bakpao's puzzles

WSPC and 24HPC 2025 have concluded! This post will recap only WSPC - 24HPC will be in a different post, probably in a few days after I finish post-solving the rounds.  This was my 4th year in a row participating in WSPC. I was on the A team for Sudoku and on the B team for Puzzles this year.  I finished in 29th unofficial in WSC (25th official, 1st NL and up from 54th unofficial last year) and 38th unofficial in WPC (2nd NL, same rank as last year).  Last year I wasn't happy with my WSC performance. This year I dedicated almost all of my preparation time ahead of the championship week to sudoku, and my performance felt better because of it. I still feel like I performed rather poorly in a couple of rounds, especially on day 1, so (as always...) there remains plenty of room to do better. Overall though, breaching the top 30 and securing the top spot in NL feels like a solid improvement over last year. Because my focus on WSC inevitably meant a lack of preparation for WPC t...

Last year, I was invited to write puzzles for the 2024 Serbian Puzzle Championships!  It was my first time writing for this tournament, and I was briefed a structure where there would be 5 sets of puzzles: 1x Classics, 1x Variants, 1x Novelties, 1x Miniatures, 1x Longer Classics. It was never really clear to me whether I was supposed to write an entire set by myself or provide some puzzles for each set, so I ended up going for the latter. It turned out my submissions would all be in a single round (my own). Had I known, I probably would have opted for a different structure or maybe a common theme, but I think it ended up working quite well. Sticking to the categories meant the set has a nice variety to it.   The tournament ultimately was postponed and didn't happen in 2024, but it finally took place at the end of last month.  This is why a few of the puzzles are still themed around the number 24.  I also believe it was a shared championships between Serbia and Croati...

Here's a random simple loop that I wrote yesterday and don't really have any other place for - as always, a good excuse to get some content on the blog. Difficulty - 3/5 (rules from Puzzle Rules ) Draw a non-intersecting loop through the centers of all empty cells. Solve on puzz.link https://puzz.link/p?simpleloop/16/16/1s000230000o21444301g0043gg860404og00e00201804026400

WSPC 2024 has concluded! I made the trip to Beijing, China to compete for the 3rd time in a row, this time on the B team in both events following my absence at the Dutch championships this year (to take part in 24HPC instead).  I finished in 54th unofficial in WSC (3rd NL and down from 38th unofficial last year) and 38th unofficial in WPC (3rd NL and up from 47th unofficial last year).  I cannot be happy with my WSC performance - I lost 175 points  alone  to puzzles where I forgot to resolve the last two cells. That means a bit of careful checking at the end of each round would have been enough to jump me to 34th place and 1st NL. Perhaps with some more preparation in the days leading up to WSC (where instead I was enjoying long, active days sightseeing around Beijing), some of the many broken puzzles could have been avoided too and who knows, my result might actually have been good. Oh well. There's always next year.  I am quite happy with my WPC performance t...