Official Tournament Rules

Effective 1 September 2026

These rules govern tournaments in the GridWits iOS app. They supplement the GridWits Terms of Service. If these rules and the Terms differ about a tournament, these rules control for that tournament. Mandatory law still applies.

1. Sponsor and Apple's role

GridWits tournaments are sponsored and operated by Jeet Oza, the operator of GridWits. Apple is not a sponsor and is not involved in administering, judging, operating, or awarding anything in a GridWits tournament.

2. Eligibility

• You must be at least 18 years old and have an active GridWits online account in good standing.
• You must be located in a storefront where GridWits and its tournament feature are offered. GridWits is not offered anywhere in Europe, or in Armenia, Azerbaijan, Georgia, Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, Canada, South Korea, New Zealand, China mainland, or Vietnam for this release.
• You may use only one account and one entry in a particular tournament.
• Offline solo play is available at any age, but it does not include tournaments.
• GridWits may refuse or void an entry that is ineligible, fraudulent, automated, duplicated, or prohibited by applicable law.

3. No purchase and no real-world prize

No purchase or payment is required or accepted. GridWits has no in-app purchases. A tournament may be free or may require virtual GridWits Coins earned inside the app. Coins cannot be purchased, sold, transferred, withdrawn, or exchanged for money, goods, services, cryptocurrency, or anything outside GridWits. Coins have no cash value. There are no cash, physical, or other real-world tournament prizes.

4. Formats, registration, and timing

• The app displays the puzzle type, difficulty, entry in Coins or “Free,” scheduled start, scheduled end, and current entrant count.
• Public paid registration normally opens 10 minutes before the scheduled start and closes at the start. Public tournaments run for 45 minutes.
• A paid private tournament normally has a 10-minute registration period and then runs for 45 minutes. A free friends tournament may begin immediately and permits any number of entrants.
• All times are determined by the GridWits server records. Device clocks and a player's local timezone do not change the start or end.
• Only one active tournament may be associated with an account at a time.
• A late entrant allowed into a free tournament receives no personal extension: elapsed time still runs from the tournament's scheduled start.

5. Entry, withdrawal, cancellation, and quitting

• Joining a paid tournament deducts the displayed entry Coins from the player's GridWits wallet.
• A player who withdraws before the scheduled start receives the entry Coins back.
• A paid tournament automatically cancels at its start if fewer than three players entered. Each entrant receives a full refund of the entry Coins.
• Free tournaments do not require three entrants and do not award Coins.
• After a tournament starts, quitting does not refund entry Coins. The entry remains in the final field and is treated as a non-finisher.

6. Puzzle and valid completion

Every entrant receives the same deterministic puzzle for that tournament. A finish counts only when the compatible GridWits app validates the solved board and the server accepts the completion before the scheduled end. A player who does not obtain an accepted completion by the end is a non-finisher. Closing the app, losing connectivity, starting late, or leaving the puzzle does not pause or extend the server-controlled clock.

7. Ranking and ties

1. All finishers rank ahead of all non-finishers.
2. A finisher's elapsed time is measured from the scheduled tournament start to the server-recorded completion and displayed in whole seconds.
3. Lower elapsed whole seconds rank ahead of higher elapsed whole seconds.
4. Finishers recorded in the same whole second share the same rank. Standard competition ranking applies: for example, two players tied at rank 2 are followed by rank 4.
5. The Coin amounts assigned to every rank occupied by a tied group are pooled and divided as evenly as possible among the tied players.
6. If a pooled Coin amount cannot divide evenly, remaining single Coins go first to the tied player with fewer recorded mistakes, then to the earlier exact server completion.
7. All non-finishers share the rank immediately after the last finisher. Join order affects only the allocation of any indivisible remainder Coin, not competitive rank.

8. Coin pool and awards

In a paid tournament the Coin pool equals the number of entrants multiplied by the entry Coins. GridWits takes no portion of that pool. The number of ordinarily paid positions is 15% of the field, rounded to the nearest whole position with at least one paid position. The app shows the provisional prize breakdown calculated for the final field. Ties can change the amount received by each tied player because the occupied positions are pooled.

If fewer players finish than there are ordinarily paid positions, the Coins assigned to the unoccupied paid positions are divided as evenly as possible among all non-finishers. The full Coin pool is therefore returned to the tournament field. Every award remains a valueless, non-transferable in-app virtual item.

9. Fair play

You must solve using the ordinary GridWits app and your own puzzle-solving ability. You must not:

• use a bot, solver, script, automation, modified client, emulator manipulation, or unauthorised tool;
• share or obtain a solution, partial solution, move sequence, or live assistance during the tournament;
• submit fabricated timing, mistakes, completion, identity, wallet, or result data;
• exploit a bug, replay a request, interfere with another player or the service, or evade App Check or other security controls;
• use multiple accounts, collude, trade accounts, or manipulate entrant count, rank, or the Coin pool.

10. Review and disqualification

GridWits may investigate suspicious results using tournament, account, security, and technical records. Where reasonably supported by the evidence, GridWits may reject or void a result, disqualify an entry, adjust rankings or virtual-Coin settlements, restrict tournament access, or suspend or terminate an account. A disqualified player may forfeit entry Coins and virtual awards. These decisions do not create a cash debt or entitlement. Mandatory consumer and other legal rights are unaffected.

11. Outages and technical failures

Problems with a player's device, battery, software, local network, or internet connection normally do not pause, restart, or extend a tournament. If GridWits determines that a widespread GridWits, Firebase, or server failure materially prevented fair play or reliable settlement, it may void affected results, refund affected entry Coins, rerun or replace the event, or take another proportionate corrective action. GridWits will not replace Coins with money or a real-world prize.

12. Questions and result disputes

Email [email protected] with the tournament code or approximate start time, your handle, and a description of the issue. Send a result dispute as soon as possible and no later than 12 hours after the scheduled end: detailed tournament event records are normally deleted 24 hours after the end once settlement is complete. GridWits may preserve relevant records longer for a specific fraud investigation, dispute, legal claim, court order, regulator request, or safety matter.

13. Rule changes

GridWits may update these rules for later tournaments. The version presented when a player joins governs that tournament unless a change is required by law or is reasonably necessary to protect integrity or correct an obvious error. Material changes will be dated and published in the app and on this page.