The tenth and final online round of the Indian Crossword League (IXL) 2024 is now over and the results were announced today. IXL is an annual cryptic crossword competition that has been conducted over the last 10 years by Extra C under the guidance and mentorship of a senior bureaucrat and cruciverbalist Mr. Vivek Kumar Singh, IAS, Chairman RERA, Bihar.
I started the competition at eleventh spot in Round 1 and then improved by moving to the 6th spot in Round 2 and 5th in Round 3. I then slipped down to the 12th spot in Round 4 and clawed back to 9/8 in Rounds 5 and 6.
| Round | Time (mins) | Rank | Overall |
| 1 | 22 | 11 | 11 |
| 2 | 38 | 8 | 6 |
| 3 | 27 | 8 | 5 |
| 4 | 55 | 34 | 12 |
| 5 | 22 | 15 | 9 |
| 6 | 43 | 16 | 8 |
| 7 | 50 | 83 | 15 |
| 8 | 65 | 17 | 14 |
| 9 | 26 | 10 | 12 |
| 10 | 26 | 2 | 9 |
The contest has become quite intense with a number of top solvers playing it. Many of these are international star players – notably solvers like Erik Agard and Neville Fogarty, who were performing brilliantly notwithstanding the fact they had to play the game at inconvenient timings, often in the night.
Although my performance in these rounds were not individually exceptional, I did manage to stay within a decent spot in the overall leaderboard till Round 6. It was in Round 7 that I really messed up. Somehow all the juggling in the busy festival season weekends finally caught up. While I managed to plod through Round 7, I was too tired to spend a few minutes to double check an answer that now feels absurd. It did not help that I had never heard of the word ISAGOGE before this, but it has become a word that I am not going to forget easily. Since there is very little room for error in this contest, this mistake sent me crashing down to the 83rd slot in this round and to the 15th spot in the overall leaderboard.
Only three rounds were now left to make up. I approached Round 8 very cautiously and triple checked all answers spending an inordinate amount of time that was not really needed. I finished at the 17th spot in this round and moved up to 14 in the overall leaderboard as well.
I entered Round 9 more confidently and I finished the round at #10. Even so, I was still out of the Top 10 in the cumulative leaderboard and was hovering in the 12th spot.
Then came Round 10. Maybe fortune favours the brave. Although I found the grid easy, there were a couple of clues that had me totally stumped for full annotation though the answers seemed to fit. I finally decided to submit after 26 minutes with one annotation that I was not fully sure about.
Though I had done decently well, I was pleasantly surprised by the results of the tenth round. Securing the second spot in the leader board, I placed between #1 Erik Agard, who had been placing at #1 in 7 out of 10 rounds during the IXL in 2024 and #3 Ramki Krishnan who is the undisputed IXL Champ with the maximum IXL trophies over the years. I also ended up at the overall 9th spot in the cumulative leaderboard. Although I have finished in the Top 10 every year that I have participated, this one feels even more special due to the intense competition especially from many new and better players, as well as international competitors, while the senior players have also admirably retained their places.
Top Ten IXL 2024 – Online Round 10
- Erik Agard – Kansas City
- Sowmya Ramkumar – Manama
- Ramki Krishnan – Chennai
- Abhay Phadnis – Chennai
- Akshay Bhandarkar – Dubai
- Shashwat Salgaocar – Panaji
- Jose A – Thane
- Madhusudan H – Chennai
- Anantakrishan N – Pune
- Madhup Tewari – New Delhi
Top Ten IXL 2024
(Cumulative Scores and Cumulative Rank at the end of each round)
| # | Name | City | Score | 10 | 9 | 8 | 7 | 6 | 5 | 4 | 3 | 2 | 1 |
| 1 | Ramki Krishnan | Chennai | 983 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 2 | 2 | 2 | 2 |
| 2 | Samit Kallianpur | Secunderabad | 893 | 2 | 2 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 4 | 9 | 9 | 15 | 13 |
| 3 | Madhup Tewari | New Delhi | 874 | 3 | 3 | 4 | 4 | 5 | 5 | 6 | 6 | 4 | 4 |
| 4 | Shashwat Salgaocar | Panaji | 873 | 4 | 5 | 3 | 2 | 2 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 7 | 12 |
| 5 | Vasant Srinivasan | Banchang | 847 | 5 | 6 | 6 | 7 | 11 | 12 | 14 | 17 | 15 | 19 |
| 6 | Venkatraghavan S. | Mumbai | 843 | 6 | 3 | 5 | 6 | 3 | 3 | 6 | 13 | 19 | 36 |
| 7 | Sohil Bhagat | Bengaluru | 820 | 7 | 8 | 8 | 9 | 14 | 20 | 4 | 7 | 5 | 7 |
| 8 | Madhusudan H | Chennai | 808 | 8 | 10 | 12 | 14 | 7 | 7 | 9 | 11 | 8 | 14 |
| 9 | Sowmya Ramkumar | Manama | 806 | 9 | 12 | 14 | 15 | 8 | 9 | 12 | 5 | 6 | 11 |
| 10 | Swathi Ravi | Bengaluru | 804 | 10 | 11 | 10 | 7 | 12 | 14 | 16 | 21 | 23 | 37 |
While it feels great to have reached the finals, I would not be attending the finals this year due to some personal commitments and I will miss the annual gala that happens each December and the camaraderie and joy of meeting the contestants, organizers and the team of setters who help put this event together – all of whom have become close friends over the years.
I will also miss the adrenaline rush and excitement this Sunday morning, something I have gotten used to over the last 10 weeks as we battled in desperation to finish the superb cryptic puzzles put together by some of the smartest and most devious group of setters, who have managed to beat even our best solvers.
Leaving you here with a selection of clues (one from each grid plus a sneaky bonus) that I liked in this year’s contest. You can comment with solutions (and annotations) if you can crack them.
1. Old chaps faint after first part of speech (5) – Round 10
2. Shepherd gets final wicket after disastrous score (6) – Round 9
3. Face is relaxed (4) -Round 9 (Really sneaky)
4. Dog’s not very energetic at first – retriever, maybe? (7) – Round 8 (reminded me of my Victor:))
5. Source of prickliness in baby’s rump – sharp and mostly rough (5,4) – Round 7
6. Rascal claims lorry took down the tents (6,4) – Round 6
7.Leaving out the love letter (8) – Round 5
8. News about onset of attack on both sides for military leader (7) – Round 4
9. No new bonus puzzle? (7) – Round 3
10. Outlaw, one unobserved, still in feast (7) – Round 2
11. Mate with hot men in bed (6) – Round 1
Thanks to Mr. Vivek Singh and the Extra C team for another fabulous contest and wish the organizers and finalists the very best in the finals that will happen in December. It is free for anyone to attend – so if you are in Bengaluru, do check out the event at The Royal Orchid Hotel, Bengaluru on December 22nd.
Very nice review of your performance….