Add your times here.
Congrats to 2012 champion Joon Pahk! He handily defeated Francis Heaney and Kiran Kedlaya to take the prize. (Part of the prize was theater tickets that he can't use, so Francis got a little prize as well.) The Local Division champion, Glen Ryan of Connecticut, dominated his division and his final even more. Glen is "Express" fast -- you can see his times in my spreadsheet under the mysterious nom de puzzle "VT" -- but hadn't been to a major tournament before. Look for him to win the C Division this March...
Share your times on the Lollapuzzoola puzzles, whether you were in the room or solving at home. My times are from late-stage test-solving, so it's 99% the same as the final version.
10 comments:
I didn't take very good notes, so I don't have all my times. I was fairly slow on Puzzle 3 (Dan, I think Liz's was puzzle 2 and Mike's was puzzle 3). I was pretty quick on Doug's but can't remember the time. I did relatively well speed wise on Matt's challenger, but I botched up the upper left corner, which knocked me out of contention.
Congratulations to Joon, Francis, Kiran, and Glen and thanks to Brian, Patrick and all the volunteers for an outstanding day of puzzles!
My times were from the first round of test solving so there was only a title on the puzzles. I do know Matt's puzzle changed quite a bit (I didn't time myself the second time since I already knew the gimmick). Not sure what if anything else changed before Saturday. Sounds like everyone had fun. I hope to make it down one of these years...
Quite right, Al - that got switched this week! Thanks.
oh, glen is VT? didn't make that connection. the only thing that could stop him from winning C would be making the B final, which doesn't seem at all far-fetched.
A long-belated hi to the spreadsheet folks.
I'm probably off on the time limits (I have 20?, 35 (didn't note my exact time, to boot), 30/35, 45, 30 - please feel free to correct these)
Thanks for the good words, and congrats again to Joon (some of those clues were pretty sick).
Not sure how I botched only 3x in P5 since I didn't really get the theme. *shrug*
Hope to see (most if not all) everyone in March
20 35 30 45 30, according to my records.
My times were "eh" (didn't record them, but Dan Katz sitting nearby beat me on 4 of the 5 puzzles). However, I did the express final in 6:43 on paper.
Per the at home rules, the times are:
20 35 30 45 40
Also, the SW of the express final destroyed me. I was flying through it and then suddenly BRICK WALL.
thanks glen, and congrats to you, too! after my first ACPT, francis called me "future A division troublemaker". i think the same title applies to you now that you have finally competed in a major tournament!
neville, the SW of the express was indeed nasty. i was fortunate to see through the IN SALES clue (having just the I in place from ISBNS); kiran never actually got it, ending up with INSoLES crossing BoNNEN (no more unknown to both of us than BANNEN). it would have helped if i'd seen the clue for NORAH; somehow it escaped my notice.
ellen, mid-6es is my best guess at how long it would have taken me on paper. dunno if you're better at navigating the big board than i am, but it would have been close up there.
My thoughts:
I didn't know about the different scoring method (compared to ACPT) until earlier today, but I prefer it since it removes the somewhat arbitrary 'tiebreaker' rule that's used in the ACPT. Though it must be a pain for the people who have to calculate the scores; kudos to Brian and Pat for making the extra effort to implement this improved scoring system.
Since every second counts with the new scoring system, I decided to go for broke and not spend any time checking, which explains my relatively-fast times for puzzles 1 and 3. I currently don't know if I would have the nerve to use this strategy if I was there in-person. Stumbled with a middle chunk of puzzle 2, the final theme entry of puzzle 4, and trying to figure out how to properly express the theme in puzzle 5. And of course, the SW corner of the final; I had PISTON instead of BUTTON at first, which took a while to unravel. So I guess I'm in 2nd place at-home for now; we'll see what happens when Tyler and Anne submit their times.
Congrats to Joon and Glen, and thanks to all of the hosts and constructors for putting together an excellent batch of puzzles. I'm not sure when, but one of these years, I'm hoping to show up in person and get the full lollapuzzoola experience
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