A Tale of Two Contests:

First of all, congratulations to Palmer. He showed great performance and became the Tapa Master of 2012. In the last years, I was always wondering how Thomas solved all that puzzles in extremely short times; now I feel the same for Palmer. I didn’t make 19 puzzles to be finished. My aim was to force solvers to follow a strategy. But a guy that solves all puzzles in 66 minutes can only have one strategy: Kill ‘em all! :) Once again I congratulate him for his self-confidence and earning the title by defeating this final cruel round.

The top three of TVC 2012 are:

1. Palmer Mebane (USA),
2. Thomas Snyder (USA),
3. Hideaki Jo (JPN)

I am skipping the statistics for TVC XII :)

The file that contains all variation ideas will soon be updated. So you can still share any ideas with me.

50 days has been completed in CTC. I am as satisfied as you. It was a tiresome experience for me, Deb and Gulce. If Deb hadn’t come up with this brilliant idea and say “Let’s do a classic Tapa contest” no one would be thanking me today. At this very point I should say that I am not doing these on my own, that would be impossible. I am just a guy who makes puzzles. It is not unfamiliar for a puzzle maker to get all the credit, but Deb, Ulrich and Gulce who worked as hard as I did deserve applause. You already know Deb is dead set on this; he works round the clock for puzzles. I cannot get through so many tests without Gulce. And Ulrich was a great help with testing all TVC rounds this year. The puzzles are sometimes flawed before they are ready to be presented to you. It is really annoying to send flawed puzzles to a solver that has been world champion so many times :) I should also thank Roland, he was also a tester of the last round, in spite of his lack of time. And Ulrich stil agreed to test the puzzles even he had flu last week.

With all of the above, I bow respectfully before these people. I am just a puzzle making robot, but the puzzles shape in flesh and bones thanks to these people.

Let me mention my favorite puzzles of TVC XII: Borders (b), Compass (b), Sweeper (a) and TAPA TAPA.

CTC puzzles were made by me and Gulce. Until last night, I had no intention on publishing these puzzles after the contest is over. But I changed my mind and the reason for that was the files Palmer has been publishing in his blog. He has published two puzzle packs, containing tons of puzzles and solving tips; and I think these are amazing works. I thought about it and I decided that CTC puzzles now belong to the puzzle community, not us. The complete file will soon be available for download.

The top three of CTC are:

1. Palmer Mebane (USA),
2. Hideaki Jo (JPN),
3. Nagata Yuta (JPN)

As I stated at the very beginning, the top three solvers will receive a classic Tapa book that I prepared. The book is now being tested; maybe we can display its cover here. I will need the addresses of the top three in a few weeks. And later the book will be available for purchase at Akil Oyunlari blog: http://akil-oyunlari.livejournal.com

Our country is famous for a dessert named “Turkish delight”. It has many types; one of them is called “double roasted”, very delicious. Palmer took a “double roasted” victory by earning both titles. I congratulate and admire him.

That is all I can say for now. Thanks everyone for getting involved in what we did.

Best,

Serkan