Puzzle Ramayan and Indian Puzzle Championship 2017

Puzzle Ramayan & Indian Puzzle Championship 2017 by Hemant Kumar Malani

I am Hemant Kr Malani from Kolkata. Earlier I have written about my experience in Sudoku Mahabharat & Indian Sudoku Championship 2017. Now it's time to write about Puzzle Ramayan and the Indian Puzzle Championship 2017.

This year's Puzzle Ramayan (PR) was my second offline Puzzle event. It was scheduled to start at 8:30 am with registration and a Question & Answer session. But I overslept and woke up at 9:26 am. Somehow I managed to reach the venue by 10 am and could participate in all the rounds.

Indian Puzzle Championship 2017 Trophies

Round I The Usual Suspects

The first round had 8 puzzles. I completed 4 out of them but later came to know that I had made a mistake in Masyu. Rohan completed this round with 8 minutes bonus.

Round II-The Other Guys

Hemant Kumar Malani during Indian Puzzle Championship 2017

This round also had 8 puzzles. I completed 3 including Hidato, which I had learned just the last night. So, I was happy with this round. This time Rohan got a bonus of 130 points.

Round IV-The Hangover

Round IV(which was held 3rd)-The Hangover

This round was scheduled to be held at 4th position but was held at 3rd due to some reasons. I could get a score of just 90 points out of 500 but I was in 11th position overall and could get selected if I maintained that rank.

Round III- The Big Short

This round went horribly for me. I made a mistake in Star Battle and couldn't complete Two Circles, after having done 90% of it. Getting a score of just 30 points I slipped to the 15th position. With this, the IPC came to an end. Rohan won the IPC; thus becoming the double champion for 2017. Ashish got 2nd place and Rajesh was 3rd.

Indian Puzzle Championship 2017 Winners

Recreation Event

For the recreation event, we were divided into 8 teams of 3 each. There were three rounds in which each one of us had to solve one puzzle against a competitor from the opposite team. Whoever finished first(and obviously correctly) got 1 point and the team with 2 points won. This event was really amazing. The team of Ezhil, Harmeet, and Vishal finished first. My team including me, Kishore, and Devarajan sir was 2nd.

Playoffs

Next on the table were the playoffs to decide PR winners. The first playoffs were held among Varun, Devarajan sir, and Anurag. Anurag had a bit of very bad luck. He was finishing first but made mistakes 5 times in Minesweeper and by that time Varun finished and moved to 2nd stage of playoffs. The next playoffs were among Ashish, Lenson, and Varun. Though Varun had a 1-minute disadvantage, he finished Kakuro faster than Ashish. But Ashish completed the other puzzles faster and maintained his 1st rank in Puzzle Ramayan 2017. Varun got the 2nd rank and Lenson the 3rd. I checked the puzzles solved by Varun in this playoffs. It was a nice experience.

Puzzle Ramayan 2017 Winners

With this, the Puzzle Ramayan also came to an end. Prizes were distributed and after that, we had an open discussion about the ways we can promote Sudokus, Puzzles, and Logic Masters India (LMI).

Though my rank in IPC remained the same as last year, my performance did improve this year. Looking forward to more improvement in next year's IPC. Thanks to all who made this event happen.