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The Indian Crossword League (IXL) has kicked off its tenth edition on crypticsingh.com — the annual haunt for anyone with a deep love for crosswords. Organised by Patna-based Extra-C, this year’s IXL will follow a hybrid format, with 10 online rounds culminating in a grand finale on December 25 in Bengaluru.
Interested in giving your puzzle-breaking skills a shot? Here’s how you can participate:
Format: The IXL will run as 10 weekly online scoring rounds on consecutive Sundays. The first round begins on September 18. Each weekly round will open on Sunday at 11am IST and close for submissions by the following Wednesday at 11:59pm IST. The round’s results will be uploaded by that week’s Saturday at 11am IST. For more details on how to play, see this page.
Registration: Free, as solo participants. Sign up on crypticsingh.com with your mobile number (mandatory).
Scoring: Cumulative scoring will be carried out based on a solver’s performance across all 10 online rounds. Player rankings will be visible on a public leaderboard. After the last round, the top 30 solvers will be invited to compete in the offline final. The winner of any weekly round will also be eligible to participate in the final.
Practice: A practice round is running on crypticsingh.com from September 11 to September 15 to help new players understand the format. Cryptic crosswords are more complex than classic crosswords, since each clue in a cryptic is in itself a word puzzle. For example, here’s how the word NEON could be cryptically clued:
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Did you get it? The ‘N’ is for nitrogen, and ‘eon’ is for a long period of time. Combining both you get neon, the noble gas. The above clue was set by Ramki Krishnan, six-time winner of the Indian Crossword League.
Started in 2013, the IXL has become a mainstay on puzzles and gaming calendars across the globe, attracting many international players. Amitabh Ranjan, COO, Extra-C, expects 2022 to be no different. “2022 is likely to witness some of the top overseas contestants coming down to the IT capital to fight it out for the coveted trophy,” expects Ranjan, who also helps organise school and college-level crossword events at Extra-C.
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