No, there are just three puzzles in each round. Whoever finishes first in each round, in each category, advances. If you're trying for the Advanced final, you must solve all three puzzles in a round -- the easy, medium, and hard -- faster than anyone else in that round, and be the first person to raise your hand (and seconds count). If you feel you did not finish first in the first round, you have two more rounds to try to do so. (By the way, if you're trying for the Medium final, you have to solve both the easy and the medium puzzle to qualify. If you're trying for the Easy final, you have to solve just the easy puzzle to qualify.) The official winners of each round will not be announced until the finals, so you might want to play in all three rounds just to cover all the bases. And if you make it to the Hard final, don't be surprised if the final puzzle has a little bit more going on inside it than just a regular sudoku!
The advanced level is geared toward speed and accuracy on sudoku puzzles that are "normally" hard but with perhaps an extra element to solve, like, the diagonals have to be 1 through 9 also, or some such. When I say "normally" hard I mean that even the advanced level will probably not require any of the more esoteric strategies, like x-wing, swordfish, and the like. All of the tournament's puzzles will be purely logic-oriented, where the logic is easy to see -- as long as you know where to look!
I believe that if you go to the philly.com/sudoku site you'll find some test sudoku's to try, and you might be able to gauge your abilities from there. (Our "Eraser-Free" Sudoku's are there, so you could try those for starters -- they're interactive, so you can solve them online.) In general, though, you actually determine your own level, based on your skill at solving easy, medium, and hard sudoku's. If you're really good and really fast at the really hard sudoku's, then obviously you should try for the big prize of $10,000. If you're really good at medium puzzles, then perhaps you should try for the $5,000 prize. A lot of the details are still being worked out, but in general you should solve as many easy, medium, and hard puzzles as possible on your own and then determine for yourself which ones you think you're the best at solving and try for the prizes in that difficulty level. Also, just in case you were thinking of entering for the big prize, the sudoku's at that level may have an "extra" challenge thrown in, such as having the diagonals contain the numbers 1 through 9 as well, or some other added rule. Good luck!
that's the trouble with crosswords -- no spacing! this is part of a famous ogden nash poem that goes something like this: "the one-l lama, he's a priest; the two-l llama, he's a beast, and i would bet a silk pajama, there isn't any three-l lllama." (in my clue i started it with the word "a" instead of the word "the," but it doesn't affect the answer). hope that helps!
It's always great to meet a fan of mine! Thanks for the compliment!
As to "eraser-free sudoku," it's a format I created because I love sudoku's but I can't stand the constant erasing -- and I like to solve in pen! However, for me, 90 per cent of all sudoku diagrams are too small -- you pretty much have no choice but to erase your little "possible" numbers because there's no room in each little square for the possibles AND the final answer. So I designed a format that has slightly larger squares plus a short "scratchpad" line near the bottom of each empty square. You write your possibles below the scratchpad line, and when you're sure, you write the final answer nice and big above the line. The important thing is that, with my way, erasing is optional -- you can erase the possibles if you want to but you can also leave them there, since they don't interfere with the big final number. If you can find sudoku's with large grids -- or if you actually don't mind erasing -- then you don't really need my system, but I find that large-grid sudoku's are few and far between. By the way, our online interactive version works the same way -- you can put your little possibles below a scratchpad line and leave them there or erase them -- the choice is yours. If you want to see our online version, just go to www.sundaycrosswords.com and click on the sudoku link.
Yes, there's a very good book and a very good web site. The book is Peter Gordon's "Mensa Guide to Solving Sudoku." And the web site is www.scanraid.com/sudoku.htm. To me, a lot of the so-called advanced strategies, which have names like "x-wing," "y-wing," and "swordfish," are tantamount to guessing, so we never require them in our sudoku's. But if that's your thing, then those two resources should help a lot!
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