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

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

1- Ulrich Voigt (Germany) - 18/18 - 74:25
2- Andrey Bogdanov (Russia) - 18/18 - 74:43
3- Florian Kirch (Germany) - 18/18 - 76:50

Congratulations to Ulrich Voigt! Results can be viewed: http://logicmastersindia.com/TVC/VII/score.asp

Cumulative results of the three competitions held so far can be viewed in the results table, clicking the "cumulative score" tab at the top of the list. The table has a really exciting appearance right now. The Tapa Master 2011 will be determined with the last contest, nothing is certain yet. Special congratulations to Florian Kirch, who is the only competitor to complete all puzzles in three tests.

Some notes:

- The puzzle with the highest rating was Pentapa Hard (9,25) and the puzzle with the lowest rating was Tapa Lines (5,33).
- The puzzle solved by most competitors was Mastermind Tapa (top left grid ) with 62 correct answers, and the puzzle solved by least competitors was Pentapa Hard with 13 correct answers.
- Most competitors started the test really good, but later they couldn't keep up with this performance. I hope they show this great performance all over the contest in the last one.

*I am planning to prepare one Matchmaker and another one with linked grids for the last contest.

Hope everyone enjoyed it!

All the best,

Serkan Yurekli

Thanks a lot for beautiful puzzles. I was really enjoyed.
I especially liked "Mastermind" and "Hungarian". They have very good combination of local and global constraints and quite logical solutions.
Some puzzles were solved intuitively - for example in "Tapa Mine" I simple tried to avoid dead ends - only at finish I've counted the mines.
Big "Pentapa" seemed for me easier than the little one - only a excellent "counting trick" at start and then it was very simple. I think I've spent not more than three-four minutes for it.
All puzzles were solvable and the time was quite appropriate. I was only too slow (as well as my printer) at beginnig.

You are welcome Andrey! Mastermind idea belongs to Deb, he suggested me 4 grids construction and no clues in last grid. Before starting to make Mastermind, i thought it was hard to construct in this way; but later everyhing was smoothly built.

I always try to place some logic solving way to every puzzle. But sometimes it is better considering intuitively solving than logic solving for competitors. For example in the 1st Tapa Mine, starting point is bottom 2-2 clue. Because one of them must be dead end. When the solver figure out that remaining is only drawing simple loop.

I want to award the solvers who realize "counting trick", so i gave so much points. This puzzle has clearly five steps: count - one way connection - find the location of X - bottom right count - Z/F placement

You were great in the third one, i hope you can repeat in the last one.

Best