I agree with Dileep... Knowing that its very hard to get into the top 3/4 of the regional round itself and that even if you are 5th or 6th it is not something that will get appreciated, its heart-breaking...

I would suggest that the organisers should acknowledge the hard-work/performance of ,say, atleast the top 10/15 participants out of the huge lot of around 1000-1200 people who participate in the regional rounds. People come to participate in the event from far-off places. I know in Delhi we had people coming-in from Chandigarh, Amritsar etc. which is like 5-7 hrs drive from Delhi.

Instead of 1 more round of Top 10/15 participants, simply acknowledging their effort, by giving away ceritifcates to them or for that matter a token of appreciation, will encourage them to participate next time and try to come in the Top 10/15 atleast if not in Top 3/4...

To be called as a 'TOP PERFORMER' in itself could be very encouraging...

Would've liked a scorecard (well of course I would) and a more accurate timeline of the finals (I'm pretty sure 10 AM to 3 PM across 4 rounds with breaks in between isn't accurately described by "2 hour session"). I like the idea of having a celebrity in there to draw eyeballs but after that the article should have the content to keep them interested, and I just don't think this article achieves that.

But focusing on the positives, I must say that the 4 rounds were a lot of fun. The Fortress of the 3rd round was easily my favorite but there were some nice stuff worked into the rest too. The first 6x6 Arrow from the Sprint round reminded me of one of my own :) The 4th round with the Samurai was fun at the start but probably tinted by the fact that I had to erase and redo 3 of the grids before submitting. Rohan actually submitted before me but he made a mistake, so that flatters my score a little.

Could we have the sudokus from the finals?

The sudokus from TSC are copyrighted and the property of TOI, so unfortunately they cannot be shared.

The 5 point formula:

1. 5 players from each city in the regional round
2. Same difficulty level to provide awareness and increase enthusiasm amongst the masses
3. WSC difficulty-level Nationals to screen the top 5
4. Wild card entries to Prasanna, Rishi and Rohan is a must, presently we know who the first 3 will be. Its like playing chess against a 3000 rated computer. You can't win, so keep them OUT !! :)
5. Request Times to provide full sponsorship to TOP 8, wild card entries and top 5 from nationals
(I know it's easily suggested but in a long term [2 years+] time-scale, we can request this in exchange for 3 page weekly puzzle section in the Times newspaper for the metropolitan cities), I bet this will induce more people to read ToI.

5th-8th will be on Team B which is unofficial, and Times/other sponsors might not be that interested in it. A lot of countries use their Team B in their own way in which they feel it is most productive.

Possibility 1: Load it up with more good players - all well and good. But will a sponsor like publicizing an unofficial team? A next level to this is, what if even one member of the B team outperforms members of the A team? That is fine and well from a competitive standpoint of course, but if both teams are publicized, in the eyes of the public it is an open fact that the Nationals didn't select the best team. That doesn't seem like a big negative to us but to sponsors, they definitely wouldn't want to publicize such a fact.

Possibility 2: Try to select newer solvers who might benefit from the experience - Again, great from our perspective. In the long term, this means more talent gets the experience of a WSC and improves (I mostly wouldn't have improved to this level if I hadn't gotten a bit lucky with better solvers dropping out of the team in 2011, so I value the WSC experience a lot). But again, we do not have a good enough structure currently for a sponsor to think of the long term benefits of a team. There is no short term gain here, and it is highly difficult to convince folks not into puzzling that it is not just a fad that will die out.

Possibility 3: Send a junior team (U-18 I guess, because that's the bar set by the WPF for prize categorization) - this is the only one I see sponsors interested in. Many schools will be interested in funding a competition which selects a junior team, and there is short term gain AND possibility of long term success too. It even seems great from our perspective, since it forwards the future of puzzles in India.

As for your other points, instead of 5 winners per city, I'd prefer it expanded to more cities. But Times already decreased the per-city winners to 3 from 4 last year, so they seem to be going in the other direction, and I think it might be really hard to convince them to go up to 5, unless we explore possibility of some players bearing their own expenses (assuming that's why they decreased it, and not some other reason).

But you add to the tally of people who want a wildcard for a few best players, which seems pretty unanimous at this point.

waiting for Bangalore scores.

Hi. Can we have the scores of each city as hyperlinks with all details regarding TSC 2014 similar to the one we had in TSC 2013.

waiting for Delhi Regional Round results.. :)

That is due from my side. I'm still recovering from headache caused after checking Sagar's Alphabet Sudoku :)

I expect to upload Delhi results by tomorrow evening.

hahahaha... I know he screwed it.. No problem Deb.. Take your time...

(*) - 2013 Rank is manually looked up - omissions are possible.

when will Bangalore results be published?

I'm really sorry for that Deb.
The alphabet sudoku messed up my entire finals :/
The time spent in cutting everything and then re-solving a grid in which you couldn't make out anything was the difference between a top 3 finish and losing.
I easily wasted 10 minutes on it and looking at the times, that could've ensured me a top 3 position.
But anyway, that is just motivation to come back stronger next year (And to maybe solve the alphabet sudoku with a pencil rather than a pen :P)

When will Bangalore results be announced? Waiting to figure out what I scored...

Done.

Link : http://logicmastersindia.com/2014/TSC/