Indian Puzzle Championship 2012

The Indian Puzzle Championship 2012, organised by Logic Masters India (LMI), was held on 3rd June, 2012 from 14:00-16:30. It will consist of one online round of 150 minutes (2.5 hours). Participation is free of cost and everyone is invited to participate in the event irrespective of age. There are no prerequisites/requirements for participation. Top competitors will represent India at the World Puzzle Championship 2012 which will be held in Croatia in October, 2012.

View Championship Page

Download Instruction Booklet
Download Puzzle Booklet

For any doubts/queries, you may post in the IPC 2012 Forum

The list of classic puzzles that will appear in the contest are:

Easy As ABC
Slitherlink
Kakuro
Loop Finder
Hitori
Masyu
Tapa
Sudoku
Skyscraper
TomTom
Snake
Square Division
Mastermind
Star Battle
Battleships

30 puzzles. 150 minutes. Knowing it is a national championship, I did not expect the puzzles to be of the 'very tough' types. I was quite comfortable with all the puzzle types and the set had a good mix with a wide variety of classic puzzles as well as variants.

Having a wild card for the Indian team at the WPC this year, I was a little more relaxed than the last couple of years. Yet, I wanted to make sure I finish in the top 4 just to make my wild card look deserving :-)

The puzzles were fantastic. I don't expect (and neither does anyone else) anything less from Deb. Some of my favourite puzzles are: Inside Skyscrapers, Coded TomTom, Battleships 2, Coloured Star Battle, Tapa Borders and Masyu.
Thumbs up to Deb and the other authors (Palmer Mebane, Serkan Yurekli and Thomas Snyder) for designing such beautiful puzzles. Thanks to Deb and team (and testers Branko Ceranic and Nikola Zivanovic) for organising a smooth and successful championship.

(You can now rate the puzzles on the webpage)

Results

1. Rohan Rao - 955
2. Prasanna Seshadri - 790
3. Amit Sowani - 750
4. Rakesh Rai - 625
5. Swaroop Guggilam - 615
6. Harmeet Singh - 575
7. Rajesh Kumar - 500
8. Rajib Ranjan Borah - 490
9. Sudhanshu Mittal - 460
10. Puneet Goenka - 460

View Complete Results

(You can also play a quick and interesting game on the webpage, of guessing which puzzle was created by which author!)

I won my 3rd IPC title (in a row!) and it feels great to complete the hat-trick :-)
Congrats to Prasanna, Amit and Rakesh.

I had a couple of stumbles while solving and adding to the national championship pressure, I'm still a little disappointed at not being able to complete the set. I had ample time but I missed out on one puzzle and a perfect 1000 score was surely achievable. Anyway, I did well enough to win :-)

Commendable performance by Prasanna who has improved a lot over the last few months. Nice to see Amit back after a long time. Rakesh has always been one of the most consistent top Indian performers in puzzle championships and I'm happy with this team, probably one of the best India have had in recent years.

Swaroop Guggilam was very close behind Rakesh and missed the top 4 by just 10 points. Its unfortunate to see Rajesh at a low 7th who has regularly been representing India at the WPC last 10yrs.

Lets hope the team can make it to Croatia in October and perform well! :-)

Once again congrats to the toppers, all the participants and Deb Mohanty (and the organisers, authors and testers) for conducting a successful IPC 2012 and hope to see you all at the Indian Sudoku Championship 2012 (Coming Soon...!)

Indian Puzzle Championship 2011

The Indian Puzzle Championship 2011 will consist of 13 regional rounds held in the months of January to March 2011. The top 3 from each of these regional rounds will be invited for the national finals on 12-Jun-2011. The team which will represent India at the World Sudoku Championship will be selected on the basis of the performance in the Indian Sudoku Championship National Final.

Championship Page
Forum

There are several ways in which you could qualify for a position in the National Finals.

You could be amongst the top 3 at one of the regional rounds.
You could be amongst the top 15 from the Online Qualifying round which will be held on date.

The 13 regional rounds will be held as a part of the college festivals in reputed colleges in different colleges across the country. The regional rounds will be held in the cities of Mumbai, Kharagpur, Rourkela, Goa, Guwahati, Bangalore, Kanpur, Hyderabad, Ranchi, Bhopal, Delhi, Roorkee and Pilani in the months from January to March. The regional round finals will be held between the top 60 participants from the region. The 60 finalists will be selected from Regional Prelims which will be open to all participants. For more details regarding the venue and dates of the regional round nearest to you please have a look at the Schedule.

The national finals was held on 12th June at Community Hall inside DRDO Complex, CV Raman Nagar, Bengaluru (Bangalore).

Download Instruction Booklet

10th June, 2011
I took a flight to Bengaluru and reached Rajesh's house around 6pm. After a brief nap, I spent some time with Rajesh's family and relaxed. Last year, I won the Indian Puzzle Championship (and the Indian Sudoku Championship) and going into this year's finals being the defending champion was not the easiest thing for me. There were a lot of first-timers due to the regional rounds and the regular group of good players were anyways there. These were my thoughts about some of the players

Amit Sowani: Has been itching to get back to participation after creating puzzles for previous IPCs. He has been the best performing Indian at WPC and could win the title this time.
Rajesh Kumar: 5-time national champion is a force that could shake me down. I considered him to be my biggest threat.
Rakesh Rai: Has been consistent and has beaten me in LMI Monthly Puzzle Tests. He could've been the dark horse.
Ritesh Gupta: Does not enjoy solving puzzles as much as sudoku but you can never count him out.
Tejal Phatak: Has been consistent and was part of the team last year.

Unfortunately, Amit could not make it to the event. Rakesh pulled out too. And, as expected, it turned out to be a battle between Rajesh and me (like last year), where I won IPC 2010 by just 40 points.

11th June, 2011
Indian Sudoku Championship

12th June, 2011
I was hoping to be in the Indian team at least, if not win the championship. The finals had a lot of new variations, so I was confident of making it in the top 3.

Round 1
Download Puzzle Booklet
This was a Sprint Round and we had to solve as many puzzles as possible in 60 minutes. It was a modest start by me as I could solve 13 whereas Rajesh solved 15 and took an 80-point lead.

Round 2
I had to do well in this round. And I did. I solved 4 puzzles worth 340 points and Rajesh solved 1 puzzle worth 120 points. 220 points more than Rajesh! Now, the IPC title was almost surely mine. But, one puzzle turned out to be incorrect. Both Rajesh and me spent time on the puzzle. The round had to be cancelled and it was the fairest possible decision. Of course, it was disadvantageous to me foregoing such a big lead, but then there was nothing I could do.

Round 3
Download Puzzle Booklet
The decider round. Rajesh had 80 points more than me. I had to come up with something spectacular to win. The round timing was increased from 60 minutes to 90 minutes. When the round started, my heart starting beating very fast and I started to get nervous. I really wanted to win. With confidence, speed and accuracy, I put all my puzzling skills into action and it did result in an extremely important performance. I completed all the 20 puzzles in 86 minutes, thus getting a 40 point time bonus. I couldn't have ended it better. I never ever thought I would be able to complete the round. I scored 740 and had a comfortable lead over Rajesh's 415 in the final round.

Results

1. Rohan Rao (Mumbai) - 1020
2. Rajesh Kumar (Bengaluru) - 775
3. Harmeet Singh (Bengaluru) - 555
4. Sumit Bothra (Kolkata) - 460
5. Ritesh Gupta (Delhi) - 460
6. Rajib Borah (Mumbai) - 445
7. Swaroop Guggilam (Mumbai) - 425
8. Tejal Phatak (Mumbai) - 405
9. Zalak Ghetia (Bengaluru) - 350
10. Prasanna Seshadri (Mumbai) - 350

Complete Results

I won IPC again. I won ISC and IPC in the same year again. So, that makes it four titles on a trot. I'm very happy and I've worked hard for this. I thank my family and friends for all the support.

As for the results, it may look like I won with a comfortable 245-point lead, but it was closer than it looks. Rajesh likes competing and he complimented me. His words 'I tried giving you a fight, but you were unbeatable today' mean a lot to me. Harmeet Singh's performance got lost in our battle, but I must say, a terrific performance by him. He could well be a contender for the title next year. Sumit and Ritesh had modest performances and always seem to be ranked one after the other!

Rajib Borah had an excellent Round 3 and had he done better in Round 1, he would surely have been ranked higher. Swaroop Guggilam almost made it to the top 4 with a good Round 1 and Round 3. A few silly mistakes cost him a few points and was pulled down to 7th. Tejal Phatak and Zalak Ghetia were the best performing women.

The puzzles were beautiful, some of them created by Foreign Puzzlers. It was organised very well, and ended successfully.

The entire event was co-ordinated by one man, Deb Mohanty, who spent a lot of time and effort in ensuring the success of the event.

Credits

I thank Rajesh Kumar, Deb Mohanty and their families for giving me accomodation. Special thanks to Deb Mohanty and his team (view credits) for organising this wonderful event which went very smoothly and was a huge success.

Indian Puzzle Championship 2010

Indian Puzzle Championship 2010
All resident Indian nationals, irrespective of age, can participate in Indian Puzzle Championship. The Championship will be an online test on September 12th, 2010. The puzzle-solving skills of contestants will be tested using different puzzle variations which appear in the WPCs. Top rankers at the Indian Puzzle Championship will be eligible to represent India at the World Puzzle Championship to be held in Warsaw, Poland from 24th-29th October 2010.

Championship Timing
The Championship was held on 12th September. The test duration is of 2.5 hours.

Rules and Regulations
The championship is open for All Indian and Foreign Nationals.
However, only participants with Indian nationality will be considered for the Indian Puzzle Team to represent India at the WPC.

External help of any kind is not permitted. This means no assistance of any kind from any other person, also any books, calculators, computers or tools other than the items explicitly permitted. Writing instruments of any shape or design, erasers, rulers and paper are allowed. All scores are subject to review compliance for rules. The organizers reserve the right to disqualify any contestant if in their sole judgment they believe that the rules have been violated.

Download Instruction Booklet
Download Puzzle Booklet
Password is iMa8NebMirfO

The list of puzzles that appeared in the test are:

Sudokus
1. Classic Sudoku
2. Killer Sudoku
3. Irregular Sudoku
4. Equal To Sudoku
5. Divisible By 3 Sudoku

Basics
1. Kakuro
2. Hitori
3. Fence
4. Arrows
5. Battleship

Observation
1. Spot The Differences
2. Word Search
3. LMI Fill
4. SFinks Cut
5. Paint By Numbers

Polish
1. Trimino Clubs
2. Shield
3. Box 321
4. Poplotek
5. More More

Variants
1. Dominos
2. ABC Connection
3. Skyscrapers
4. Easy As ABCD
5. Bridges

Results

1. Rohan Rao - 1795
2. Rajesh Kumar - 1755
3. Gaurav Korde - 1120
4. Tejal Phatak - 1115
5. Aman Pruthi - 1090
6. Prasanna Seshadri - 1080
7. Priyanka Gupta - 1075
8. Munira Lokhandwala - 1070
9. Jaipal Reddy - 1070
10. Rudradev Basak - 1005

Complete Indian Results

Congrats to everyone!

Indian Puzzle Championship 2009

Indian Puzzle Championship 2009
All resident Indian nationals, irrespective of age, can participate in Indian Puzzle Championship. The Championship was an online test on October 4th, 2009. The puzzle-solving skills of contestants was tested using different puzzle variations which appear in the WPCs. Top rankers at the Indian Puzzle Championship will be eligible to represent India at the World Puzzle Championship to be held in Antalya, Turkey in November 2009.

Rules and Regulations
Open for All Indian and Foreign Nationals. Only Participants of Indian Origin will be considered for the Indian Puzzle Team to represent India at the WPC. Ranking will be done on the basis of total score. Ties will be broken using the following rules in order:
Fewest number of incorrect answers (blank answers are ignored)
Earliest time stamp

External help of any kind is not permitted. This means no assistance of any kind from any other person, also any books, calculators, computers or tools other than the items explicitly permitted. Writing instruments of any shape or design, erasers, rulers and paper are allowed. All scores are subject to review compliance for rules. The organizers reserve the right to disqualify any contestant if in their sole judgment they believe that the rules have been violated.

Championship Timing
The Championship was held from 14:00 hrs IST (08:30GMT). It was of 2.5 hours.

Official Website: Logic Masters India

Download Instruction Booklet
Download Puzzle Booklet
Password is cU4bIPunEv
Download Solution Booklet

The list of puzzles that appeared in the championship are:

1. Trid
2. Polygraph
3. 4x4 Minesweeper
4. Comet
5. Ikebana
6. Word Search
7. Mirror Image
8. Dominos
9. Magnets
10. Missing Digit Kakuro
11. Direct Turn Loop
12. No Four In A Row
13. Easy As ABCD
14. Ripple Effect
15. Sparse Skyscraper
16. Tiger In The Woods
17. Classic Sudoku
18. Kropki Sudoku
19. Hitori
20. Mastermind
21. Spiral Galaxies
22. Elastic Bands
23. Triangle Count
24. LMI Cut
25. Vista

Results

1. Rajesh Kumar - 700
2. Rohan Rao - 670
3. Puneet Goenka - 570
4. Rakesh Rai - 500
5. Jaipal Reddy - 495
6. Himanshu Mittal - 495
7. Gaurav Korde - 460
8. Harmeet Singh - 440
9. Tejal Phatak - 335
10. Aakash Doulani - 230

Complete Results

There were totally 33 participants.
Congrats to everyone!