Times Crossword Championship

[dr john]

I wonder how many people were put off from entering this year's relaunched competition by the exorbitant entry fees? I sent two entries (at �15 a go) and was offered a place at the competition with both, requiring another �10 fee. Potentially (entering all four paper puzzles and one online) it could have cost �85 for a place (or �75 for nothing).

[ichkeria]

Well, depends how you look at it.
Some might say you're lucky to get so many bites at the cherry. In most previous years you had one go and that was that.
Another way of looking at it is: it costs �25 to take part in the final, (quite a lot, I admit) but only �15 if unsuccessful.
And actually everyone who submitted a correct entry got accepted - if only they'd known that at the time :-)

[dr john]

Thanks ichkeria. Glad I only entered twice now if that's the case - presumably fewer than 200 people did, which rather answers my question.

[ichkeria]

What also probably put people off was the necessity to enter a completion time. This would have deterred people who thought they were too slow.
You can get a nice feelgood factor from finishing a puzzle unaided, or at least with maybe a couple of visits to the dictionary, but that feeling evaporates if you're not very quick.
While speed is a factor in the tournament so is accuracy; unfortunately a self-timing system isn't best placed to take that into account.

I.

[kettledrum]

Ichkeria - you're not right in saying that everyone who submitted a correct entry was accepted. I submitted 2 at a cost of �30.. at 33 & 34 mins ( I think) but that clearly wasn't fast enough.!

[dr john]

From past experience with the old competition, accuracy is rated much more highly than speed: those who have answered every clue correctly rank above those who have got one answer wrong (no matter how quickly they completed the puzzle), and so on.