WESTCHESTER TOURNAMENT RETURNS TO ST. JOHN'S CHURCH SEPTEMBER 19

The 18th edition of the Westchester Crossword Puzzle Tournament will be on Friday, September 19, and the tournament is moving back to the St. John Episcopal Church in Pleasantville, once again to benefit the Pleasantville Fund for Learning. As always, the tournament will feature the four New York Times puzzles from the following Monday through Wednesday, with the Thursday puzzle serving as the playoff puzzle for the top finisher on each of the three puzzles. $30 to compete singly, $45 as a team, or $5 just to watch.

Last year's tournament finals involved the same three solvers from the 2013 ACPT "B" finals, Glenn Ryan, Jeffrey Schwartz, and Robert Mackey, which culminated in Mackey winning his sixth Westchester trophy - five singles and one doubles title with Dave Mackey.

The tournament was held the last three years at the Westchester Table Tennis Club, which is owned by New York Times crossword guru Will Shortz. No reason was given for the change, although a Facebook post by perennial Westchester finalist Elaine Renner noted "the acoustics are better" in the church.

JON DELFIN TRIUMPHANT AT LOLLAPUZZOOLA 7

(Updated 8/11/2014)

Jon Delfin showed he can still run with the puppies when he proved victorious at the seventh installment of Brian Cimmet and Patrick Blindauer's Lollapuzzoola, held on August 9 (a Saturday in August) at the All Souls Church on the upper East Side of Manhattan.

Delfin, who will begin competing in the Sixties age bracket at next year's ACPT in Stamford (and who has won that tournament a record seven times), defeated the decades-younger Francis Heaney and Scott Weiss in the Express bracket. None of the three made any mistakes on the championship puzzle by Patrick Berry.

L-R: Scott Weiss, Patrick Blindauer (holding Weiss' clue sheet for him), and Patrick Heaney

In the Local bracket, Simon McAndrews finished first but had one void square. Patti Varol, who finished second, was crowned Local Champion and Sara Nies was third.

Rounding out the top 10 overall finishers in the Express division were Jeffrey Schwartz, Andy Kravis, Joon Pahk (who solved using only Down clues - the only other competitor to do so was Peter Gordon), Andrew Feist, Ellen Ripstein, Robert Mackey and Thomas Weisswange. Pahk also won the Worst Handwriting Award.

For the second year in a row, Marcia Hearst and Julian Ochrymowych won the Pairs title.

The only competitors to solve all five competition puzzles cleanly were Heaney, Delfin, Schwartz, Pahk, Ripstein, Weisswange, Elaine Lippman, Matt Sandler, Richard Hovan, Dave Mackey (who finished 25th, an improvement of 100 places from last year), Brendan Emmett Quigley, Patty Buethe, Amy Goldstein, Sasha Shapiro and Josephine Quinones.

The rest of the top 10 in Local was Rebecca Moody (who also won the Rookie award), Martin Davis, Vegavahini Subramaniam, Thomas Perretti, Finn Vigeland, Aaron Riggio and Amy Paepke.

The slogan of the tournament this year was "It Ain't Over Till It's Over", which was of course a phrase coined by Yogi Berra, the great baseball manager and coach, and some of the puzzles - including a very accessible meta by Blindauer - had a baseball theme. In fact, Blindauer (who probably has a closetful of St. Louis Cardinals jerseys) led TWO singings of "Take Me Out To The Ball Game", and at least one Puzzle Brother was familiar with the first rendition...

The finale version was the conventional singing, a la Harry Caray. Of course, the cheese ball snacks (joined by a blue Cotton Candy version) and other familiar trappings of Lollapuzzoola returned, surrounded by some great puzzles that included audio and visual clues and other tricks you would never think of. The puzzles, in order, were by Cathy Allis (14x16), Mike Nothnagel (17x), Tony Orbach (21x), Blindauer (15x) and Doug Peterson (21x).

More information and final standings are available at bemoresmarter.com.

Celebrity Puzzlers Revealed!

If Patrick Creadon ever intends to make a sequel to "Wordplay", these two ladies should be featured. At left, comedienne Suzanne Whang, the original host of "House Hunters" on HGTV, has revealed herself to be quite the crossworder, and has dipped her toe into the construction arena with a recent American Values Club crossword co-authored by Tyler Hinman. She was also a recent contributor to the New York Times crossword blog, authored by her friend Deb Amlen, a funny lady in her own right. Suzanne's Twitter is @suzannewhang.

Kat Dennings is immediately recognizable in her yellow and red waitress outfit from the CBS sitcom "2 Broke Girls", and is currently on a vacation where she has discovered the New York Times crossword puzzle, as evidenced by some of her recent Instagram posts, including one where she's clearly solving in pen with the caption "Confidence", and another displaying the fully solved grid of the Saturday, May 13 puzzle by Sam Ezersky. Later that day, she posted on her Twitter: "Where have you been all my life, crossword puzzles".

Kat's Instagram: katdenningsss
Kat's Twitter: @officialkat

DAMN, FEYER

Dan Feyer Extends Streak To 5 Wins In A Row

Michael Sharp put it best when he tweeted after the ACPT this year....

For the fifth year in a row, Dan Feyer was the fastest and smartest solver at the 37th American Crossword Puzzle Tournament, ringing down the curtain on a seven year run at the Brooklyn Bridge Marriott.

Dan's solve of the Mike Shenk finals puzzle was smooth as anything previously seen by the newly transplanted Californian, handily beating competitors Tyler Hinman (second place) and Howard Barkin (third place). All three solvers were perfect on the final puzzle.

Not so B division.

Benjamin Coe emerged triumphant over Kevan Choset and Andy Kravis, the latter two of whom made the same exact mistake on the puzzle. There's quite a difference between LAO and TAO, isn't there? Oh, WAO.

Your other winners:

Remainder of Top Ten: Joon Pahk, Anne Erdmann, Jon Delfin, Erik Agard, David Plotkin, Francis Heaney, Ellen Ripstein
C: Michael Megargee
D: Chris Popp
E: Maureen Kildee
Rookie: Megargee
Junior: Agard
Fifties: Erdmann
Sixties: Ripstein
Seventies: Doug Hoylman
Senior: Bob Rubin
West: Feyer
Connecticut: Glen Ryan
NE: Pahk
NYC: Delfin
LI: Thomas Weisswange
Upstate NY: David Heinick
NJ: Howard Barkin, then Robert Mackey
Mid-Atlantic: Agard
South: David Plotkin
Midwest: Erdmann
Foreign: Emily O'Neill

The handwriting award was noteworthy because for the first time it was won by a man - Jeremy Lin. (No, this guy wasn't the basketball player.)

The 2015 ACPT will be March 27-29, 2015 in Stamford, Connecticut. Beat you to the breakfast buffet!

UNOFFICIAL: DAN FEYER DOES IT AGAIN

Five time champion and the once and future king of Brooklyn!

Playoff Puzzle Participants

C - Matt Sandler, David Heinick, Michael Megargee
B - Benjamin Coe, Kevan Choset, Andy Kravis
A - Howard Barkin, Tyler Hinman, Dan Feyer

Talent Show underway....

Some good talent so far from the likes of Tommy Lee Cook, Ben Bass and Vic Fleming, as the final scores and rankings are computed. The play by play on the finals puzzles will appear on Twitter (@thepuzbros), with recaps here.

DAY 1 ACPT RECAP

The Saturday session of the American Crossword Puzzle Tournament 2014 edition has ended. Here's how things are shaking out....

The six puzzles so far have shown three familiar names atop the leaderboard: Dan Feyer, Tyler Hinman and Howard Barkin, with the B leaders being Andy Kravis, Adam Cohen and Kevan Choset.

Not a lot of controversy with this year's puzzles, which in order of appearance, were authored by Kelly Clark, Patrick Blindauer, Merl Reagle, MaryEllen Uthlaut, Brendan Emmett Quigley, and Anna Shechtman, other than the usual bad crossings and general hard feelings about that fifth puzzle. Neither Puzzle Brother  successsfully completed that puzzle. Bob is presently in 34th place and Dave 121st.

The Saturday evening activities involved a game of  Clever Clues. Will had three words,  NEST, ELOPE and ARSON and had actual NYT clues with only the first letter of each given. If you got it off the first letter only you gave yourself 10 points. The second letter of each word was then added, and if you got it then, you scored 5. The winners of that contest were Doug Hoylman, followed closely by Thomas Weisswange and Jonathan Olsen.

David Steinberg was up next with a brief talk about the Pre-Shortzian Puzzle Project. David and his team of litzers have now completed the daily NYT puzzles (which began in 1950) and are as far back as 1948 with the Margaret Farrar-edited Sunday puzzles. "I can see the light at the end of the tunnel," noted David, who now needs proofreaders to make sure the litzing is accurate. The project has had some unexpected benefits such as confirming the first puzzle constructed by Bernice Gordon, which was litzed by Howard Barkin and included the first use of the entry MAMIEEISENHOWER. That was back in 1953. David also noted that during the Shortz era there has actually been a decline in the number of female constructors, mostly due to the adoption of computer construction software.

Finally, Matt Ginsberg presented an updated version of his Dr. Fill computer-solving software chalk talk, complete with a demonstration of all six tournament puzzles so far. Some of the puzzles were perfectly solved, some were not.

Festivities resume tomorrow at 9 a.m. DAYLIGHT SAVING TIME with puzzle 7!

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!

DEJA VU ALL OVER AGAIN - ACPT B Finals Replay Gives Bob Mackey His Fifth Westchester Championship

Bob Mackey realized early on that the finals of the 17th Westchester Crossword Tournament would most likely be a replay of the ACPT "B" division finals from this past March in Brooklyn and let everyone know it (the word "jinx" not being in his vocabulary). Scanning the room, he found Jeff Schwartz and Glenn Ryan, who harbored much the same desire. Nowhere to be found was defending champion Thomas Weisswange.

Glenn Ryan was the first clean finisher on the Monday NY Times puzzle from the forthcoming week, a construction by Ian Livengood. If not for one wrong letter, Bob Mackey would have qualified on the Tuesday puzzle of Joel Fagliano. Jeff Schwartz was the first eligible correct solver. And for the third puzzle, the Wednesday, October 2 by Paula Gamache, it was Bob as the last announced finalist, finishing just behind the already-qualified Jeff. The finals were set.

In spite of an early pen problem, Bob steadily worked through the Thursday puzzle - a nice rebus from first time NYT contributor Evan Birnholz - while the other two lagged behind, with Glenn out in front first, and Jeff eventually overtaking him in what little drama the finals had. Bob finished clean in a little over eight minutes, even with the pen mishap, to capture his fifth Westchester Crossword Tournament title (sixth if you count the doubles title in 2006).

Kudos to Will Shortz for keeping this tournament lively and interesting with the addition of a table tennis playoff for the top finishers on the Gamache puzzle. Afterwards, Westchester Table Tennis Club co-owner and resident pro Robert Roberts treated us to a demonstration.

WESTCHESTER TIME AGAIN

The cooler weather and turning trees mean only one thing - Westchester time is upon us! Will Shortz is again hosting his hometown Westchester Crossword Tournament at his Westchester Table Tennis Club, in Pleasantville. The 17th tournament, to be held Friday, September 27 beginning at 7:30 p.m., will again benefit the Pleasantville Fund For Learning.

Donationa to compete are $30 for single, $45 for doubles pair, or $5 if you just want to watch.

Competitors will tackle the next three Monday-Wednesday New York Times puzzles, then the top finisher on each puzzle (perfect in the quickest time) will solve the Thursday puzzle on stage using the familiar white boards.

Additionally, this year there will also be a crossword/table tennis biathlon. The top four finishers at crosswords who sign up for the biathlon will face off in table tennis to determine the biathlon champion.

Last year's singles champion was Thomas Weisswange. More information available at www.pffl.org.

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.

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.

FANTASTIC FEYER

Dan Feyer does it again, but it was no walk in the park this year. Dan snagged his fourth American Crossword Puzzle Tournament championship in a squeaker over second place finisher Anne Erdmann, but third place finisher Tyler Hinman did not finish the puzzle in the alloted 20 minutes (yes, the puzzle was THAT TOUGH this year, so Will tacked on an extra five minutes.)

Dan was consistently on top of his game throughout the tournament, increasing his lead on the final three puzzles he solved to solidly take the first berth in the tournament. All three puzzlers found the bottom left corner particularly sticky in Kevin G. Der's tournament puzzle, but Dan was able to conquer it on the heels of a faster-moving Erdmann. Tyler finally finished his puzzle after the time was up, but the five-time champion had the crowd pulling for him to finish.

B: MOST SMARTEST

Robert Mackey returned to the B finals for the first time since 1998 and became only the second repeat B champion - the only other one was Randy Ross, who won in 1992 and 1996. Robert beat a consistent Westchester Tournament nemesis, Jeffrey Schwartz, and rookie Glen Ryan, who's still trying to find the number of that truck that hit him. Robert's win was quick and convincing, with one Twitter commentator noting that "he made it seem like a Tuesday puzzle".

Other winners today:
C: Benjamin Coe
D: Vegavahini Subramaniam
E: Matthew Paranto
Junior: David Plotkin
50's: Erdmann
60's: Ellen Ripstein
70's: Len Elliott
Senior: Bob Rubin
West: Hinman
Connecticut: Ryan
New York: Feyer
New Jersey: Barkin
Long Island: Thomas Weisswange
New England: Joon Pahk
Upstate NY: Michael Sharp ("Rex Parker")
Mid-Atlantic: Eric Agard
South: Plotkin
Midwest: Erdmann
Foreign: Emily O'Neill
Handwriting: Judy Cole

The 37th American Crossword Puzzle Tournament will be the same weekend next year - March 7-9.

Recapping Saturday's Action!

UPDATED 3/10/2013 5:57 AM

Saturday's puzzles are now in the books, and they from all the stuff I've read on the TPB and my own personal Twitter feeds, I can report that Puzzles 5 and 3 respectively were the ones that separated the field into the haves and have-nots.

With Puzzle No. 6, Dan Feyer increased his lead to three minutes over Tyler Hinman and six minutes over Anne Erdmann. As of Sunday morning, the rest of the Top 10 is Francis Heaney, Stella Zawistowski, Kiran Kedlaya, Howard Barkin, Joon Pahk, Al Sanders and Jon Delfin.

Glen Ryan is the top rookie in 14th place and could make the B finals. Due to scoring changes, the top native B scorer so far is Robert Mackey, who is in 17th place, with Jeffrey Schwartz in 20th place holding down the possible third spot on the B stage.

Benjamin Coe is the other hot rookie this year, currently sitting in 33rd place. His nearest C competitors are Jeff Davidson (67th) and Neville Fogerty (75th).

Puzzle No. 7 kicks off the Sunday festivities at 9:00 a.m. with the finals set to start after the talent show which starts at 11:00 a.m.

THROUGH TWO PUZZLES

Three way tie at the top among Anne Erdmann, Dan Feyer and Tyler Hinman. Four way tie for fourth among Howard Barkin, Francis Heaney, Kiran Kedlaya and Al Sanders. Three way tie for eighth featuring David Plotkin, rookie Glen Ryan and Stella Zawistowski. Bob Mackey is part of a group of nine solvers in 11th place.

Another ACPT Absentee

The always colorful and wackily costumed j!m jen!sta will not be attending the ACPT this year. On the Facebook page for American Crossword Puzzle Tournament Attendees, he notes, "Despite my inclination to holler 'Damn the cardiologist, fill crosswords ahead!', I ended up listening to some alien voice in my head called 'prudence'."

ACPT CONSTRUCTORS ANNOUNCED

This year's ACPT constructors are:

• Patrick Berry
• Patrick Blindauer
• Kevin G. Der
• Liz Gorski
• Lynn Lempel
• Ian Livengood
• Brendan Emmett Quigley
• Mike Shenk

The big news this year is there's no Merl Reagle puzzle this year.

DAVE MACKEY TO SKIP 2013 ACPT

Due to a personal conflict, I will be missing the American Crossword Puzzle Tournament for the first time since I began competing in 2005.

There are a number of issues that are hastening my non-appearance this year, but the main conflict is a commitment to Region III of the New Jersey Music Educators to conduct their Elementary Honors Band this year. As such, I will be required to participate in the selection of the fifth and sixth grade band members on Saturday, March 9 - the day most of the puzzles will be solved. This is a daylong process that will culminate in the selection of up to 360 musicians in three separate Honors Bands. The concert itself is on May 4.

I am pleased to announce that I am not turning my back on crosswords entirely. I plan to get back into construction this summer and I am looking forward to catching up with everyone at Westchester in the fall, and at the ACPT in 2014. Have fun at the tournament, everyone!

We are back!

Damn domain registration. If you can see this we are back. We apologize for any downtime, on this site which davemackey.com actually hosts.