In the middle of the past November the best puzzle and the best
solvers of the Internet NOBle Puzzle Contest 2005 were announced. And
the results are...
1st place (163 pt.) - Polygon 12 - by Palmhead (Japan)
2nd place (102 pt.) - pup zuz Puzzle - by Yoshi (Japan)
3rd place (92 pt.) - Best Set for Maximum of Differences - by
Christian Romon (France)
4th place (73 pt.) - Six Stones - by Tim (Australia)
5th place (62 pt.) - Fill the Box - by Cihan Altay (Turkey)
6th place (42 pt.) - PL-W - by Mitsuhiro Odawara (Japan)
7th place (32 pt.) - 77 Figure Dissection - by JUNK (Japan)
8th place (0 pt.) - PAGODA - by Martin Watson (England)
9th place (0 pt.) - Quad-Block - by Bill Darrah (U.S.A.)
10th place (0 pt.) - Everywhere 150yen!!! - by HARAKEN (Japan)
11th place (0 pt.) - AYDA - by Hasyurt (Turkey)
12th place (0 pt.) - Closer! - by Bogdan Gheorghe (Romania)
13th place (0 pt.) - How many coins are there in the NOBle prize,
just? - by iNpc2005 committee (Japan)
The 1st puzzle Polygon 12 has won 20 000 Yen.
Also the solvers are rated as follows.
1st place (252 pt.) - Yoichi Enta (Japan)
2nd place (222 pt.) - Joky (R.O.C. (Taiwan))
3th place (121 pt.) - Christian Romon (France)
4th place (121 pt.) - Fred (France)
5th place (113 pt.) - Tim (Australia)
6th place (80 pt.) - Nick (U.S.A.)
7th place (52 pt.) - MINE (Japan)
The first five solvers have won a special wooden mechanical puzzle.
Our congratulations to all the winners and participants!
Al Zimmermann's Programming Contests - Circle Packing
The current Al Zimmermann's Programming Contest named
Circle Packing is in its midst. As usual, the contest is
intended for people who like to compete on programming challenges, and
spend much of CPU and/or brain power on it.
The
Circle Packing contest started on October 30, 2005 and its
deadline is January 14, 2006. First prize is $250, second prize is
$150.
Participating is free. To enter a contest, you just need to register.
Once registered, you may submit your solutions whenever you like, they
will be automatically judged and the results page will be updated
accordingly.
The Al Zimmermann's Programming Contests have an associated discussion
group. If you think you might enter the contests, you should join
the discussion group.
The 2005 World SCRABBLE® Championship is starting this day (November
16) at the Marriott Regent's Park Hotel in London, England. The event
will last through November 20.
The World SCRABBLE® Championship has been held every second year since
1991, alternating until this year between the sponsorship of Mattel
Inc. and Hasbro. Mattel were not expecting to stage the event in 2005
but have stepped into the breach following Hasbro's withdrawal.
More information about the event, including schedule, registration,
prizes or history, can be found on the official
WSC
website.
Rubik's World Championship 2005 will be held from November 4 trough 5
at Disney's Pop Century Resort in Florida.
The tournament will be governed by the current World Cube Association
(WCA) Rules which are agreed guidelines for competitor, judging,
puzzle, timing and mixing aspects of competitive cubing. The
World Cube Association is an independent group of cube
enthusiasts who have organized themselves to sponsor, host and promote
various cubing tournaments and to share ideas and methods on how to
better solve various puzzles and games including Rubik's Cube.
A special 25th Anniversary Trophy will be given to the 1st, 2nd and
3rd winners in all categories as well as the fastest competitor in
each category from each country represented.
For more information about the event, including registration,
accommodations or program schedule, please visit the
Official Rubik's and WCA Event page.
The quarterly and online competition PQRST 15 starts on November 5,
Saturday, at 20:00 (GMT+02). After the launch you'll have one week to
solve and rate 10 puzzles.
Also there are approximately 50 rating points in this contest, to be
earned at
Puzzle Ratings.
A special project "internet NOBle puzzle contest 2005"(iNpc2005) has
been recently announced by a group of Japanese puzzlers. The contest
is sponsored by Academy of Recreational Mathematics, Japan (PUZZLE
KONWAKAI).
This is a prize contest and the award is 20,000 Japanese Yen. It is
opened to everyone, but only the best one puzzle will get the prize.
If you are willing to participate you are invited to send in your new
best-one puzzle. The puzzle must be either your original or your
modified puzzle of an earlier original one. All kind of puzzles are
allowed, mechanical or pencil puzzles. Using PC is allowed. Puzzles
should be not open-published yet. The unsolved puzzles are allowed to
be contributed too. Simple puzzles may be better than complicated
ones. Team work is allowed.
Deadline of the puzzle submission is 27th of October, 2005 JST. Japan
Standard Time is GMT+9 hours.
After the submission is over a solving contest will be held - from
October 30 through November 5, 2005 JST. Anyone can try solving the
submitted puzzles, and then vote for the best four puzzles with a
special ranking system. Details of the rating system are already
revealed.
This was an amazing fall week in Hungary, in the old city of Eger, full
of history. The weather was marvelous, and the meal was delicious. The
folks were hospitable and the puzzles were excellent. And on top of
that the fun was in the air all the time...
The American Mensa's eighth annual National Testing Day will take
place this Saturday, Oct. 22. Local Groups across the country will
administer the Mensa Admission Test. The test fee is $30 and a photo
ID is required. The test is open to anyone age 14 and older, but
parental permission is required for anyone age 14–17.
Each fall the Mensa Admission Test is given at more than 150 test
sites on a single day, promoting membership in American Mensa
nationwide. In past years as many as 1,600 potential members across
the country have participated in a single NTD. In 2004, 97 groups
administered the test at 200 test sites from coast to coast.
For more information about the event, please visit the official
web-page.
Our special Photo Report from this year's World Puzzle Championship in
Eger, Hungary just arrives. We are going to update the Report till the
end of the event on October 15 - for both the 14th WPC and the 6th 24
HPC. Thus, you are welcome to come back each day to check the new
photos from Eger.
Almost 30 Countries Announced to Join the 14th World Puzzle
Championship
It is less than two weeks left for the start of this year's World
Puzzle Championship. At the moment 29 countries from four continents
have already registered to send their teams to the event. Several of
them in addition to the official A-team are going to provide the full
B-team to participate.
Toward the Biggest Championship in the WPC's History!
This year the 14th WPC is planned to include more puzzle programs than
ever. The Hungarian Puzzlers’ Association decided to deliver you much
more than a simple WPC. During the event (8-13 October) they are
planning to hold a Crossword Puzzle, a Scrabble and a Pop-Rock-Quiz
Championships as well. Moreover after the WPC you’ll get an
opportunity to take part in the unique 6th 24 Hours Puzzle
Championship (14-15 October).
Until now interest from 27 countries has been confirmed. Also there is
an interest from several countries (e. g. USA, Germany, Poland, Czech
Republic, Slovakia, Croatia, Romania) to send a B-team and/or extra
puzzlers for the WPC. Now it seems that this Championship can be the
biggest one in the WPC’s history!
This year the annual IPP Puzzle Design Competition was renamed to
honor Nob Yoshigahara, who was a great designer, promoter, and
ambassador of mechanical puzzles throughout the world. The goal of
this annual Competition is to promote and recognize innovative new
designs of mechanical puzzles.
The fifth Puzzle Design Competition was held in conjunction with IPP25
this July in Helsinki, Finland. Judging and awards were presented
directly at IPP25 too.
57 puzzles have entered the Competition this year.
As a result the W-O puzzle by Shiro Tajima receives the Puzzlers'
Award which is selected by IPP attendees. The Grand Prize, selected by
Judging Committee, is awarded to Radix puzzle by
Akio Yamamoto. Five extra puzzles receive Honorable Mention awards.
Our congratulations to the winners!
To see more details (available in PDF version too) on the winners, all
the participating designs, rules and schedules visit the
Nob Yoshigahara Puzzle Design Competition home page.
The 14th World Puzzle Championship will be held on October 8-13, 2005
in Eger, Hungary. Simultaneously, the annual
Congress of the World Puzzle Federation will be held too.
The organizers of the event, the Hungarian Puzzlers' Association,
cordially invite puzzlers from all over the world to participate. At
the moment teams from 23 countries are registered. If
you do not find your country in
the official list of the participants,
then it's only up to you, devoted puzzlers, to make that happen...
The 9th Mind Sports Olympiad takes place from Friday August 19th to
Monday August 29th inclusive in the Renold Building at Manchester
Conference Centre. Following the tradition of the previous year, MSO
is again held in collaboration with the British Historical Games
Society's
Britcon Olympiad.
MSO is an Olympiad for "thinking" games. The competitors play each
other at a variety of well known strategy games, such as Abalone
Chess, Bridge, Draughts (Checkers), Backgammon, Scrabble, Othello and
Go, and compete for gold, silver and bronze medals, and for other
prizes.
This year the Olympiad is adopting the successful event model of the
British Historical Games Society, whose "Britcon" event now forms
part of the MSO. The concept is to combine the tournament entry and
accommodation booking processes. The idea is to encourage more
participants to stay in the inexpensive accommodation made available
by the University of Manchester, thereby creating more of a convention
atmosphere during the event.
In addition to the "entry and accommodation" package proposed to the
MSO 9 participants, other principal changes from past years include
such things as additional number of tournaments to the schedule on
weekdays, and the new "MSO-Con" event. It is a separate event that
caters for enthusiasts of what previously was called "Hobby Games".
These are: Acquire, Age of Steam, Carcassonne, Lost Cities, Puerto
Rico and Settlers of Catan.
For more information about MSO 9, including entry form, accommodation,
games, highlights and schedule, visit
www.msoworld.com/2005/.
The 2005 National SCRABBLE® Championship (NSC) will take place on
August 19-24 at the Reno Hilton at 2500 East Second Street, Reno, NV
89595. On-line registration is now open. After registration on Friday,
August 19th, all competitors will play a total of 28 rounds from
Saturday, August 20th to Tuesday, August 23rd. There will be six
divisions of players at this year's NSC, determined by the National
SCRABBLE® Association Official Ratings List, July 1, 2005. Division 1
is for players rated >1799, Division 2 for 1600-1799, Division 3 for
1400-1599, Division 4 for 1200-1399, Division 5 for 1000-1199, and
Division 6 for < 1000.
The top two finalists in Division 1 will play a best-of-five match on
the morning of Wednesday, August 24th. ESPN will televise the finals,
which will be presented to non-finalists via closed circuit television
and hosted by an ESPN personality and a SCRABBLE expert.
In order to play in the NSC, all players must be current members of
the National SCRABBLE® Association and have an NSA rating.
Also in conjunction with the 2005 National SCRABBLE® Championship the
Anagrams Championship will be held too.
MathFest 2005 will be held on August 4-6, in Albuquerque, New Mexico.
This year's MathFest will be an intimate celebration of mathematics
and mathematicians, a program rich with varied events and activities
(Hedrick Lecture, minicourses, contributed paper sessions, panels,
short courses, etc.), and complemented with an opening banquet, a Los
Amigos Roundup, and an exhibit hall full of mathematical books and the
latest in technology for the mathematically inspired.
To learn more about the event visit the official
MathFest page of the
MAA
Online.
The quarterly and online competition PQRST 14 is scheduled to start on
August 6, Saturday, at 20:00 (GMT+02). After the launch you'll have
one week to solve and rate 10 puzzles.
Al Zimmermann's Programming Contests - Primal Squares
A new version of Al Zimmermann's Programming Contests is available.
The contests are intended for people who like to compete on
programming challenges, and spend much of CPU and/or brain power on
them. Although these are called "programming contests", technically
you don't need to write a computer program to enter. You can enter
whether you use a computer, manual calculations, or tea leaves to
solve the problem.
Each contest offers a cash prize for the first three winning entries.
Current contest is called
Primal Squares and total prizes are $500. The contest started on
July 3 and will last till September 5, 2005.
Participating is free. To enter a contest, you just need to register.
Once registered, you may submit your solutions whenever you like, they
will be automatically judged and the results page will be updated
accordingly.
The contests have an associated discussion group. If you think you
might enter the contests, you should join
the discussion group.
On July 16 Amazon.com, the leading online seller, celebrates the 10th
anniversary of the day when it first opened its virtual doors for
business. Among many other items Amazon also sells toys, games and
puzzles as one of their distinctive items.
Based on the occasion Amazon has prepared many anniversary activities
to its customers, including A Show of Thanks - the concert featuring
Bob Dylan and Norah Jones, as well as all-time customer-favorite
authors and filmmakers. Starting at 5 p.m. PT on Saturday, July 16 the
concert will be streamed live on the Amazon.com homepage. The event
will be hosted by humorist Bill Maher and feature musical
performances, author readings, and other presentations from some of
our all-time top-selling artists.
Zack Butler solved 21 out of 22 puzzles, scoring 385 out of a possible
395 points, to win the 2005 U.S. Puzzle Championship title. Wei-Hwa
Huang, the 2003 winner, also solved 21 puzzles and is runner-up.
Jonathan Rivet placed third, and former champion Roger Barkan was
fourth. All four will represent the U.S. at the World Puzzle
Championship in Hungary on October 8-13. Among the Canadian
participants the top scored is Byron Calver with 285 points. And from
other international - Taro Arimatsu from Japan with 325 points. Our
Congratulations!
The 166th Convention of the National Puzzlers' League (NPL) has
started on July 7 in Los Angeles - LAConic 2005. It will last till
July 10. Almost every year since 1883 the NPL hosts a convention. The
previous convention was held in Boston, MA, July 8-11, 2004.
If you are interested, take a look at the
Convention Pages of the NPL
official site for more information, including a list of past NPL
conventions, photographs, reports, and more. This section is updated
as soon as new announcements are made.
For more information on the NPL and its conventions visit their
official website.
World's Leading Maze Designer Throws Open Doors For Charity Day
Adrian Fisher - the world's leading maze designer - is to throw open
the doors of his Dorset home on Saturday, July 9th to help raise money
for charity.
The 'The Amazing Dorset Garden Party' is being held at Portman Lodge
in Durweston near Blandford from 1pm to 3pm to raise funds for the
British Heart Foundation and the Walking the Way to Health initiative.
Visitors will be able to try and solve a variety of different mazes,
puzzles and labyrinths including inflatable mazes, a turf labyrinth,
tile mazes, rope puzzles and even finger mazes! This charity event
will start with a celebrity opening and have major special attractions
that will suit all ages throughout the afternoon. There will be a
variety of different stalls and goods for sale as well as the
opportunity to meet Adrian and his amazing team and tour the 19th
century manor house and grounds.
The event will also mark the official launch of the Million Mile Maze
Challenge which is taking place at all 30 Adrian Fisher-designed maize
mazes across Britain.
For more information visit the official Adrian Fisher Maze Design
website:
mazemaker.com.
The 2005 Canadian National SCRABBLE® Championship starts today, June
9, at the Great Hall at 1087 Queen Street West (at Dovercourt) in
Toronto. The Championship will last till June 11.
This year it is the 5th Championship since its inception in 1996. The
Championship will bring together the top fifty expert players from
across the country to vie for the title of Canadian Champion, the
right to represent Canada at the 2007 World Championship, and a prize
pool totaling $12,150.
Collection of puzzle designs for Puzzle Design Tournament (PDT) 2005
has started. Send your puzzle design to
pdt2005@gmail.com until June 3rd to be considered for the
tournament.
PDT is an annual
online event organized by Cihan Altay.
It's simply a "send one-solve multi optimization puzzles"
competition.
Further details on the Tournament - puzzle types, design publication and answer checking, rating and scoring systems, results -
can be found directly at
the
site.
PQRST 13 Competition (the traditional
quarterly puzzle online competition run by Cihan Altay) is finished.
146 participants took part in PQRST 13 which was held April 23-30,
2005. All results of the competition are posted at
the site already.
This year’s Mind Games® competition starts on April 15 in Tampa, FL.
It will last for three days till April 18, 2005. The competition is an
intense weekend of play. Mensans judge and critique games released in
the past year and award the coveted Mensa Select® seal to the top
five.
More than 150 members of
Mensa
will play the year's newest board games in a 40-hour gaming marathon.
At the end of the event, Mensa judges will rank their favorite games.
The top five vote-getters will earn Mensa Select® distinction and may
use the Mensa Select® seal in their advertising and on their
packaging.
Board games, card games and other types of table and party games are
eligible. Games may be for one or more players. The competition is not
open to games that are incomplete or not yet in production. Video,
electronic, or computer games or any games that take an inordinately
long time to set up and play cannot be accommodated. The entered games
are judged on aesthetics, instructions, originality, play appeal and
play value.
Today the 2005 National School Scrabble® Championship (NSSC) opens at
the Marriott Copley in Boston, MA. It will last for two days -
Friday-Saturday. The event is for students in grades 5-8.
To be more informed you can log onto the site for live Internet
coverage of the event.
This year the 28th Annual American Crossword Puzzle Tournament was
held in Stamford, Connecticut on March 11-13, 2005. This is the US
oldest and largest crossword competition directed by New York Times
Crossword Puzzle Editor Will Shortz. Solvers tackle eight original
crosswords created and edited specially for this event.
The results of this year Tournament are already available and could be
found at
www.crosswordtournament.com. Tyler Hinman becomes Champion of the
year. Congratulations!
The next 29th Annual American Crossword Puzzle Tournament will be held
in Stamford, Connecticut on March 24-26, 2006.
PQRST 12 Competition (the traditional
quarterly puzzle online competition run by Cihan Altay) starts at
20:00 (GMT+02) Saturday on January 22nd. As usual, you'll have one week
to solve and rate 10 puzzles.
PQRST 10 Competition (the traditional
quarterly puzzle online competition run by Cihan Altay) is finished.
148 participants took part in PQRST 11 which was held October 30 -
November 6, 2004. All results of the competition are posted at
the site already.
