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Congratulations jpoos!
https://www.calcudoku.org/forum/viewtopic.php?f=17&t=791
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Author:  angryclown  [ Tue May 17, 2016 4:28 am ]
Post subject:  Congratulations jpoos!

I almost choked on my breakfast when I saw jpoos's new highscore for 4x4 timed puzzle, 3,646 seconds is amazing [thumbsup] So congratulations! You sir are really fast! (and I'm jealous [blush] ) I never thought someone would beat Sheldolina's time..

Author:  bram  [ Tue May 17, 2016 1:16 pm ]
Post subject:  Re: Congratulations jpoos!

Always happy if I can just manage to finish a timed puzzle in a time that is no worse than 2 * (jpoos' best time for the same day) :-) But that is becoming harder by the day [scared]

Author:  eclipsegirl  [ Tue May 17, 2016 5:22 pm ]
Post subject:  Re: Congratulations jpoos!

Congratulations jpoos! [thumbup]

I am in awe of your ability to do timed puzzles.

Author:  jaek  [ Tue May 17, 2016 10:09 pm ]
Post subject:  Re: Congratulations jpoos!

That really is an amazing time. Congratulations.

Author:  jpoos  [ Tue May 17, 2016 11:25 pm ]
Post subject:  Re: Congratulations jpoos!

Thanks guys! [blush]
I figured I would probably to be able to beat Sheldolina's time sometime, but to get from a 4.0 to a 3.6 was quite... unexpected...

If you're curious what the puzzle looked like, it followed the following pattern (Patrick, is it possible to pull the puzzle from the logs?):
a b c d
b a d c
c d b a
d c a b
The way I look at this is as if it's made up of 4 2x2 blocks which look like
a b
b a
These kind of puzzles are my favorites, since they can be solved incredibly quickly (of my best 25 times, 15 probably came from these).
Once you know one of the 2x2 blocks follows the pattern, the entire puzzle has to follow the bigger pattern, making this pattern very easy to recognize: in this case, a1 was a single cage 2 and b1-b2-a2 was an L-caged 10+, and from there I immediately made the guess that that 10 had to be 4+4+2 and that the puzzle would follow the pattern; luckily I was right.
From there, I went to the bottom left 2x2 block. Because you know it follows the pattern, you only need to really deduce one cage, and can blindly fill in the other 3 from there. The same goes for the other 2 2x2 blocks.
All of this can be typed very quickly once you're used to it (even though I'm still able to mess this kind of puzzle up way to often), with no time loss on moving around in the puzzle.
So there you have it [thumbsup]

Author:  angryclown  [ Wed May 18, 2016 10:32 am ]
Post subject:  Re: Congratulations jpoos!

That's interesting that you like those 2x2 block type puzzles, my favorites are the ones that go diagonally from the top left to bottom right:

a b c d
d a b c
c d a b
b c d a

All of my times under 5 seconds are from these kind of puzzles and most of the under 6 secs also..

I've wondered many times what kind of patters people try to find from the 4x4 puzzles, so thanks for sharing [thumbup]

Author:  jpoos  [ Wed May 18, 2016 11:41 am ]
Post subject:  Re: Congratulations jpoos!

I also like those diagonal ones, but they tend to be a bit slower for me, since most of the time, I'll have to move from the bottom left of the puzzle to the top right at some point, which takes a while when you only have 5 seconds [lol]

Author:  pnm  [ Wed May 18, 2016 2:00 pm ]
Post subject:  Re: Congratulations jpoos!

patterns! That's an idea. Here I am always just trying to compute the answers [blush]

So far, 59 people have encountered this puzzle, with jpoos easily the fastest at 3.646

2nd fastest was jas33 at 5.994 seconds.

The top 10 for this puzzle:

1. | 3.646 | jpoos
2. | 5.994 | jas33
3. | 7.57 | eyalfishel
4. | 7.8 | bertoldo
5. | 8.022 | swob
6. | 8.636 | picklepep
7. | 9.218 | twinglemom
8. | 9.551 | bram
9. | 9.579 | danvijan
10| 9.597 | fzpowerman47

For some reason it took me 15.009 to solve (?!) (must have restarted it..)

Author:  jpoos  [ Wed May 18, 2016 2:05 pm ]
Post subject:  Re: Congratulations jpoos!

Is it possible to actually recover the puzzle? I'd love to see that beauty again [wub]

Author:  pnm  [ Wed May 18, 2016 2:39 pm ]
Post subject:  Re: Congratulations jpoos!

jpoos wrote:
Is it possible to actually recover the puzzle? I'd love to see that beauty again [wub]

Here it is:
Image

It's just about optimal in terms of "flow" (i.e. the next steps being close to the previous ones)

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