Hello and thanks again for some great tapa puzzles. I think I did much better on this one than I did on the first one 2 weeks ago, and I really liked the variations.

However, I must be going nuts or the #8 Alternative (30pt easy) puzzle is not solveable. Around the (3,3) cell, one of the D's must be black and one must be white, hence the O cell there is black. That makes the other O cell under the (1,1,1,1) cell to be white. Hence all the corners around the (1,1,1,1) cell must be black. If the upper right corner and the aforementioned O cell are black, the one in between must be black to satisfy the (3) cell above them. Therefore the cells with E,V,E above that 3 are all white. Then the lower E,V,E cells are black. However they cannot be because of the (2,2) clue right above them. What am I missing??? I blew a lot of extra time on this one - is it a stupid oversight somehow or a bogus puzzle?

I think I have never did such a poor result on a puzzle/sudoku test than I did on TVC V and VI. Even if I discovered Tapa only a few weeks ago, I like much this puzzle and am reasonably fast... So I come here, relatively confident that I will reach a medium score, and... Well, here I suppose that I enter some parallel universe where making mistakes is the usual way of solving a puzzle. And I follow this way, of course. Can't remember how many times I repeated the same error on Tapa Islands.

Any...way, puzzles were very fun (I solved most of them after the test) and no doubt I will be there for TVC VII and VIII.

Good job again Serkan.

Thanks for participating! I think Tapa should be considered as Sudoku. It has its own solving techniques just like Sudoku. I can suggest solving many classic Tapas to get used to this techniques, and I can recommend PuzzlePicnic site which includes many classical Tapa puzzles: http://www.puzzlepicnic.com/genre?tapa

Nice set. first time I managed to finish all puzzles on a LMI test. too bad for the 2 mistakes I made. Left a single square unconnected in the hard symmetric one and used a thermometer the wrong way around in the easy puzzle. Funnily the puzzle was also unique the way i used that thermometer.

hi, thanks to author for nice set of puzzles. I made mistake and in place of tapa trimino i answered tapa alternative

regards

Points awarded.

Yes. I saw your mistakes, i am sorry.

In my opinion, it is very hard to solve all puzzles correctly and transfer the answering rows/columns to submission page in this test like previous one. I think if i compete in this test, i couldnt solve all puzzles:) So, i appreciate competitors who did or will do this.

Administrators,

I changed computers partway through the test and didn't realize that my answers were not copied over when I refreshed. Would it be possible to splice together one of my previous submissions with my final answers? I believe I had 5 answers that were cleared out.

Thanks,
ColinMacLeod

Edit/Addendum: Weird, the scores show the proper scoring of my answers, but in the details, I only see the second set of answers I submitted. I hope that provides some extra information into what's going on.

Edited by ColinMacLeod 2011-02-21 2:07 AM

That was terrific, thank you Serkan. Tapa Islands is a fantastic puzzle!

We've 10 submissions from you starting with 10 minutes after you started the test, till 73 minutes into the test.
So all your submissions should be recorded.

Second contest of 2011 Tapa Series is over, many thanks to all participants and LMI.

The top four competitors all managed to solve all puzzles correctly:

1- Thomas Snyder (USA) - 17/17 - 60:38
2- Philipp Weiß (Germany) - 17/17 - 66:59
3- Psyho (Poland) - 17/17 - 72:44
4- Florian Kirch (Germany) - 17/17 - 72:46

Results can be viewed: http://logicmastersindia.com/TVC/VI/score.asp

Congratulations to Thomas for second victory of Tapa 2011 Series. Trivia: Last year all winners of TVC's were German solvers (Two times Ulrich Voigt, Florian Kirch and Philipp Weiß).

Cummulative results of the two competitions held so far can be viewed in the results table, clicking the "cummulative score" tab at the top of the list.

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Cummulative scores are calculated as follows:

1. All tests have a value, according to the difficulty of the entire competition. This values are 1.0, 1.1, 1.25 and 1.4 in order from first contest to last one. Total points of contests are 841, 938, 1069 and 1200.

2. Best three performances out of four will be considered. In order to find out which performance is the worst, a formula is used:

Competitor's score/total score*contest value*100

3. After the four contests are finished, the worst performance of each competitor will be omitted (for the ones who compete in all four contests). The remaining three contests' scores will be summed up to determine the rankings.

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The rows asked for the submissions are selected carefully. So they require extra attention, like the first row in Symmetric Tapa. Please pay extra attention on this.

The third contest will probably be the hardest one in the series. This might be either by increasing the difficulty or the number of the puzzles.

All the best,

Serkan Yurekli

Although as many as 9 players completed all puzzle this time, 5 of them had mistakes in some form.

But yet another awesome performance from Thomas. With the Contest values now shared, it still is an open game for Tapa Master 2011.

Another excellent set of puzzles, I'm really impressed! I was the one who slipped on a symmetric tapa and again dropped the second place. The question is how to cure children's diseases?

I'm looking forward to the hardest contest. I just hope that I will not see a big-size grids, like 17x17 or something.

Nikola

In this year we are not using optimizer puzzles, so it causes that some solvers get same points, and it is hard to identify who is better. So i've been trying to design tests
that are finishable by one or two competitors. It worked smoothly in the 1st test, but it didnt for 2nd. I have to design like this, because i have not any optimizer puzzles or time bonuses which provide acceptable result distribution.

I think it is an easy way to make giant puzzles to reduce competitors' performance. Another easy way is making a lot of puzzles in only one test. The solution is neither making hard puzzles. Because as a contest designer i have to offer some fun to every participant. Each participant should enjoy the test. So, clearly we have two main missions with this series:

1- Test should be designed in a way that it doesn't include giants, so many hard puzzles or a lot of puzzles
2- Fun for everyone

I have to make some tricks or whatever you say to make some troubles for competitors, due to lack of optimizer and time bonuses, like more attention requiring answer rows. I am so sorry for this. Because i think every participant should get points which deserve. But this answer rows prevent it to happen.

In the TVC VII, i will design considering these, and of course before the end i have to make some different tricks because of deciding only one Tapa Master.

All the best,

Serkan

I really liked a lot of the puzzles, much more than in the last contest. Especially the (at least for me) surprising end of the first Same as Tapa is great.