

[motris]

I actually find your results to be pretty consistent with my par time expectation. I don't mean fastest possible result; I mean about where great WSC-level solvers will perform.

Glad you liked them!