Race a friend

Same clues, two boards, first correct finish wins. No account and nothing written to a ladder. Press Vs a friend on Play and send the link.

Why you cannot see their digits

A shared board is one grid two people type into. This is the other thing: you each have a copy of the same clues, and the digits you write stay on your copy. Seeing theirs would be seeing the answer one square at a time, which is not a race anybody would finish by thinking.

What you do see is how many squares they have filled. That is enough to know whether you are ahead or behind, and it is not enough to know which digit goes where. The count includes the clues, so both sides start from the same number and climb toward eighty-one.

If they vanish, the seat stays. Closing a tab does not hand you the win and it does not take one away from you either. You still have to finish the grid, because quitting only pays when it denies the other person the result, and here it does not.

What the link actually starts

The code in the URL is an invite, not the puzzle. Opening it does not rebuild a grid from the library the way a /g/ link does. It seats you in a race, and when the second person arrives the server picks a board from a pool that never ships on this site.

That is deliberate. Every puzzle on the Play pages carries its solution in the HTML, because a solo board has to check itself with no network. A race that used those grids would be a race whose answer was sitting in the page you were racing in.

The first person to open the link waits. The second starts the clock. A third person is told the race is full rather than dropped into a spectator seat that was never designed.

How a finish is believed

A win is a completed grid the server has compared to the answer, digit by digit. Your browser is never sent the solution while the race is running, so "I finished" is not a claim you are able to make here. Hand it in, and if the board is complete and wrong you are told exactly that and no more.

Wrong digits are left alone during the race. Flagging them live would be handing over the answer one square at a time, which is the same leak as showing their board. Once somebody has won, both boards are marked: the squares that were wrong are the useful part of a loss.

A grid that arrives faster than a person could have read the clues is voided rather than awarded. Awarding it to the slower player would create a better trick than the one being prevented, so nobody gets the win and nobody is told they lost to a paste.

Starting another one

When it is over, go back to Play and press Vs a friend again. That mints a new invite, so the next race is not the leftover of this one. The old link will still seat the two people who already used it, if they both come back; it will not let a third person in.

Nothing about the result is stored. There is no history, no rating change and no name on a board. If you want those, that is ranked play, and it needs an account because a number that outlives the tab has to be attached to something that does too.

Common questions

Do I need an account to race a friend?

No. Open the link from Play. Ranked play is the only thing on this site that needs an account, because a rating has to live somewhere after the tab closes.

Why can I not see which squares my friend has filled?

Because those squares are the answer. You are shown how many they have filled, which tells you the race, and none of the digits, which would tell you the puzzle.

What if they never open the link?

You wait. Nothing starts until the second person arrives, and nothing is lost if they never do. Close the tab and send a new link later.

Is a race against a friend the same as ranked play?

No. Same two boards and the same judge, but no names, no rating, and no row written down. Ranked finds an opponent and moves both numbers; this finds the person you sent the link to.