Weekend of Words, American Crossword Puzzle Tournament 2024, Non-Fiction

Words of the outside world. “By that logic, you can score a word based on how well it narrows down the solution space. This turns out to be a difficult problem to figure out whether you have solved it optimally, making it exactly the kind of problem that computer scientists love.” Life Hacker: Science Thinks It Has Found the Best Wordle Starter, Skwarecki, 2022.

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American Crossword Puzzle Tournament
5-7 April 2024
IRL (Stamford Marriott) & Virtual (me)

New For This Year

After the tournament, I was asked to pontificate about my experience at a crossword puzzle tournament. (eek) Small, casual online group, no big deal. (eek.) It was not at all weird to be on the other side of an interview. (eek.) I handled it with my customary suaveness and aplomb. (eek. eek. eek.)

Things I Learned From This Year’s Puzzles

The emcee reminded us to check for typos & empty boxes before hitting submit. Did both in puzzle #1. Caught both. Whew.

The D-Train goes to the Bronx. I should have know this automatically, I used to commute to school on it. Duh. Got from crossing with MADCAP. (Puzzle #2 40A & 41D)

AREPA is a Latin American food staple & ALS Hilton wrote “White Girls”. They crossed at the initial A. Pick a vowel. (Puzzle #2 10A & 10D)

Tea Leoni spells her name with an I. If memory serves, I’ve gotten this wrong in other puzzles. Probably thinking of the country. This was my one, non-5 error.

Results

Puzzles 1-4 & 6-7. One incorrect letter.

Puzzle 5. Ten boxes wrong. See last year’s post for a discussion of the dreaded #5. [Almost Flawless]

This year, they announced that they had made 5 easier. True, with a catch. You had to get the trick. I got it about halfway through. I probably could have finished with more time. But. The trick affected a majority(?) of the clues. If you did not get the theme, the puzzle was incomprehensible. So, not sure which way that counts in terms of making it easier.

Coda

Once again, ACPT did a great job keeping the virtual folks in the loop.

ACPT posts & Puzzle posts [Archives]

Onwards!
Katherine