Jose A of Thane on Sunday topped the first Leaderboard after the end of Weekly Round-1 of the Indian Crossword League (IXL) 2017. The Weekly Round-2 started at 11am Sunday.
Jose is closely followed by Ramki Krishnan of Chennai at the 2nd place. Ramki is the winner of the last three consecutive editions.
The top 10 after Round-1 include two overseas Indian from Bahrain – Soumya Ramkumar at No. 5 and Akshay Bhandarkar at No. 6. A veteran of the contest, Prasenjit Sarkar of Singapore is at No. 11.
There will be a total of 10 online Weekly Rounds following which a cumulative Leaderboard will be formed. The top 30 on the cumulative Leaderboard will gather at Bengaluru on December 24, 2017 for an offline Grand Finale. There will be two offline rounds in Toronto and New Jersey. Their winners will have a direct entry to the Grand Finale.
During the two-and-a-half month online phase, a fresh set of puzzles are uploaded on the organisers’ website crypticsingh.com at 11am on every Sunday. The marks are allotted on the basis of correct answers and the time of submission during the week.
An interesting aspect of the inaugural Weekly Round was that the name of the website crypticsingh ran diagonally in the middle of the solved grid.
IXL is a global contest involving top Indian crossword players across the world. Organised by Patna-based civil society initiative Extra C, it is played in an online-offline format.
The current edition, the fifth in a series, was launched by former Indian Cricket Team’s captain and Chief Selector Dilip Vengsarkar at National Sports Club of India, Mumbai, on September 17, 2017. The launch had witnessed the unveiling of the IXL 2017 Trophy by the veteran cricketer and beginning of the Weekly Round-1.
