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View Full Version : Where to go with the puzzle contest?


akots
30-11-2004, 12:11
The current contest is almost finished.

So, please, tell of what should be changed if anything.

Did you like it the way it was? Should the puzzles be more easy? Or more difficult? Or of different kind? Or any other kind of feedback?

Beam
30-11-2004, 14:29
The only thing that comes to mind is to reconsider the frequence of the puzzles, maybe one or two a week? This gives ppl more time to find the solution. The difficulty is pretty ok imo, wouldn't be fun if everybody could solve every puzzle.

Socrates
30-11-2004, 16:28
OK, nice of you akots to speak about that, since I wanted to, but didn't have the energy to open a new talk. ;)

Difficulty : I think it's pretty OK, at least for me. I can find some easily, others I can't even touch...

Frequency : I had the urge to tell you to do it cool on the 1st day, because you were about to post a new puzzle every 2 hours ! [lol] It depends if you can hold the pace for some months. In any case, 1 puzzle a day is of course an absolute max. Maybe if you post a few puzzles on Monday, to be solved within the week, it could be better... Dunno, I want to hear more from others. The more fools here, the better.

Thread organization : :D Three threads for one competition is just insane, and editing posts all the time just adds confusion. This was my opinion 1 month ago, but now I know this is it. You should reduce it to 2 threads at max, and avoid editing posts like mad, all the more when it deals with uploaded pics (do you upload them twice ?). So we could even keep a log of intermediate rankings and comments...

BTW, December will be a so-so month : I am myself away for a week, and I guess it will be the same for other people. We could work something out this month so as to do it even better in January. And gather more people.

Plux
30-11-2004, 17:04
Just FYI, I liked it the first week, but then I stopped with the puzzles. Couldn't find the time. So for me you might lower the frequency of puzzles, I don't know how many others did them every day?

Rik Meleet
30-11-2004, 17:27
I agree with most here. I don't have every day to solve a puzzle, so I prefer more time in between puzzles.

Difficulty: They are difficult and some require sometimes hours of thinking and trying. That is a lot. The regular puzzles are ok in difficulty, but the bonus puzzles are too hard.

Points per puzzle: The main reason Banzai won is that he was able to solve an 8-point bonus puzzle. Which means he can't be caught within at least a week. I think that ruined it for me in the end. If the points per puzzle are more equally distributed it pays to continue and less focusses on solving the extreme hard puzzles.

Sort of puzzles. I personally don't like puzzles which require 10 or even 15 moves. A nice combination of 2 or 3 or 4 key-moves is what I prefer. Most daily puzzles were fortunately of that type.

The above combined: What if you give points for each key-move? That way you have more points for "regular" puzzles and even if you don't solve it completely you can still score some points, encouraging more people to compete and send in even partly solved answers. And it gives a good scale for rating puzzles.

For instance; if a puzzle has 2 key-moves and mate 4; make the points obtainable 2 (for the keymoves) + 1 (for the complete solution) = 3. If a puzzle has 4 key-moves and mate in 4, make it 5 points; 1 for each key-move (total 4) and 1 for the total solution. If the puzzle has 4 key-moves and mate in 6, make it also 5 points; again 1 for each key-move (4) and 1 for the solution.

Banzai
30-11-2004, 17:54
I agree with most here too.
I also like Rik's idea, although I understand that this will require more work for Akots.
If slowing down the puzzle-pace attracts more players and makes it more competitive we should do that.
An extra bonus puzzle now and then (Puzzle of the Month) doesn't hurt though... ;)

Banzai!

ProPain
30-11-2004, 23:13
Although I never posted I did try one or two puzzles and liked them a lot. I even downloaded the nifty movement utility. Never solved one so never posted.

For me the pace is too high, I can't free up a lot of time a day to solve a puzzle, so more in between time or 4 puzzles on monday which run till friday (for example) would be great for me.

I would like to see puzzles in December, as I'll finally have two more quiet weeks then [:)

Kemal
30-11-2004, 23:17
As other have said as well, I like to occasionaly have a look at these puzzles, so the frequency is way too high for me to consider joining a competition, but on the other hand, to try solving the puzzles is what I like about them, so I'll probably only submit very irregularly anyway. :)

akots
01-12-2004, 11:18
OK, I gave a thought to it. How's about 3 puzzles for a week - one for 1-2 points, one for 3-4 points and one over 4 points, between 5 and 8? Well, don't want to make somebody crazy over trying to solve something over 8 points. But 8 points can be solved, I'm sure about it.

@Krys: editing is very easy, no problem here. No need to extra download btw. But 2 threads might be Ok as well, one for contest puzzles and results and another for solutions.

@Rik: partial solution is OK, but to score the points, it is better to bring it to the end. Please try to send the partial solution in advance and then I can pm back with "a subtle hint". Scoring based on critical moves is too subjective imo and rather indirect and hard to judge.

I'd like to note that solving anything above 5 points certainly requires a board and pieces or a utility like one found by Rik. Unless we have a grandmaster in our competition.

Thanks for feedback! We'll start a new contest shortly.