1st Online GIPF Puzzle Contest

Organization: GIPF Centre
Place: http://www.gipf.com
Date: October 7 - 14 October
Participants: 34

Read the rules of the contest.
To the series of puzzles that was put online at exactly 16:00 GMT on Sunday, October 7, 2001.


Just two...

While putting the solutions online on Sunday, October 14, a last answer form came in (Michael Reitz is a Saint!), which brought the number of participants to 34. What to say about that number? We had hoped for minimally 30 participants. We passed that edge, but we had assumed a total of 50 to speak about a successful contest, and that we did not achieve. Well, we are satisfied just the same.
To come to the results: one third (11 participants) found up to 3 correct solutions, another third (10) found 4 correct answers, and the last third (11) came close with 5 correct answers. That leaves:
34 - 11 - 10 - 11 = 2! Indeed, just two participants succeeded in finding all 6 solutions. Puzzle 5 appeared to be the hard nut to crack. Quite a few had found a win for White in 6 moves, but there was one in 5 moves, too, and only Arne Hoffmann (D) and Stephen Tavener (GB) had seen it. Arne was the first to send us a completely correct answer form (on Tuesday, October 9, at 00:04 h), so he's the winner of the 1st online GIPF puzzle contest. Congratulations! A DVONN prototype will be on its way one of the next days.
Congratulations to Stephen, too (his solutions reached us on Wednesday, October 10 at 22:28). We wrote his name on a piece of paper and an innocent hand drew him as the winner of the second prototype.
That left us with one last prototype - the winner to be drawn from all the participants (expect the winners of the first two prototypes) who sent in at least one correct solution. That resulted in 31 names in a hat - and Boris Ammerlaan (NL) came out of it. Here you are! And this ends the contest.
I thank all the participants for their cerebral efforts. We hope that you all enjoyed it. We'll be back with another online GIPF puzzle contest next year!

The participants with 6 correct solutions:

- Arne Hoffmann (D), October 9, 00:04
- Stephen Tavener (GB), October 10, 22:28