The Second Serbian Open Championship in Optimizers

The second Serbian Open Championship in solving optimizer puzzles, organized by Serbian Puzzle Association, will start on Monday, November 30th. The contest will last two weeks. It consists of two rounds, seven days each. There will be 12 optimizer problems in total, 6 per round. Each puzzle has separate scoring system. The contestant (or contestants) with the best solution receives 25 points, second best solution is worth 21 points, the third 18, the fourth 16, the fifth 14, the sixth 12, the seventh 11, and so on. Seventeenth-ranked competitor gets 1 point. In each round, competitor's score will be the sum of his four highest results. Two lowest scores will not count. In other words, one can score at most 100 points per round. This means that the contestants do not have to submit all 6 answers, they can skip one or two per round if they choose so. On the other hand, it can be good tactical move to submit all 6. Although you can't receive more points, your rivals might get less. There are neither negative points for wrong answers, nor bonus points for fastest solvers. It is advised to write answers very carefully because errors will not be tolerated. The winner becomes one who scores the most points. In case of the same point total, the tiebreakers will be the following: more "25s", then "21s", "18s", etc. If the tiebreaker records are still the same, then they will officially share the first place. There is no entrance fee or special application form. Anybody interested can participate. The top ten puzzlers will receive awards via email. The best Serbian competitor will get the trophy and become national champion for the year 2009. The authors of the puzzles are Marko Obradović (8 puzzles) and Nikola Živanović (4 puzzles). Since there will be only two of his puzzles in each round, Nikola has the right to participate, but, of course, not to submit the answers for his own puzzles. The file with the puzzles for the first round will be posted on this website on Monday, November 30th, 10 A.M. Central European Time (CET=GMT+01.00). The deadline for submitting the answers is Sunday, December 6th, 10 P.M. The results of the first round will be posted on Friday, December 11th, the latest. The second round begins on Monday, December 7th. The deadline for the answers is Sunday, December 13th. The final results will be posted on December 18th, the latest. Good luck!

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