2015 ACPT RECAP: THAT OLD STAMFORD MAGIC

On the 10th anniversary (plus a few days) of the first ACPT championship won by Tyler Hinman in a heartbreaker over Al Sanders, Hinman almost regained the crown he has watched Dan Feyer walk away with for the past five years. But it was not to be as Dan Feyer sneaked in by a margin of about 1/2 second to win his record sixth consecutive ACPT title, as the tournament returned to its original home of Stamford, Connecticut after a seven-year run in Brooklyn, NY. Watch and see. (The "official" video is still being edited; that will be posted here when available.)

The value of banking time on Puzzles 1-6 became apparent this year as Dan Feyer's four-second head start enabled him to win the title, in spite of Tyler actually solving the Byron Walden-constructed puzzle faster. On his way to establishing that cushion, Feyer set a new tournament record this year when he solved Puzzle 1 in less than two minutes. Mike Nothnagel runs the numbers on that...

Dan's 7:13 is also the fastest winning solve time ever for A clues in the finals... with an asterisk noting Tyler's faster solve. For his efforts, Feyer won $5,000, a sixth bowl-shaped trophy, and a free roll into next year's tournament.

Andrew Feist won the B division finals over Elaine Renner and this year's top rookie, Vic Chandhok. Your other division, demographic and geographic winners....

Official Contestant Count: 567, off 13 from last year

4. Kiran Kedlaya
5. Anne Erdmann (who would have made the finals if not for one mistake on Puzzle 2)
6. Francis Heaney
7. Joon Pahk
8. Al Sanders
9. David Plotkin
10. Jon Delfin

19. Robert Mackey (one square wrong in puzzle 2, retaining his A ranking)
124. Dave Mackey (one square wrong in puzzles 2 and 4, six squares wrong in puzzle 5, so will be demoted to C next year)

C: David Steinberg - youngest division winner ever in the ACPT at 17 years of age
D: Jamie Womack
E: Susan Cocalis announced as champion; however a scoring change made John Morgan the actual champion

Junior: David Plotkin
Fifties: Anne Erdmann
Sixties: Jon Delfin (who just turned 60)
Seventies: Doug Hoylman
Seniors: Arthur Schulman

West: Feyer
Connecticut: Glen Ryan
New England: Pahk
NYC: Heaney
LI: Peter Gordon
Upstate NY: Jennifer Turney
NJ: Howard Barkin (Robert Mackey 2nd in NJ due to a mistake by Renner on her Puzzle 7... thanks Elaine)
Mid-Atlantic: Scott Weiss
South: David Plotkin
Midwest: Erdmann
Foreign: Emily O'Neill (from Vancouver, BC... all the Foreign contestants were from Canada this year)

The 2016 ACPT will be held in Stamford once again at a date yet to be determined.

Saturday Afternoon Recap

The results are in from all of today's puzzles at the ACPT. In A division, Dan Feyer continues to enjoy a three minute advantage over Joon Pahk and Howard Barkin after the first six puzzles. Tyler Hinman and Kiran Kedlaya are also in the top five, four and seven minutes behind Feyer respectively. Anne Erdmann is in sixth place, hobbled by a mistake on Puzzle 2.

Rookie Vic Chandhok (all rookies start as C-level solvers) would be bumped up to the B final along with Elaine Renner and Jesse Lansner if those standings hold to form when Puzzle 7 is solved tomorrow. The other division leaders:

C: Rob Tricchinelli, David Steinberg, Mike Weepie
D: Jamie Womack, Ron Humpolick, Sandy Lawrence
E: Susan Cocalis, Alice Grun, Hannah Wezorek

In order, your constructors today have been Tracy Bennett, Joel Fagliano, Merl Reagle,Paula Gamache, Jeff Chen, and Lynn Lempel. That leaves the formidable duo of Patrick Berry and Byron Walden for the two Sunday puzzles - the 9 a.m. 21x, and the tournament finale.

A weird scoring anomaly took place when the Puzzle 1 results were announced, when a solver named William Hall appeared to have solved Puzzle 1 a full four minutes before Dan Feyer did. Since Dan solved the puzzle in less than two minutes - believed to be an ACPT first - that meant that Hall would have had to do some serious messing with the time-space continuum to finish the puzzle TWO MINUTES BEFORE HE EVEN STARTED.

Hall's score on puzzle 1 has since been adjusted.

THE FRIENDLY CONFINES

Greetings from the Stamford Marriott. And if you told me three years ago that I would be ever saying that again you'd think I was crazy. At this moment we are waiting in the Friday night games which are going to include Multimedia Crosswords by Henry Hook and Joel Fagliano. And an update to the Pre-Shortzian Project by David Steinberg in which he will talk about anonymous constructors.

Tournament host Will Shortz estimates about 560 contestant so far. As it has been for the past four years the big question is "can Dan Feyer win again". 

For the latest on the tournament follow us on Twitter @thepuzbros.

By The Skin Of His Teeth, Bob Mackey Wins His Sixth Westchester Trophy

What a final round of the 18th annual Westchester Crossword Tournament. Two puzzlers finished. Bob Mackey looked over his whiteboard for mistakes. Ken Stern looked over his whiteboard for mistakes. Neither knew the game of Chicken that was being played. Bob was looking for something that would complete a specified number of thematic elements in a future New York Times puzzle. Ken's puzzle was clean.

Finally, Bob found the final missing piece and broke the tense silence.

"DONE".

One Mississippi, two Mississippi, three Mississippi, four Misissisppi. Ken echoed...

"DONE."

It could have gone the other way if Ken had signaled "Done" just seconds earlier, or if Bob had done the same without checking his work, but the final outcome of the 18th annual Westchester Tournament was the same as five of the previous installments, with Bob Mackey taking home the championship trophy.

(SPOILER ALERT: You may not want to look at the picture if you have not yet solved the puzzle to be published on October 2, 2014.)

Although Glenn Ryan was the third man in the scenario working the left board, all the focus was on the two solvers at center and right, with Bob taking an early lead and Ken steadily catching up, when finally the two solvers had no more blank squares. To some it looked like Bob was being super cautious, but the puzzle's notes had indicated that there were six thematic quirks. Bob kept counting, and counting, and counting, but could only find five. He finally found the final crossing that completed the theme requirements, a mere four seconds before Ken Stern threw up his hands in surrender. All three solvers completed the puzzle with no errors.

In the first of a year of homecomings for tournament emcee/host Will Shortz, the Westchester Tournament returned to its prior home, the St. John's Episcopal Church in Pleasantville, after a three year residency at the Westchester Table Tennis Club. Next spring, the American Crossword Puzzle Tournament will be once again in its birthplace of Stamford, Connecticut. One wag noted that perhaps Will will bring Games Magazine back from the dead next.

Bob's qualifying puzzle was the Tuesday, September 30 puzzle by Andy Kravis, who was the only constructor present at Friday's tournament. Judges for the tournament included perennial head judge Stan Kurzban, Ellen Ripstein, Mimi Raphael, Frank Longo, Hayley Gold and Pat Merrell.

As always, proceeds from the tournament benefitted the Pleasantville Fund For Learning.

BYE BYE BROOKLYN

Greetings and welcome to the 37th American Crossword Puzzle Tournament, almost live from Brooklyn.... for the last time. Will Shortz announced in an interview with the New York Times Wordplay columnist Deb Amlen that the tournament will return to the Stamford Marriott in Connecticut on March 27-29, 2015.

Lots of excitement around the Brooklyn Bridge Marriott as for the final time we look forward to two days of crossword competition. The big question remains (as it has for the last three years) "can Dan Feyer make it (number of tournaments won +1) in a row?"

Consider in the past decade, all the time I've been going to these tournaments, there have been only two champions: Tyler Hinman (2005-2009) and Dan Feyer (2010-2013). Will someone new come to the fore?

Be that as it may, here is your A-list of 28 contenders (of 555 pre-registered contestants):

Erik Agard
Howard Barkin
John Beck
Kathie Conarck
Jon Delfin
Len Elliott
Anne Erdmann
Dan Feyer
Peter Gordon
Katie Hamill
Francis Heaney
Tyler Hinman
Eric LeVasseur
Frank Longo
Robert Mackey
Eric Maddy
Joon Pahk
Doug Peterson
David Plotkin
Amy Reynaldo
Ellen Ripstein
Glen Ryan
Al Sanders
Jeffrey Schwartz
Ken Stern
Scott Weiss
John Wilson
Stella Zawistowski

The Carnival of Puzzles has concluded with co-winners Robert Mackey and Al Sanders.

For the latest on the tournament follow @thepuzbros on Twitter!

ACPT Returning To Stamford?

After the ACPT's contract with the Brooklyn Bridge Marriott expires with the 2014 tournament, Will Shortz is seriously considering a return to the tournament's original home, the Stamford (CT) Marriott.

We encourage you to leave your comments on that page, so much so that we've disabled comments for this post. Bob has yet to weigh in on the matter, but my vote is for a return to Stamford.