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Great stuff, thanks for al the puzzles.

Why not make the puzzles available for download? Is there a way to buy the puzzles in either book or electronic versions instead? :)

Last year they got collated into a pdf. It might take a while to do that though. So be patient.

The CTC 2013

I’m sure if I compete against CTC solvers on my own puzzles, many of them would beat me.

CTC 2013 was shorter than the previous one, but it had bigger grids. To include bigger grids was my wish, if a solver wants to become a solver you must face big grids. So if we wanted to reveal fastest Classic Tapa solver, we had to use big grids. In big grids of Tapa, I followed Nikoli style, that is big grids are just big, as James noticed “Serkan's large puzzles aren't too tough, they just look big.”

Before starting CTC 2013, I already had some Tapas which I made for this competition when I had free time. However I have experienced in two years, it is not meaningful to make CTC puzzles before. Because you need to arrange puzzles according to general solver’s ability, the course of event. So I didn’t use some of the ready Tapas in CTC. After first 10-15 days I started to make daily Tapas. I was making, drawing, checking and uploading to LMI, then one more check. When I passed through these steps, I pinged Deb with same words “Deb, I’ve already uploaded today’s Tapa, please check” Sometimes Deb instantly solved, sometimes later, but always responded me “Its fine, ok…” This was really exciting job :) Because it is easy to make a mistake while you are uploading the puzzle… No no, I must say this one. For example, let’s say the day is 22th August. So any solver can solve 20, 21, 22th puzzles. Imagine that I prepare 23th Tapa, I check and the next step is the upload. I open the admin page, and before uploading I must select the date. If in that day I am so sleepy, I can mark 22th in the calender. When I do this that puzzle shows up on the screen. But imagine that I miss this, and then I start to submit clues. I finish my work, and save the puzzle. Whoop! Current Tapa changes… This one was my biggest fear in CTC 2013 :)



Anyway, Palmer was the biggest candidate for being the winner of CTC 2013. Most of us was almost sure that he would get the first place. But I think he had misfortune with some Tapas, and sai (I don’t know his/her real name) got the first place. I’m very plaesed that any solver can get the first place with missing puzzles. You know, sai missed one puzzle of CTC, and he/she got the CTC victory with 34 puzzles. Really great job!

My general aim is everyone can meet an enjoyable Tapa, easy Tapa, big Tapa, hard Tapa, and you should know that there is always a chance to move up in the standings for Tapa solving.

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Maybe Deb can publish some statistics about best puzzle, worst puzzle or easiest puzzle, hardest puzzle, top daily winners, most broken puzzle etc.

Deb and me talked about separating TVC and CTC, so it is not certain but CTC will be organized after TVC in 2014, not at the same time.

About CTC puzzle sharing, actually I want to use those Tapas in my future work, so I prefer not to share. I hope that it is reasonable for you.

Top three of CTC 2013

1. sai (Japan) - 34/35 ( - 407.8086
2. MellowMelon (USA) - 35/35 - 395.25
3. nyuta (Japan) - 35/35 - 372.277

CTC 2013 standings: http://logicmastersindia.com/2013/CTC/score.asp

newsbreak: http://puzzlepile.com/2013/10/02/classic-tapa-contest-2013-results/

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Finally, TOP SOLVER of CTC 2013 is SAI!

Some statistics about CTC 2013

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How are the best improvements decided? I thought I have a good claim for that one :P

It is just rank improvements; for example, Joo M.Y was 108 last year and is 27 this year, so an improvement of 81