Thread - TVC V

Thomas took just 49 minutes, and after that we checked to find that we've his split submission timings information stored in the database. I thought it will be interesting to share it here.

SubmitTime	PuzzleName
0:04:02	2 - Tapa Filler
0:08:05	1 - Tapa Chess
0:11:11	3 - Math Tapa
0:22:59	5C - Word Tapa
0:22:59	5B - Word Tapa
0:22:59	5A - Word Tapa
0:26:10	4 - Tapa Star
0:29:25	6B - Tapa Rotator
0:29:25	6T - Tapa Rotator
0:32:50	7A - Tapa with Borders
0:35:06	7B - Tapa with Borders
0:38:50	8 - Double Tapa
0:41:54	9 - Tapa Connection
0:44:23	10A - Tapa Possible
0:49:01	10B - Tapa Possible

I had an email exchange with him and here is what he had to say regarding his timings.

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So what I do on a test is submit puzzles when I finish a sheet and discard it to the floor. Sometimes I'll do this independently when there are two puzzles on a side, but certainly a full side when that's done as after I check the entry I won't look back at that page until everything is done.

You can see I solved from front to back (generally). I made a mistake in putting stars into the Tapa Star the first time through (there is a single cell that the Tapa can grow into that is necessary to solve it and I didn't consider this the first time), so I printed a new grid to put the wall in and restart the labeling. During this time I jumped and did the Words. So the gap to finish Tapa Star is not perfectly accurate. More like 3 minutes just to put the stars on it from the time data you see. Rotator was straightforward. Borders involved being lucky with 6x6 blocks a little bit (I excluded two edges in each case). Double Tapa was easy for me as I had learned the 221 corner break-in from some Crocopuzzle practice, and then I saw how to go along the right edge with the other wall. It was a very fun puzzle. Tapa Connection involved a few trials around the A and D, but eventually once I got one good path I could get the rest quickly. The Tapa Possible were really fun and at least the second solved from considering how the white clue areas would block you from getting to some of the grays twice. Figuring out to leave corners blank for the 3/3 gave a good nucleation site for the rest to grow out. Tapa is a puzzle type where some logic and also some intuition from a guess can work together really well. I got lucky more often than not this time around. We'll see how TVC VI goes.
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