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nz puzzle association

The NZ puzzle association runs the NZ vaki puzzle and sudoku championships and the NZ schools vaki puzzle and sudoku championship (held in the second week of term four)

This information is taken from the www.puzzles.kiwi.nz website

2015 championships

The 2015 NZ sudoku championship will be held online Friday 29 May to Sunday 7 June and in person at GBD cafe, Thames, over the weekend of 6-7 June. Once again, this will be part of the New Zealand Festival of Mindsports.

The 2015 championship will be held in five divisions: Open, Under 18 (competitor born in 1997 or later), Under 16 (competitor born in 1999 or later), under 14 (competitor born in 2001 or later) and veteran (over 60, born in 1954 or earlier). Every competitor is automatically entered into all the grades for which she or he is age-eligible. That is, a 10 year old could well win the Open competition.

We may not be ready by June 2015, but if we are, Sunday 7 June will also feature the 1st New Zealand MindGames, an online alternative to the Penatamind run as part of the New Zealand Festival of Mindsports.

Competitors will play puzzles online (i.e this is a paperless competition). There will be two types of puzzles - classic sudoku and the sudoku variant, vaki puzzles. The puzzles will be scored. In both classic sudoku and vaki puzzles the puzzler starts with some points, loses one point for every second spent solving, loses points for each mistake made, and gains points for every symbol correctly placed. How many points are gained or lost depends on the type of puzzle being played and the difficulty chosen by the puzzler.

Competitors will have 45 minutes and their top four classic sudoku and their top two vaki puzzle scores will be combined to give a total score. Competitors will be allowed to select the type of puzzle and difficulty for each puzzle. A competitor may solve, for example, ten puzzles in their 45 minutes and partially solve 3 more. None of the scores from the partially solved puzzles will count, and of the ten solved puzzles the top four sudoku and the top two vaki puzzles will count. If two sudoku and eight vaki puzzles are solved, then the two solved sudoku and the top two vaki puzzle scores will contribute to the total score.