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 Timed Puzzles 
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Posted on: Sat Jan 21, 2012 7:16 am




Posts: 428
Location: Canada
Joined: Fri May 13, 2011 2:43 am
Post Re: Timed Puzzles
The forums are really quiet these days...

Question: How often do you do guessing for timed puzzles for any of the three sizes?

Personally, I almost always do poorly when I resort to that method because I'm a really bad guesser! I'm generally unlucky in that way. Then I swear I will not resort to guessing next time. Occasionally I still do it because the temptation is too great but I always regret it afterwards. (As an example of how unlucky I can be, I once lost 23 games of Crazy Eights in a row to my brother... come on, how much luck vs strategy is involved there?)


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Posted on: Sat Jan 21, 2012 11:50 am




Posts: 212
Joined: Fri May 13, 2011 2:11 am
Post Re: Timed Puzzles
I almost never guess on 4x4's. They're just impossible to write to force guessing.

After that, I probably guess on about every other puzzle for the other two sizes. Even guessing wrong is more efficient than looking hard.

As for 23 straight games of crazy eights, someone who understood how to play it perfectly against someone with about average understanding of it would probably win at most 60% of the time. Just an estimate, but by playing it perfectly, I'm referring to someone who counts cards perfectly too, and even then, it's still probably not 60% good.

Which means even if you had an average understanding and your brother had a perfect understanding, that still only happens .00078973% of the time. Yeah, that's incredibly bad luck.


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Posted on: Sat Jan 21, 2012 4:32 pm




Posts: 428
Location: Canada
Joined: Fri May 13, 2011 2:43 am
Post Re: Timed Puzzles
I'm sure we both have an equal understanding of the game. It's just a ridiculous example from my past. Regarding the timed puzzles, I'm pretty sure it doesn't help me to guess because of how often I guess wrong. So starling, when you guess, do you still get good times even when you guess wrong and have to go back to correct?


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Posted on: Sun Jan 22, 2012 4:46 am




Posts: 212
Joined: Fri May 13, 2011 2:11 am
Post Re: Timed Puzzles
sneaklyfox wrote:
I'm sure we both have an equal understanding of the game. It's just a ridiculous example from my past. Regarding the timed puzzles, I'm pretty sure it doesn't help me to guess because of how often I guess wrong. So starling, when you guess, do you still get good times even when you guess wrong and have to go back to correct?

If I guess and get it right, my time probably falls from about 16-19 seconds. I still lose the split seconds in which I'm figuring out where to guess.
If I just straight out solve it because there weren't any sticking points, my time can end up anywhere from about 13-30.
With 5x5's, if I guess and miss but it acts normally outside of that, the time usually falls between about 31-35 seconds.
And if I can't even find a place to guess, that's usually when it exceeds 35 seconds.

6x6's are about the same, though with higher scales of time.

For today's, the 20.067 I guessed on and it was right. The 25.412 solved cleanly. The 32 I had to guess on, and missed a binary option.

As for the 6x6's, I guessed on all 3, was right on the 35.664, was wrong on the 43.581, but it checked as wrong almost immediately, and the 81.498 I guessed and was wrong, and it didn't show that for a while.


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Posted on: Tue Apr 03, 2012 7:36 pm




Posts: 65
Joined: Mon Mar 05, 2012 8:17 pm
Post Re: Timed Puzzles
I am curious as to the ages of you folks that are able to whip through these at blazing speeds!!
My reaction time has definitely slowed down as I am now in my 60's (ugh!). I can still work on all these puzzles and solve them at a normal pace but my speed times stink! These timed puzzles are definitely "a young mans (and womans)" game!


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Posted on: Tue Apr 03, 2012 11:48 pm




Posts: 275
Joined: Thu May 12, 2011 11:51 pm
Post Re: Timed Puzzles
Yup. This 65 year old has waved that flag several times. (And many of the speediest have identified themselves as young in other forums [Although I probably wouldn't have been speedy when young either.].)


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Posted on: Wed Apr 04, 2012 4:36 am




Posts: 428
Location: Canada
Joined: Fri May 13, 2011 2:43 am
Post Re: Timed Puzzles
rickt wrote:
I am curious as to the ages of you folks that are able to whip through these at blazing speeds!!
My reaction time has definitely slowed down as I am now in my 60's (ugh!). I can still work on all these puzzles and solve them at a normal pace but my speed times stink! These timed puzzles are definitely "a young mans (and womans)" game!


As it has been mentioned several times in the forums...

sheldolina is 14
starling is 18
I am actually 31 now as my birthday recently passed
picklepep is 37...

Definitely agree with you that the timed puzzles tend to favour younger players.


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Posted on: Wed Apr 04, 2012 5:05 am




Posts: 931
Location: Ladysmith, BC, Canada
Joined: Fri May 13, 2011 1:37 am
Post Re: Timed Puzzles
I do agree with the above as I am 67 but I keep hoping that one day all the synapses and neurotransmitters will somehow work like teenager's and I'll be in the top 10 :-) :-) :-)


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Posted on: Wed Apr 04, 2012 11:01 am




Posts: 246
Location: Lisbon, Portugal
Joined: Sun Sep 18, 2011 5:40 pm
Post Re: Timed Puzzles
I'm 69 years old and I'm envious of the ages of Sheldolina, Sneaklyfox, Starling and Picklepep.
In October I will enter in 70's.
BTW is the birthday of anyone at 29, October?
In all my life I only knew a person whose birthday is in that day, the french actor Alain Delon!
And Beaker, they say that the next reincarnation is always better than the actual.

Another thing related with the ages: With the time required to do all the puzzles of a day, for the most part the puzzlers must be retired ( with of course some exceptions )!

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Posted on: Wed Apr 04, 2012 12:45 pm




Posts: 3296
Joined: Thu May 12, 2011 11:58 pm
Post Re: Timed Puzzles
sneaklyfox wrote:
Definitely agree with you that the timed puzzles tend to favour younger players.

Makes me wonder what happened to starling's survey?

I'm 42, by the way [blink]

(looking for a smiley that reflects this, can't find it : - )


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