Comments on 2013-09-15's Tapa

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Para commented at 2013-09-15 05:17:59
Couldn't find the logical path during my solve for the left side, but got it afterwards. Tricky finish.

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feels good to be at first place even though for some time ;) :)

Comments on 2013-09-16's Tapa

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prasanna16391 commented at 2013-09-16 00:55:02
Used just a little uniqueness in some places there. Its pretty hard logically. Some nice little patterns that aren't normally used. 2,1-2 reastricted the 1-1-1-1 to just one possibility and that gives a fair start.

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yureklis commented at 2013-09-16 01:03:02
Yes, you are right about the starting point. I used minesweeper logic, it worked well. I tried to preserve whole design from uniqueness effect, but it could be put final position of clue 6 with using uniqueness. However this is not big deal for the puzzle. I think this is a hardrock Tapa :).

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These smaller grids seems to be much more exciting than the bigger size grid ones ;)

Comments on 2013-09-17's Tapa

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swaroop2011 commented at 2013-09-17 03:59:28
shyeah silly mistakes :(

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Comments on 2013-09-18's Tapa

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prasanna16391 commented at 2013-09-18 00:09:00
Very nice logic here, I made a complete and utter mess of things. Kept thinking I had it wrong and then actually going the wrong way and then confusing myself entirely :|

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yureklis commented at 2013-09-18 00:17:36
This one is based on connectivity. How do you connect upper left blocks to bottom left blocks?

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prasanna16391 commented at 2013-09-18 01:12:31
I think the puzzle can be solved a lot by using the top left 4s area. I did do that the first time but made a few misclicks resulting in lot of clearing and problems.

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prasanna16391 commented at 2013-09-18 01:12:51
Eek, top right I mean. I'm confused at everything today apparently :P

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deu commented at 2013-09-18 06:10:10
Extremely hard for me! Connectivity logic is always my weakness.

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easonrevant commented at 2013-09-18 08:00:02
I started with a lucky guess!! i should be using deductive logic -_-

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swaroop2011 commented at 2013-09-19 02:06:01
excellent puzzle :)

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MellowMelon commented at 2013-09-19 09:56:56
The email conversations I've had with Serkan suggests he considers it a personal victory whenever he gets me to make a mistake. I think he won two victories with this puzzle...

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yureklis commented at 2013-09-19 12:21:38
Actually this is not my intention. You are so fast in the Tapa. So I'm thinking Palmer is so fast, how should I make puzzle so that all solvers has a chance for being winner of the day, or winner of the whole contest. So my intention, my goal is that balance. I want the contest to be fun and I want that every solver has this feeling that they can be the winner of a day. Nothing to do with my personal satisfaction :) I'm such an old puzzlemaker for this stuff :)

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Comments on 2013-09-19's Tapa

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macherlakumar commented at 2013-09-19 00:45:25
The puzzle is a very brilliant construction, has many heavy deductions. The complete puzzle is based on connecting the middle two blocks with upper block and in the end with lower right block. The puzzle itself needs to be solved considering the connectivity of middle two blocks with upper block 10+

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rob commented at 2013-09-19 01:25:30
Definitely missed the proper solving path here, quite a bit of uniqueness deductions with a bit of guessing at the end (lower left).

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swaroop2011 commented at 2013-09-19 02:05:15
awesome one :) Too many deductions to be made great construction 10++++

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Comments on 2013-09-20's Tapa

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prasanna16391 commented at 2013-09-20 00:11:12
Phew. Ended my free-fall. Not great, but I think I did ok today. Nice puzzle, as always.

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gareth commented at 2013-09-20 01:33:38
Missed a single square in the centre. Bah.

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swaroop2011 commented at 2013-09-20 17:56:53
unknowingly i put some dot at some place which in turn made it no solution to reach until later i realized why the hell that dot is der. :(

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Comments on 2013-09-21's Tapa

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prasanna16391 commented at 2013-09-21 00:06:28
I think thats the end of any chance I had at 3rd. I just hope I stay in the top 10 :P

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macherlakumar commented at 2013-09-21 00:12:36
I am not sure why I read the center as 221 but ended up with a valid solution even for that clue, after penatly found that its 211 and luckliy the fix was small

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MellowMelon commented at 2013-09-21 00:39:59
Oh, that 1-4 up top is more constrained than it looked. That explains why I found this one so hard; I went around the middle in the wrong direction...

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ksun48 commented at 2013-09-21 04:22:37
Okay, I think this has got to be the hardest puzzle so far.

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Grizix commented at 2013-09-21 08:19:14
Wow, really hard, as I went through a lot of trial & error, I would really appreciate a walkthrough for this one.

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rajeshk commented at 2013-09-21 08:24:09
I thought that I will not use trail & error in CTC but this puzzle made me to use that.

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kiwijam commented at 2013-09-21 17:35:27
Walkthrough start: The cell at the bottom-left corner of the centre 112 cannot be filled, because it cannot escape in any direction. This means the other 3 corners of the 112 are all filled.

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For everyone's information, we had to redo CTC computations for dates 11th to 23rd after we disqualified a player. ToPo for all players at the top have increased by around 1 point because of that.

Will all Tapas be available for download after the contest?

No.

Comments on 2013-09-22's Tapa

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Grizix commented at 2013-09-22 23:46:46
That was harder than it seemed in first place. 2 errors for me ...

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We have a mild shake-up at the top of the table. 5 more Tapas to go.

Edited by debmohanty 2013-09-25 12:03 AM

Do a fast solve, check for 20 seconds, and still make a mistake. Seems I'm back to last year.

Comments on 2013-09-24's Tapa

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swaroop2011 commented at 2013-09-24 09:38:22
did a mistake again and i guess losing another big pointer :( but glad i realized the logic and mistake both at same time :p Another good puzzle :)

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anurag commented at 2013-09-24 17:47:31
Definitely the hardest of this season.Very nice though.The bottom row had good connectivity based break-in I hadnt realized early.

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carljohan commented at 2013-09-26 16:00:02
Hardest of the season? :) No, dont think so, probably you should look again. All of this went smoothly with logic.

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Can we have the Grid sizes of Week 5.

Comments on 2013-09-25's Tapa

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swaroop2011 commented at 2013-09-25 06:49:39
glad i again didn't missed a big pointer. Again an awesome puzzle.

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so now just 1 day left...

The CTC Submit page shows 30th as a date too. Is there 2 more days or 1 more?

Fixed the Submit page. 29th is the last day.

Comments on 2013-09-26's Tapa

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prasanna16391 commented at 2013-09-26 00:06:35
This was really nice, especially the middle bits.

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swaroop2011 commented at 2013-09-26 07:43:10
lost somewhere between . awesome puzzle. though lost again a big pointer :(

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anurag commented at 2013-09-26 18:06:34
One of the nicest tapas ever. Thanks

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A nice contest. Feel sad to miss CTC from tomorrow.

Since it's basically certain now, congratulations to sai for his victory. I don't think I would have won even if I had been performing at my best for the past couple of weeks.

Comments on 2013-09-27's Tapa

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swaroop2011 commented at 2013-09-27 05:38:26
another awesome one. did a mess in between, it was actually a real tricky. hopefully didnt did a mistake. but seeing the time i really dont know how good i have done :)

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xevs commented at 2013-09-27 07:17:26
another new breakpoint. cool one!

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chaotic_iak commented at 2013-09-27 07:28:47
...that was brutal for me. 15-20 minutes looking around and experimenting to figure out where's the crack. Fantastic one :D

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anurag commented at 2013-09-27 15:02:37
The path started from bottom-left in my opinion. It was one of the easier tapas.

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chaotic_iak commented at 2013-09-27 17:41:07
I can't figure out where to start from bottom-left. Can you elaborate?

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anurag commented at 2013-09-27 23:39:19
I was lost in the middle and when I started again from the bottom row, iI could finish comfortably. Your experience might have differed. I am sure you can figure out the right and better way if you start afresh.

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prasanna16391 commented at 2013-09-28 00:43:58
The 7 in R12C8 is the major break-in of the puzzle as far as I can see. If R11,12,13C9 are all shaded, that will lead to a contradiction of the 2-2 in R14C10. This means you can shade the other 5 cells around the 7 and go on from there. The bottom left is just as much a start as say the top left or the top right.

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carljohan commented at 2013-09-28 06:40:44
Nice prasanna - I started by elimination around the 311, but that was more of a fake break-in, basically passing through yours on the way.

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yureklis commented at 2013-09-28 06:52:53
The puzzle has 3 phases, top - middle - bottom. Top and bottom are just fake. As you can see there is not any bridge through top-middle if you start with the top, or if you start with the bottom. So the key is that Prasanna's clues in the middle.

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