Listener 4530 Gallery By Phi

[Hagen]

A novel way to make use of a circular grid, which all fell neatly into place. I made rather heavy weather of the ring clues, often losing my place when trying to follow the entries round the grid. Perhaps this was due to the necessary omission of dividing lines?

Great stuff, though for me Phi's best puzzle for a long time was his recent IQ puzzle "The Magic of Opera" (but as my username suggests, I'm biased!).

[Liathach]

I enjoyed this after a very slow start, but I am not sure about the quoted 'number of locations of interrupting letters' . I obtain 12, not 16. I will have to very careful about calculating the totals.

[Antmark]

There are 16. There is something that you have overlooked in the rubric about "a missing value".

[tnap]

By my reckoning, there should be 17 interrupting letters (counting occurrences of interrupting letters in radial answers). The only way to make 16 appears to be treating 2 cells differently. I feel a lengthy explanation to JEG coming on...

[TheBear69]

I agree with you tnap and that makes it hard to decide whether that ambiguous cell scores once or twice.

[perseverer]

I know what you are getting at and sympathise, but I think the preamble says 16 quite deliberately, so you stick to that.

On the other hand, one of the advantages of not submitting is that you don't have to worry about such things!

[TheBear69]

Surely the two contestants get the same number of turns, in which case that value should count twice. I'm glad I don't enter, too.

[perseverer]

In danger of going beyond our self-imposed boundaries, but not every turn achieves a score.

[Liathach]

My calculation should make it quite clear that I have identified the missing value. I can obtain 16 occurrences by counting some symbols more than once. This sounds like the hare again.

[Hagen]

I think that an absolutely literal interpretation of the relevant sentence in the preamble leads to 16 locations, and I'll admit that the ambiguity didn't occur to me when I calculated the totals. It's hard to say whether the specified number is there to clear up the ambiguity, or whether this is an uncharacteristic oversight by the Listener team. My money's on the former, but like others I'm glad I don't submit my solutions!

[olichant]

I’m a bit perturbed by the apparent ambiguity, too, after a tricky and enjoyable grid fill. I can justify two alternatives with equal confidence. I’m probably missing something.

[sunny-dave]

Like all radial puzzles this was a pig to get started on - but once the clues began to slot in it got progressively easier - the final 25% was almost trivial by comparison with my early struggles.

I don't submit - so the arguments about counting holes can be cheerfully ignored chez SD - I'll maybe stick with the MMMM in Blackburn, Lancashire?

Thanks Phi - a tough one.

[Philoctetes]

The preamble does not refer to the number of letters, but the number of locations.

[tnap]

Agreed, Philoctetes. But there are fewer than 16 locations unless you treat one cell differently. The preamble clearly states that it is the entries that are scored, not the locations. So I must remain dissatisfied at best.

[sunny-dave]

I've definitively got 16 letters (holes), with the only argument being about whether one particular hole is scored twice, or only for the first Inward/Outward in which it features?

[Hagen]

I see it the same way as you, Sunny Dave. I'm of the view that each of the 16 only counts once, but the argument for one of them counting twice is certainly valid. If I'm proved wrong, so be it!

[Contrarian]

If you only count the ambiguous cell once, then on what basis could you award the score one player rather than the other?

[sunny-dave]

Lower clue number went first & higher clue number missed?

[ playing devil's advocate here - I do think there are 17 scores to be awarded ]

[Hagen]

Not every radial has the magic letter, and therefore I can see no way of knowing whether the occurrence of the letter in the ambiguous cells belongs to one, or other, or both of the relevant radials. After reading and reflecting on comments here and on CSF I accept that there are two possible totals. Arriving at either shows a correct completion of the grid and understanding of the theme, so I'm not really bothered about proving one is right and the other isn't. This whole issue has led me to re-evaluate the puzzle which, while still entertaining and clever, could have had a better preamble.

[TheBear69]

Yes, the preamble refers to the number of locations, but the respective scores are from the 20 entries, each of which gets the score due to the location(s) it uses.

[icynorth]

I echo most of the above, but I'm going to score it by common sense, not on preamble semantics. This approach usually makes for around 5 incorrectly submitted puzzles per year, however. Oh well.

Thanks Phi - a clever construction, but I didn't really enjoy the amount of cold solving required to get started.