Comments on 2016-01-05's Tapa

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Prasanna16391 commented at 2016-01-05 04:58:20
This is the first one where I couldn't see a logical path. I did after proving that the middle 3 clue had to have its right shaded, but proving that needed a fair bit of trial on its left. After that though this had very nice logic with connectivity prevented through certain areas.

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swaroop2011 commented at 2016-01-05 09:08:31
Tough one. Not my day i guess.
I started out correctly, but kept making same mistake every time in the top. But anyways this is just getting started, hoping to catch up score on other days.

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Grizix commented at 2016-01-05 09:31:44
Same as Prasanna.
And I never thought I'd say that about a puzzle ^^

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Para commented at 2016-01-05 15:04:48
I couldn't see the path in the solve, but figured it out now.

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rob commented at 2016-01-05 16:03:54
My best argument so far is: The only way to connect the two halves of the 33 clue locally leaves the 2 of the 24 clue stranded on the right, so regardless, we have to loop from the top of the 33 clue all the way around the top right to the bottom middle. This implies that R5C3 is shaded, among others. Since the 24 clue takes one of the 13's shaded cells, as does the central 3 clue, R7C3 can't be shaded.

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rob commented at 2016-01-05 16:04:38
The best bet for solving quickly still seems to be a case distinction on the central 3 (and don't mess it up...).

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xevs commented at 2016-01-05 19:50:46
tough...t'was bad day for me too...

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Comments on 2016-01-06's Tapa

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swaroop2011 commented at 2016-01-06 02:27:26
Uff. Finally avoided the mistake. back to back hard ones. :)

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swaroop2011 commented at 2016-01-06 02:31:42
and yeah forgot to mention, there is nice uniqueness trick in top left :)

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rob commented at 2016-01-07 14:15:14
Besides the uniqueness, what I learnt here is that if two corners of a 113 clue are shaded, then all four must be shaded. Still not a smooth solve for me.

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Para commented at 2016-01-07 19:00:01
@Rob: Same goes for the cells orthogonally adjacent to the clue cell around a 113.

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Rohan Rao commented at 2016-01-08 17:18:16
Liked the flow of this puzzle. Though, took me a while to get things going. And completely missed the break-ins, ended up guessing throughout.

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Rohan Rao commented at 2016-01-08 17:20:13
Sorry, posted the comment on wrong day :-) The above comment was supposed to be for 7th-Jan.

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Comments on 2016-01-07's Tapa

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Prasanna16391 commented at 2016-01-07 00:05:00
That was really cool. :)

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Igor_Aipkin commented at 2016-01-07 01:33:18
Lovely puzzle

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john_reid commented at 2016-01-07 05:06:39
Excellent puzzle - I wish it hadn't taken me so long to see the break-in point. I don't remember ever having seen that clever use of a mostly surrounded 3-1-1 clue before!

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rob commented at 2016-01-07 14:19:35
This one was really fun, thank you!

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Para commented at 2016-01-07 18:58:19
That was really nice.

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rajeshk commented at 2016-01-07 23:23:12
Really fun puzzle. Learned to use uniqueness to solve the Tapa :)

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swaroop2011 commented at 2016-01-08 02:35:38
I went pretty slow on this one. but nice solve

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Rohan Rao commented at 2016-01-08 17:19:31
Liked the flow of this puzzle. Though, took me a while to get things going. And completely missed the break-ins, ended up guessing throughout.

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Comments on 2016-01-08's Tapa

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debmohanty commented at 2016-01-08 00:28:03
It looks like today's is going to be a mistake gallery.

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rob commented at 2016-01-08 00:42:19
I don't get it, it wasn't even that hard. But the batch of unsolvable puzzles at the start has put me into this guess early mode, and experimental solving just doesn't work for me with the applet...

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swaroop2011 commented at 2016-01-08 03:01:43
nice easy one. I guess i did one mistake with 2-2-1 combination clue, apart from that went smooth.

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Para commented at 2016-01-08 09:57:08
Not sure why, but I kept clicking the wrong button. Still a good time though.

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rajeshk commented at 2016-01-08 15:32:08
Nice puzzle

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Comments on 2016-01-09's Tapa

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hinowbye commented at 2016-01-09 01:52:39
now that was fun!

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bram28 commented at 2016-01-09 03:00:52
Ugh! I perceived the 13 as a 113. Stared at it for 2 whole minutes before I saw my mistake.

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sayan commented at 2016-01-09 07:08:57
from where you started to begin?

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hinowbye commented at 2016-01-09 12:43:40
i started from the bottom right

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Para commented at 2016-01-09 14:46:47
@Sayan: Think about how the 33 interacts with the 6's next to it.

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Rohan Rao commented at 2016-01-09 15:27:15
That was indeed fun!

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rajeshk commented at 2016-01-09 20:27:23
Nice puzzle. once I was able to put some boxes in bottom right everything went very easy.

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Comments on 2016-01-10's Tapa

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rob commented at 2016-01-10 01:01:46
Really happy I didn't make a mistake on this one, it's so hard to look at adjacent clues independently...

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swaroop2011 commented at 2016-01-10 02:54:20
nice one. I went pretty fast. but took time to interpret adjacent 2 , 3 clue cells. nice one.

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rajeshk commented at 2016-01-10 19:22:11
Nice puzzle. Made mistake in lower corner for 1,2 hint. Very good puzzle

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Comments on 2016-01-11's Tapa

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Prasanna16391 commented at 2016-01-11 00:06:52
This one is beautiful. Figured out some new patterns here.

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john_reid commented at 2016-01-11 09:57:29
Another 3-1-1 clue that got me started on this one. Great puzzle!

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anderson commented at 2016-01-11 19:16:08
The 3-1-1, 3-2, 5-1 combination was great, I've never seen that before.

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Comments on 2016-01-12's Tapa

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rajeshk commented at 2016-01-12 12:48:37
Nice puzzle

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Comments on 2016-01-13's Tapa

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Prasanna16391 commented at 2016-01-13 00:17:04
Saw the logical way on the resolve but I don't really regret not waiting for it because its really narrow and obscure. A nice puzzle once you figure it out though.

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rob commented at 2016-01-13 00:49:37
Hmm, care to share a hint? I only saw the wrong way out of the bottom left fail when the puzzle became non-unique in the top left... (And then it does fail due to connectivity, but that's going quite far.) It's nice when the required case distinction is near the start, though, because then I can just "Clear Puzzle".

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Prasanna16391 commented at 2016-01-13 00:51:10
Its a lot of connectivity stuff, thinking that something can't come out from two separate places at the same time. The bottom 3-1-1 can also be proven to be straight or curved early on which helps.

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Prasanna16391 commented at 2016-01-13 00:53:40
Specifically, the top left part of the bottom 3-1-1 will have to be part of the "3" of it and the top right of it can either come out upwards through the middle or through the right, meaning the bottom has to come out from the right. Does require some forward thinking but not much if you spot the right patterns.

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kiwijam commented at 2016-01-13 06:24:03
I've done this a few times now, but still don't see much logic at the start. If you guess wrong then there's no immediate contradiction, and you can continue happily until connectivity fails later. But I suppose guessing is probably still faster than trying to find a logical track.

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kiwijam commented at 2016-01-13 06:29:24
PS I found the top-right corner a faster place to start guessing.

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john_reid commented at 2016-01-13 06:29:57
Yeah - it was just TOO hard.

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Para commented at 2016-01-13 09:32:19
That was confusing. My brain really kept excluding correct options. Surprised I'm still so far at the top.

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rajeshk commented at 2016-01-13 12:41:03
For any guess I made, contradiction came very late and I have to redo this puzzle many times. Very nice puzzle to get your brain ticking.

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anderson commented at 2016-01-13 21:15:35
I kept thinking I had a contradiction when guessing my way through it, and it turned out that my very first guess wasn't actually a contradiction but I thought it was. Oops! Is there a solution that doesn't involve thinking more than two steps forward at any point?

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rob commented at 2016-01-14 00:56:34
I'm somewhat closer to something reasonable now (trying out chess notation): A3,B4,A5 shaded, DE6 blank. Can't go through below E2 (else D3 can't escape). Wall between CD4 (else D2 can't escape). There's now two options for C3: B3B4C4 shaded, in which case D3 has to escape along DEF3, or D234 shadedin which case D1 must also be shaded (say for A3 to escape). So we also have two options for E2, and in both cases, F1 is a shaded 1.

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rob commented at 2016-01-14 01:03:08
... Now we see that F3 has to be part of G4's 3, and its group can either escape up along the center, or to the bottom right (but not both). So F3 has to escape along the right of I3. Now H4 must be blank, so G4 connects with G5's 3, hence G6 is blank. So our bottom right group needs to escape via I78 and EFG10. H8's 1 must now be H9, so we must shade H567, and finally we're ready to resolve the bottom left.

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Comments on 2016-01-14's Tapa

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Prasanna16391 commented at 2016-01-14 00:08:00
I was too slow to see the bottom left and how that stopped connectivity. Ah well. Nice puzzle.

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john_reid commented at 2016-01-14 07:51:31
Much nicer than yesterday's! [I could actually work this one out.] Great puzzle - I really like the theme of only 1 clues.

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Rohan Rao commented at 2016-01-14 16:06:26
This was really pleasant to solve after yesterday's 'colourful' one.

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rajeshk commented at 2016-01-14 19:59:58
Very nice theme

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swaroop2011 commented at 2016-01-15 00:33:57
Yes i also missed the bottom left flow. Did that at the end.

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Comments on 2016-01-15's Tapa

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Prasanna16391 commented at 2016-01-15 00:05:40
Haha, nice finish, this is a Tapa with Borders puzzle in a way :P

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swaroop2011 commented at 2016-01-15 00:33:23
ah i am going too slow now a days. dont know why.

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nilz commented at 2016-01-15 01:58:15
Hmm, I was really slow, but this was a really nice puzzle. Tried to use uniqueness to put a line across the top from one 3 to the other. Which obviously didn't go well...

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gareth commented at 2016-01-15 04:28:09
I love the false uniqueness-assumption temptations in this puzzle. :)

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Rohan Rao commented at 2016-01-15 15:26:14
Interesting puzzle to defy intuition :-)

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rajeshk commented at 2016-01-15 18:05:17
Uniqueness used at many places in this puzzle.

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swaroop2011 commented at 2016-01-15 23:03:06
No uniqueness rule requried. Logic flows through nicely.

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Comments on 2016-01-16's Tapa

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Prasanna16391 commented at 2016-01-16 00:05:20
I do like these "travelling around the sides" ones. I feel I was a bit slow spotting the right side deductions in general.

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Para commented at 2016-01-16 09:14:46
That was fun. 113 seems to be a really frequent clue to create openings with this CTC.

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wicktroll commented at 2016-01-16 18:39:39
I lost time because I thought loop is not allowed in a Tapa.

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Comments on 2016-01-17's Tapa

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prasanna16391 commented at 2016-01-17 00:04:33
Missed the break-in for a while. Really nice puzzle.

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swaroop2011 commented at 2016-01-17 01:32:59
I started of fast. But stuck in middle. Considering big size, i wanted to avoid mistakes. But Very nice puzzle. Have to increase my speed.

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kiwijam commented at 2016-01-17 04:27:32
Very nice.

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john_reid commented at 2016-01-17 08:10:19
Great fun!

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Para commented at 2016-01-17 08:29:13
A good work out.

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Grizix commented at 2016-01-17 20:00:31
I'm unable to find any break-in ...

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Grizix commented at 2016-01-17 20:15:56
Ok, found it, power of posting.

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Comments on 2016-01-18's Tapa

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rob commented at 2016-01-18 00:24:24
Quite a steep difficulty progression in this one, and I have to admit I didn't get all the logic initially.

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prasanna16391 commented at 2016-01-18 00:47:08
Ouch, I completely missed the connectivity issues for a while. Really cool puzzle.

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hinowbye commented at 2016-01-18 00:55:40
got stuck on the upper left corner, dunno why. :( cool puzzle but couldnt do it logically

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rajeshk commented at 2016-01-18 01:05:50
I have to guess many times in this puzzle to solve it completely.

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gareth commented at 2016-01-18 02:49:09
Far too hard for me - will give up playing if there are many more that take this long since I don't have time.

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john_reid commented at 2016-01-18 05:30:54
Yes, again, this was much too hard for me. I was ok with the top right and bottom left corners, but the diagonal from top left to bottom right was a complete mystery. I just ended up guessing and guessing and guessing which I hate to do. Maybe there was a way to use the 1-1-2 clue along with that pair of touching 1-4s to force that path in the top left? Anyway, it beat the hell out of me!

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achan1058 commented at 2016-01-18 06:04:11
Without a way of marking edges, it is just too taxing to solve on screen. I ended up guessing quite a bit, as it is the quicker way to go forward.

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Prasanna16391 commented at 2016-01-18 08:48:59
There is a connectivity progression there, there is no way for the top right and bottom left to connect through the 2-2s, and so they both need to go down to the bottom right separately using the 4-1 clue. If they connect directly using the 4-1 clue then the wall stops there. So top right will take the "4" and the left side will take the "1". I had to make a colour change and then realize it was a little unnecessary. That happened yesterday too.

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swaroop2011 commented at 2016-01-18 09:43:20
Very nice puzzle. I did 2 mistakes while solving and had to undo little, could have saved 100 seconds more. But very nice logical flow using connectivity. I loved it.

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snehasanjeevini commented at 2016-01-18 09:47:01
Can somebody please explain the top left part? I am getting splits both at 1-4, 1-4, 1-1-2 clue and the middle 1-2, 2-2, 1-2 set.

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Prasanna16391 commented at 2016-01-18 10:01:07
Smaller sizes are coming up again tomorrow, so I'd think the time requirement would drop with that.

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Prasanna16391 commented at 2016-01-18 10:08:07
The wall goes around the two 4-1s to the top part, and doesn't connect through the 1-1-2. R3C4 and R4C3 are the "1s" for the 4-1 clues, and R4C4 is unshaded. Try connecting it now.

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snehasanjeevini commented at 2016-01-18 10:39:36
Yeah..got it ...thanks :)

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Rohan Rao commented at 2016-01-18 12:27:03
Ok, that was hard. I think I just got lucky with my guesswork.

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Grizix commented at 2016-01-18 15:04:36
Found that one easier than yesterday, so more pleasing. Although, it would be really better if we could mark borders, as achan wrote. I had to guess in the extreme top left and bottom right corner, but found the connectivity problems with the 2-2s and the 1-4. Just guessed that the wall goes around the two groups of two clues. Guessing is not only luck, it's also intuition, which comes with experience !

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tamz29 commented at 2016-01-18 22:48:17
woah! pretty surprised with my time - didnt have to guess much - the puzzle broke into 4 corners and its a matter of joining them.

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Comments on 2016-01-19's Tapa

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prasanna16391 commented at 2016-01-19 00:02:09
I'm already missing the big puzzle days :P

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chaotic_iak commented at 2016-01-19 00:24:52
I thought this could be solved intuitively quickly. How wrong I was. (The logical solution is far easier to spot.)

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marred commented at 2016-01-19 00:39:34
thanks for a break from big puzzle :) but after a few day with smaller one i'll want switch to bigger ;)

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swaroop2011 commented at 2016-01-19 01:14:25
Big Puzzles are surely , rank changer ;)

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tamz29 commented at 2016-01-19 10:39:37
like solving minesweepers :)

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udoroh commented at 2016-01-20 02:27:25
It was very small and easy today :-)

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Comments on 2016-01-20's Tapa

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prasanna16391 commented at 2016-01-20 00:07:40
I did some really silly stuff there.

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rob commented at 2016-01-20 01:12:16
Rushing got the better of me, too... I expect some ~20s times here really.

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Prasanna16391 commented at 2016-01-20 01:51:51
Me too. My first 20 seconds were utter madness and I still managed to solve it :P

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wow this gonna be big week.

Comments on 2016-01-21's Tapa

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prasanna16391 commented at 2016-01-21 00:10:02
That was another one of those where I see a fiddly path later but don't regret it that I didn't wait around for it.

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piet commented at 2016-01-21 00:20:34
I was waiting for the good hour ... ... and YES, with 758 sec, I am in the first 20 !! ;-) ;-)

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swaroop2011 commented at 2016-01-21 00:22:33
damn what the hell i was doing. Bad day for me.

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bskbri commented at 2016-01-21 01:40:31
I worry that all tapa story will vanish in a 113 clue :/

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john_reid commented at 2016-01-21 10:26:22
Guessing guessing guessing guessing guessing guessing guessing guessing guessing guessing...

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MrLiang commented at 2016-01-21 10:51:54
guessing for 113 clue more and more -_-

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Prasanna16391 commented at 2016-01-21 12:24:33
There is a pattern here for people to know - 4-2 cannot have a shaded cell in all four corners. This helps at the top, since all the 5-1s and 3-1-1s must have all corners shaded, which forces 3 corners shaded for the 4-2. That gets some progress but I'm not sure about a solid path after that.

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yureklis commented at 2016-01-21 13:27:24
Please... I'm expert to prepare the Tapa, and I know so many tricks. So if you cannot see the path, please don't judge "guessing". For this puzzle, I'll prepare a file that show solving steps and I'll share the link which you can see the path.

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Prasanna16391 commented at 2016-01-21 18:02:43
I'd love to see that for the 1-3 day too. I think all authors here have experienced something like this where they put in some tricks and then solvers aren't able to find.the path. It should be taken in context, that solvers new to the tricks had to guess within time-constraints on an interface (which, no matter how great, won't replicate the markings of paper solving for some). I've found new patterns over the course of this CTC so I don't doubt that I missed some too, and would love to learn.

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Prasanna16391 commented at 2016-01-21 18:31:01
By 1-3 day, I mean 13th Jan.

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john_reid commented at 2016-01-22 08:38:23
Sorry about my 'guessing' comment, I probably shouldn't have posted that. No offense intended to the constructor Serkan who I do have a lot of respect for. I was just frustrated at my own inability!

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Comments on 2016-01-22's Tapa

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hinowbye commented at 2016-01-22 00:10:40
I think I'm getting the hang of this...

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prasanna16391 commented at 2016-01-22 00:12:13
My mouse gave me a real problem on this one, randomly sliding off to other cells :( Ah well.

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swaroop2011 commented at 2016-01-22 04:33:48
a relief i guess for me, after yesterdays bad day.

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john_reid commented at 2016-01-22 08:40:35
Alright! My kind of puzzle! I really like the 1-1-1-1 clues in this one!

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hinowbye commented at 2016-01-22 18:22:00
is it gonna get harder this week ?

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Prasanna16391 commented at 2016-01-22 19:38:08
Well bigger doesn't always necessarily mean harder just like smaller doesn't mean easier, as yesterday showed. It definitely gets bigger though :P

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tamz29 commented at 2016-01-23 18:30:12
yay

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Comments on 2016-01-23's Tapa

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swaroop2011 commented at 2016-01-23 00:41:27
that was bad bad. Unconscious mouse hovering, shaded some cells black which i didnt even realize :( .

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prasanna16391 commented at 2016-01-23 00:48:57
I continue to find new ways to mess up. Thankfully today's wasn't a huge loss, but somehow I clicked intto new tab while solving and when I came back a lot of random cells were shaded which I had to undo. Still, not as much damage I suppose. Great puzzle. A lot of basic filling with connectivity controlling the latter part of it.

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hinowbye commented at 2016-01-23 00:59:26
somehow I put dots into some random cells without even noticing. didnt notice it until I failed twice. great -big and hard!- puzzle.

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TiiT commented at 2016-01-23 01:28:07
Somehow I don't mess up at all. I don't like tapa but it just comes out well. :P

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chaotic_iak commented at 2016-01-23 02:28:41
Too big that it doesn't fit on my screen. And I also forgot there's scrollbar, so I was stuck for a minute or two without realizing there's a last row that is out of view.

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rob commented at 2016-01-23 05:21:01
The penalty for an error really scales weirdly with puzzle length.

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john_reid commented at 2016-01-23 09:22:43
Another great puzzle!

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Comments on 2016-01-24's Tapa

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john_reid commented at 2016-01-24 00:11:45
Excellent! This is my favorite one so far. It will be interesting to see the fastest times on this one.

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Prasanna16391 commented at 2016-01-24 00:28:08
This was really cool. I tried something weird with controlling my mouse and I think it worked, even though I probably didn't do my best here.

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swaroop2011 commented at 2016-01-24 04:04:47
My bad run continues. I think i need to change my mouse.

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MrLiang commented at 2016-01-24 10:01:49
today, I enjoy solving. :)

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rob commented at 2016-01-24 23:20:03
This hit the sweet spot for me in terms of difficulty. Really fun!

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I lost a lot of time on today's puzzle as it was stuck for a while on "waiting for server response". So I decided to click again after almost a minute and registered the time of my second click. That sucked.