The fifth edition of Indian Crossword League (IXL), an online contest, will be launched on September 17.
The inaugural ceremony would take place at the National Sports Club of India in Mumbai and LIC chairman Vijay Kumar Sharma will launch the event, which is organised by Patna-based civil society initiative ExtraC. Efforts are being made to rope in a top cricketer and a Bollywood celebrity to make the inaugural event big.
Like its previous editions, the current edition of the game, which was launched in 2013 to mark the centenary year of the word game, would have online rounds on the basis of which finalists would be selected, who would compete to win the championship in the finals which would be held offline. The final of the current edition would be held in Bangalore on December 24.
One would have to visit the website crypticsing.com to get registered for the event and the registration process would commence in a day or two.
The winners of the events would be given direct entry to the finals. The online leg of the event would witness 10 weekly rounds and 30 top scorers from the rounds would qualify for the final event. Services of six setters have been roped in among whom two would be international setters - each from Canada and England.
Scores would be decided on correct entries made and the time taken in solving the clues. 'We are hoping the current edition of the game will be bigger than the previous ones given the fact that some best setters would be there to test the crossword solving expertise of the participants,' IXL chief mentor and senior Bihar cadre IAS officer Vivek Kumar Singh said on Sunday.