I could not submit my solution (18th Feb) when I finished solving it (about 20 minutes before deadline). I tried again then some minutes later again but could submit only after a half hour.

Comments on 2016-02-17's Tapa

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debmohanty commented at 2016-02-17 00:59:13
Timing adjusted for anurag, chaotic_iak, litleboy, nilz, prasanna16391, TiiT

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prasanna16391 commented at 2016-02-17 01:01:16
Not sure how to rate this one. I re-solved it later with some very narrow connectivity logic, which was excellent and a lot of fun. But I just don't think that this was something most people would be able to see with a timer running, and with the big size its more of a lottery for someone who just intuitively solves for the middle being empty. .

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brecher92 commented at 2016-02-17 02:39:14
I still don't see the logic with the 1-1-3 on the left side. I'm looking at a few other people's solves and see that this was handled early on, but I don't see how.

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achan1058 commented at 2016-02-17 02:52:56
I do not understand this puzzle. The amount of guesses I have made is insane.

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achan1058 commented at 2016-02-17 02:57:55
By the way, how do you view other people's solve?

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detuned commented at 2016-02-17 03:50:30
absolutely brutal!

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brecher92 commented at 2016-02-17 03:51:37
achan, it's on the standings page -- click on "Others' solves"

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Para commented at 2016-02-17 04:31:45
Well, that was awful.

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swaroop2011 commented at 2016-02-17 06:49:41
very hard.

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swaroop2011 commented at 2016-02-17 06:50:16
half of the puzzle i could solve it logically. But later had to guess couple of times which didn't went my way.

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anderson commented at 2016-02-17 10:24:49
I guessed the 1-1-3 on the left side and got lucky because that guess propagated through the whole puzzle. Looking at it again, I'm having a lot of trouble completing it logically (i.e. not looking more than 2 steps ahead).

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MrLiang commented at 2016-02-17 11:19:53
Ahh!! brain block. It's look like "Puzzle Marathon" for me. :(

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tamz29 commented at 2016-02-17 15:47:36
Should've guessed earlier :/

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rob commented at 2016-02-17 17:18:02
I only figured out that left area towards the end, with some not-quite-rigorous solving before (though the middle area being empty was necessary due to uniqueness at some point). But it's possible to start there. The core restriction there is that the bottom right cell of the 113 can't be isolated, else it breaks the single 4 together with the 24 and the 33 below. Then you can deduce that the top left cell of the 113 has to escape upwards past the 14, and the top left corner can be resolved.

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gareth commented at 2016-02-18 00:16:34
Far too hard for a daily puzzle - I had to give up since I couldn't spend long enough on it, and come back the next day. If a puzzle is extremely hard without warning then it's unreasonable to expect people to magically have enough time set aside at the moment they discover this. It also takes away the fun of it, and means those who don't have other commitments have a definite advantage. ;)

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In the [Others' solve] view, is it impossible to resume playing once [Stop Playing]? I hope it's possible.

Comments on 2016-02-18's Tapa

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rob commented at 2016-02-18 04:18:32
Fun! As usual, I'm fastest when I make mistakes that turn out to be right.

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marred commented at 2016-02-18 11:53:05
Nice beginings in many parts of diagram, but later problems with connecting it al togheter

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Good point. We plan to add a difficulty level in the next episode of CTC.

Deb, sorry for disturbing again, could you check if I had the same problem as Nilz? Thank you!

Comments on 2016-02-19's Tapa

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olejar commented at 2016-02-19 00:44:32
Today I had a 30 minutes interruption of internet connection during of solving task :-(

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katarina commented at 2016-02-19 01:13:45
me too, i couldnt send solution

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tamz29 commented at 2016-02-19 17:16:07
Can I finally get a 1st place finish???

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debmohanty commented at 2016-02-19 17:22:20
26 seems like a winning score !!

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tamz29 commented at 2016-02-19 17:24:21
I'll check back in 8 hours ;)

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swaroop2011 commented at 2016-02-20 08:38:23
easy one to give yourself relief :)

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Is it possible that 22 Feb puzzle has duplicate solution? I'm stupidly looking to my solution for already 20 minutes and can't find any mistalkes.

As it happened a few days ago, an incorrect solution seems to have been entered in the background. That is fixed now, and the timings of the 'incorrect' submissions which match the actual solution will be in the system and edited to reflect on the score page soon.

Thanks, now I've click submit again in the same solution and got it. I thought I was going crazy :)

Fixed timings for
prasanna16391
AndreyBogdanov
OlgaShut
zorant
marred

Thanks :) I though something has gone wrong as I saw prasanna16391 with result almost 20 minutes :D

23rd Feb's puzzle will be delayed by 2 hours.

Comments on 2016-02-20's Tapa

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john_reid commented at 2016-02-20 02:15:26
Guessed in the middle, but the outside was doable.

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swaroop2011 commented at 2016-02-20 08:40:14
nice easy one again.

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MrLiang commented at 2016-02-20 09:27:40
Yeah!! Lucky guess.

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Great battle on the USA side -- only 2.7 points separate first place from second, and only 1.3 points separate third place from fourth.

Fixed.
Sorry about the delayed response.

Thanks for great contest. I really enjoyed solving this puzzles. I think now my tapa skills are much higher than two months earlier :)

Comments on 2016-02-21's Tapa

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swaroop2011 commented at 2016-02-21 00:57:44
Nice easy puzzle. Nice connectivity rule used from bottom.

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Thanks for the awesome puzzles. I messed up lot of days. But still had lot of fun. I hope you are feeling better now.
Thanks Serkan and LMI.

Great contest. Bravo.

Comments on 2016-02-22's Tapa

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marred commented at 2016-02-22 00:28:05
I'm pretty sure, that my second attempt was correct. But I get message this is incorrect. I lost about 10 minutes looking for mistake, not seeing any mistake sent the same solution and... it was correct. Is it possible?

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marred commented at 2016-02-22 00:33:30
Ok, nevermind, I didn't click "Send solution" after making amendments and I was still thinking that even after amendments I'm still wrong.

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debmohanty commented at 2016-02-22 00:51:10
An incorrect solution was recorded. We have fixed the same. See forum post for details.

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swaroop2011 commented at 2016-02-22 04:42:15
I kept making mistakes. Had to restart 5 times. I dunno why i was repeating same mistake. Bad day. So one more to go.

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kiwijam commented at 2016-02-22 08:27:37
Another great puzzle. It's sad to say goodbye soon :) Many thanks to Serkan for this series. (I think you were the only author?)

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hinowbye commented at 2016-02-23 00:31:33
Today's the last puzzle?!? dang...This was fun!

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No more daily TAPA? Noooooo,
What a pity... :-(

Thanks very much to all the organizers and, expecially, Serkan: it was a great contest (despite my mediocre results, but I can't expect better :-)
Looking for next TVC to have more tapa puzzles!

Thanks so much to Serkan and all for the great puzzles and great contest. I especially liked the extended number of weeks. And the system works so well. I hope there will be another contest next year.

If there is, I have one suggestion that might not be too hard to implement. In the "Other's Solves" section, would it be possible to add a "Pause" button in addition to the stop button? After pressing the stop button, the start button clears the grid and starts the solve over. I would greatly enjoy the ability to pause on a solve to try to figure out what the next step should be and then continue from that point.

Another wish (which might be more difficult to implement) involves "reviewing" a puzzle. I sometimes clear previously solved puzzles and rework them. I would like to be able to confirm that my re-solve is correct, especially for the larger puzzles.

Thanks again, and I hope you are feeling much better soon, Serkan!

Comments on 2016-02-23's Tapa

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Hotel commented at 2016-02-23 16:53:56
This is the last day, and it's a nice puzzle too. Thanks for great Tapa puzzles!

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Nola commented at 2016-02-23 16:56:08
Oh no, finally my first error on the last day. But 50 wonderful puzzles! Thanks for the nice series!

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rajeshk commented at 2016-02-23 23:25:26
Thanks a lot for this Tapa Contest. Looking forward to some more similar contests :)

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hinowbye commented at 2016-02-24 01:15:06
Nice puzzle for the end :) my mouse kinda died during this so I kinda lost like 45 seconds but its ok :)

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Classic Tapa Contest for 2016 is officially over. sai won the contest, by a huge margin, as most of us were expecting. EKBM and Prasanna had a very close contest, with EKBM jumping ahead in last few days. Congratulations.

Despite the minor hiccups on few days, I hope everyone enjoyed the contest. Like every year, we will be posting some stats soon.