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.

TRIP PAYNE RETIRES FROM ACPT

Trip Payne has announced on his Facebook page that he will no longer be competing at the American Crossword Puzzle Tournament.

The three-time ACPT champion (1994, 1998 and 2004) cited the expense of attending the tournament - he recently moved to Los Angeles from his longtime home of Boca Raton, Florida - as one of the reasons that he will no longer attend the tournament.

Payne was one of the super-solvers featured prominently in the documentary "Wordplay", which chronicled Trip's second-place finish to Tyler Hinman. It was one of five second-place finishes and three third-place finishes in his ACPT career. Overall, Payne finished in the money 11 times over roughly 20 years of competing, in addition to a slew of geographic and age-level awards.

Trip's LiveJournal page notes that he has been considering retirement from the ACPT since at least September of last year.

Maura Jacobson Retiring From New York Magazine Crossword

Maura B. Jacobson is putting away her grids. The veteran crossword constructor has announced her retirement from the New York Magazine crossword, a slot that she has held since 1980.

Ms. Jacobson had learned puzzlecraft at the feet of the first New York Times crossword editor, Margaret Farrar. Jacobson had been hired to do a crossword for a magazine that was eventually folded into New York, Cue, at the recommendation of Will Weng. Beginning in May of 1980, Jacobson's byline had begun appearing in New York Magazine, usually appearing with a cryptic puzzle. Jacobson's puzzles were hardly brain-busters, but were accessible to casual solvers and always great fun. Even before that, Jacobson had been tapped by a brash young crossword editor named Will Shortz to provide one puzzle a year for the American Crossword Puzzle Tournament. Jacobson's Puzzle No. 6 slot hopefully will continue in perpetuity.

Signs that the Jacobson era was soon to end started appearing last year, when Cathy Allis (Millhauser) shouldered half of Jacobson's workload. Allis will take on the construction chore full time after the final Jacobson puzzle appears, at a date yet to be determined. But the legacy of Jacobson lives on. Constructor Liz Gorski noted on her blog that "...Maura's extensive puzzle-ography has had a profound effect on my confidence as a solver...and later, as an aspiring puzzle writer. Seeing a woman's byline over that big New York puzzle each week made all the difference. Maybe I could make a puzzle some day. And if Maura B. Jacobson uses a byline with a middle initial ... so will I."

The 30-Second Workout

We have heard via our friend Trip Payne that starting next year, the tournament is going to be timed to the half minute, rather than the minute. This will help prevent the logjam of ties among the top solvers. We will try to get official word on this.

ACPT Registration Open, Programs Announced

"41 Days and Counting!" says the banner atop the home page of the American Crossword Puzzle Tournament. And with that, Will Shortz has announced the evening events and opened registration.

The Friday games will feature Eric Berlin's "Brooklyn Crossword Extravaganza" brainteasers.

Saturday will be Game Show Night, and also featured will be a film by Ed Stein called "Wordploy". (Hmmm...)

For Sunday, Grant Barrett, co-host of the radio program "A Way with Words", will be taking over from Neil Conan as co-commentator of the Sunday B and A finals along with the ever-stalwart Merl Reagle. Barrett and his radio co-host Martha Barnette will hand out the prizes at the awards luncheon.

"Wordplay" Set For October 16 PBS Debut

As part of its "Independent Lens" series, PBS will be broadcasting the Patrick Creadon documentary "Wordplay" on Tuesday, October 16. Please check your local PBS station schedule for airtime. I believe that this is the first time that "Wordplay" will be airing on television in any form.

"Wordplay", as you may already know, profiled New York Times crossword editor Will Shortz, some of his colleagues, and solvers competing at the American Crossword Puzzle Tournament, at that time held in Stamford, Connecticut.

More Stamford Ink

David Lieberfarb of the Newark Star-Ledger was competing in the 30th Annual American Crossword Puzzle Tournament and filed this report. He did note the New Jersey top three finishers, but we think he got Robert's geography mixed up with another solver with the same last name. It appeared right alongside the Sunday Los Angeles Times puzzle in the print edition. Thanks to Tracy's mom for sharing the story with us!

The 2007 Dysfunctional Crossword Family Reunion

This is the last year we kick it Stamford style. Next year we'll be cookin' in Brooklyn.

Within the next 24 hours, some 650-700 puzzlers and maybe a few non-puzzle types will be rendezvousing one last time at the Marriott in Stamford (except for those of you who booked late and must stay elsewhere) for the 30th American Crossword Puzzle Tournament. Will has confirmed the tournament site next year will be the New York Marriott at the Brooklyn Bridge, which has a much larger space for the expected crowds as crossword puzzling continues steamrollering in popularity. (They have got one smaller meeting room named for Jackie Gleason, which is coolness itself.)

We don't have any official affiliation with the tournament, but we'd like to think we did a darn good job blogging about the tournament last year (including our Almost Live finals coverage), so we're going to do it again. Puzzle Brothers staff and management will be wearing their PB-T's on Saturday and Sunday morning, soon to be available through Cafe Press along with other items for all you acolytes.

Don't be strangers, folks. Say hi to any of us. Me, Bob, and Tracy. We'd love to hear your stories and perhaps maybe Tracy can take some pictures of you. We will have much more in the way of picture galleries (those 2006 galleries will soon be moving to our site, when we have some more time not occupied by training for Stamford and stripping bathroom wallpaper).

This is our last dispatch from here. Next time you hear from us, it will be Friday night in Stamford... one last time.

Stamford No More

Here's where the 2008 tournament is going to be held, according to an article in the Stamford Times.

Somehow "Brooklyn" doesn't have quite the same ring to it.

Interesting Article!

Here's an article from today's Newark Star-Ledger about the upcoming Stamford tournament.... and you'll never guess who they managed to wrangle an interview out of!

Record Number Of Competitors Expected For Stamford Tourney

The 30th annual American Crossword Puzzle Tournament is already shaping up to be the biggest ever - and this is more than a week before Will Shortz gives the command to turn the papers over and begin solving.

We hear from one of our sources that there are approximately 620 registrations for the tournament so far; we're not sure if this includes non-competitors. It would almost certainly mean that this year's contestant pool will be the largest ever. Last year's tournament saw a record 498 contestants try their skill. I'm sure Will expected a bump in tournament attendance in the wake of "Wordplay", but you think he could have expected this many people coming to the tournament when he started it 30 years ago? (The earliest years of the tournament saw approximately 150 contestants per year, mostly from the New York metropolitan area.)

As a result of the huge number of people scheduled to descend on the Mariott, one change has been made to Friday evening, where Allie's Restaurant traditionally hosts the dinner party held by members of the New York Times crossword forum (the Cru). Marriott management has negotiated a buffet dinner in lieu of eating at Allie's. The menu will include grilled flank steak, lemon chicken breast and penne pasta. Additionally, reservations are not being accepted for the restaurant the two evenings of the tournament. My advice is to try to find some good food off site. (Paging Tim Zagat...)

One Month To Go!

Exactly one month from today, I will wake up in a hotel room at the Stamford Marriott - probably off maybe three hours sleep from playing parlor games into the night - wipe the sleep out of my eyes, shuffle downstairs, and await THE STANDINGS.

Yep, that time is drawing near. We're exactly 26 days from the beginning of the 30th American Crossword Puzzle Tournament, and this is probably the final go-round at the Stamford Marriott as Will Shortz is looking for a new venue for the expanding tournament.

Yes, it's a tournament, and yes, it's competition. But this is perhaps the best time of year to meet and greet your favorite constructors and solvers you've seen in the movie "Wordplay", as practically everybody who's anybody in the world of crosswords comes to the tournament. There are lots of opportunities for public social gatherings and cliqueish room parties.

If you haven't already registered (and why haven't you?), go to the American Crossword Puzzle Tournament website and join the fun.

As for us, our reportage of Stamford is going to be much improved over last year with the addition of a third correspondent, Tracy Meyer, on Team Puzzle Brothers. Additionally, we will be blogging live from the finals again, so if you can't make it to the tournament, point your browser right to the Puzzle Brothers and refresh to your heart's content as you get the latest updates direct from Stamford and fresh pictures of the goings-on.

Now, on a personal note, let me strike my own fear into the hearts of my competitors. My times have been improving. I have been training with such diverse materials as New York Magazine crosswords (as there is always a Maura Jacobsen puzzle in the tournament) and the most recent compilations of New York Sun crosswords (I just finished the Thursday volume). I haven't been doing as much online solving because I really don't want to get caught up in what other solvers are doing. I've gotta worry about my times. My goal this year is to get into the top 100. Considering I was 107th last year and 185th in '05, I can do it.

Last Tango In Stamford

As alluded to in our year-end wrapup (see sidebar for link), Will Shortz has sent out an e-mail to 2006 American Crossword Puzzle Tournament participants that confirms that this will likely be the final year for the tournament at the Stamford Marriott.

"After 30 years at the Stamford Marriott Hotel, the event is likely moving to a new and larger site in 2008," states Shortz in his mass e-mailing. Last year's tournament drew about 500 competitors,

In other tournament-related news, Shortz and ace constructor Merl Reagle help Oprah Winfrey kick off the February Sweeps on Thursday with an appearance on her talk show as part of an episode entitled "How'd They Do That?"