Al Sanders Takes Lollapuzzoola 6 Express Title

The image most people have in their brains of Al Sanders is the overconfident man who raises his hand to indicate "done" at the 2005 ACPT, only to realize he's left two squares blank in 1-Across, throwing his headset to the ground in frustration. We've all seen that movie before. (Except maybe for Oscar Cimmet.)

Yesterday, the ACPT perennial flew in from Colorado to participate in Lollapuzzoola 6 in New York City, and wound up besting another cross-country commuter, Trip Payne, and Francis Heaney in the onstage finals of the "Express Division", roughly equivalent to A- and B- class ACPT contestants.

Jonathan Brown wound up the winner of the "Local Division", defeating Erin Milligan and Angela Halsted (who was found to be the tournament's sole 6-time participant and the analogue to Jay Kasofsky at the ACPT). The extremely tough finals puzzle was constructed by Joon Pahk, who was unable to attend to defend his title from last year.

The tournament was under the capable supervision of co-creator Brian Cimmet and Patrick Blindauer, who replaced co-creator Ryan Hecht a few years ago, and over the six years of its existence it has steadily attracted more top solvers around the country, including fourth place finisher Amy Reynaldo, the aforementioned Payne and Sanders, and Katie Hamill from Boston among others. This year's tournament set a record with over 150 solvers, including past ACPT winners Jon Delfin and Ellen Ripstein. The judges included the likes of Dan Feyer and Anne Erdmann.

In keeping with the tournament's irreverent streak, prize trophies featured figurines from such unrelated disciplines as karate and gymnastics (but were engraved for the first time) as well as leftover ACPT trophies. Clever word games helped fill the time and there was a metapuzzle that was related to the five crosswords solved by everyone.

More tournament information and pictures may be found at http://www.bemoresmarter.com.

New Blog Examines LA Times Puzzles

And with these new inroads the Los Angeles Times puzzles is making, there is now a new blog focusing on them: L.A. Crossword Confidential.

The names are all familiar there: Rex Parker, PuzzleGirl, and Amy Reynaldo will be on rotating shifts, examining each day's LAT entry in great detail.

Standings Through Four Puzzles

1. Dan Feyer
T2. Francis Heaney
T2. Tyler Hinman
T2. Trip Payne
5. Al Sanders
6. Stella Daily
7. Jon Delfin
8. Roger Barkan
9. Amy Reynaldo
10. Eric Maddy

41. Dave Mackey
43. Robert Mackey

Friday At The Tournament - Bloggers' Panel

The bloggers' panel was first. Amy Reynaldo, Ryan Hecht and Brian Cimmet, Jim Horne and Michael Sharp.

Michael Sharp - He says "the community boggles my mind... it's opened up a whole new dimension in looking at the puzzle." Michael was grateful for the early support of Amy Reynaldo.

Amy Reynaldo passes to Ryan and Brian.

Ryan and Brian - They found the blogs of the others, then struck out on their own. The boys don't claim to be the best solvers. Ryan started the blog and Brian really took it off by adding the "Fill Me In" podcast. They also discussed their Lollapuzzoola tournament.

Brian passes.

Jim Horne - "Never follow dogs, children, Ryan or Brian." Jim talked about shutting down his own crossword blog due to being asked to do an official one for the New York Times.

Amy Reynaldo - Her blog started in 2005, discussing not just the NYT but all the major syndicated and little online puzzles. "You take your solitary hobby of doing crosswords... you can read what other people have to say about it... it's a lot of fun."

Q&A's from the audience! Michael Sharp says he doesn't read the other blogs. "The last thing I want is someone else's voice in my head." Amy reads 'em all. "I just can't stay away." Ryan tends not to for the same reasons as Michael. "I don't want to get sued by these three people." Jim reads the others via RSS. "It's fun for me to read about puzzles, and if I get contaminated, I get contaminated."

Michael talked about his "Rex Parker" pen name. "I couldn't imagine writing a blog with my real name." His name comes from a Hawaii beach trip where everyone got fake names. Will asked about porn names, first pet and street you grew up on.... "Mine would be Alice Teelman," said Rex.

Jim was asked why more male bloggers than female bloggers. "Blogging is this ridiculous commitment that a sane, normal person wouldn't do." Jim has had a related question about solvers being roughly half male and half female, but why are there more male constructors? Jim just chalks it up to it being a small sample. Amy said "most mommy bloggers are mostly women."

Blogging is a 365-day a year commitment. These things just grew out of whims and have now pretty much become fulltime jobs for them. Amy says she has had to have guest writers when she wants to go away. Ryan does not want to let the 10-15 people who read their blog down. Jim says, "People find you because they look for clues." Jim also mentioned that no one is going to get rich doing blogs, so it's a labor of love. The bloggers also discussed what they all do to pay the bills.

Another Crosswordy "Crosswords" Player

This past Wednesday, Amy Reynaldo, author of "How To Conquer The New York Times Crossword Puzzle", appeared on "Merv Griffin's Crosswords" - did she conquer Timothy Parker's daily stumper? Watch and find out!

It's MEGA-Tastic!

Just got my copy of the new Simon & Schuster MEGA Crossword Puzzle Book, Volume 1. This just came out in bookstores today. Wow! This is enough to keep me busy for weeks on end. For the list price of $13.95, you get 300 original crosswords, including a healthy selection of 75 15x's, 75 mixed 17x's and 19x's, and 150 21x's. Many of your favorite authors in the old Crossword Puzzle Book series are represented here, and there are some new names too (including - and correct me if I'm wrong - the construction debut of Amy Reynaldo).

John Samson still continues as editor, now with three times the workload, as there will now be 900 puzzles used per year - approximately three times the amount required by a New York Times or Los Angeles Times Syndicate.

While I'm plugging things, I must put in a word for the 2008 New York Times Sunday Puzzle Appointment Book, from Pomegranate Press. It's a neat compilation of all the Sundays from October 2003 to October 2004, including a neat Leap Day puzzle by Patrick Merrell. One puzzle is misattributed to Kyle Mahowald instead of Joe DiPietro, but that's just a minor quibble. Neat package, nice paper that takes my favorite gel pen quite well. Got it for a gift in '07, bought it for myself in '08.