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Fireball Crosswords

A MAD Look at Crossword Tournaments

Check out this blog entry from Patrick Merrell. Constructor Merrell is a sometime member of MAD Magazine's Usual Gang of Idiots, and one of the contestants at the Westchester tournament on Friday Night was the magzine's longtime art director, Sam Viviano. There are some great caricatures here of the likes of Frank Longo, Amanda Yesnowitz and Tony Orbach, but there's one unidentified caricature that looks like it could be the Puzzle Brother who DIDN'T get to be on stage the other night. Patrick is a good guy and we're glad he passed along Viviano's doodles.

JEFFREY SCHWARTZ WINS WESTCHESTER TOURNAMENT

In a very close final round, Jeffrey Schwartz won the 13th Westchester Crossword Puzzle Tournament over second place finisher Bob Mackey and third place finisher Ken Stern.

All three contestants finished the Thursday, October 1, 2009 New York Times puzzle by Patrick Blindauer and Rebecca Young perfectly. The three preliminary puzzles, which you can solve this Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday in the Times, were by Lynn Lempel, Paula Gamache, and Kevin G. Der.

Mackey finished first on puzzle 1, Stern on puzzle 2, and Schwartz on puzzle 3. Both Stern and Schwartz finished with mistakes on puzzle 1 ahead of Mackey. Schwartz and Stern were virtually tied on puzzle 2, but Schwartz later stated that Stern had his hand up a split second ahead of him. Schwartz finished first perfectly on puzzle 3.

Besides Gamache, Blindauer and Young, officials in attendance were head judge Stan Kurzban, along with Fred Piscop, Ellen Ripstein, Helene Hovanec, Deb Amlen, Pat Merrell, Nancy Schuster, Adam Cohen, Howard Barkin, Dan Feyer, Tony Orbach, Frank Longo, Bob Bernstein, Mimi Raphael, Caleb Madison, Joe Cabrera, Mike Nothnagel, and Ashish Vengsarkar.

The annual contest, hosted by Pleasantville's own Will Shortz, benefits the Pleasantville Fund for Learning. Shortz noted that there were 67 contestants this year, which might be a record. It was also mentioned that the Tournament and other fundraisers netted the Fund for Learning, which benefits programs in Pleasantville's three schools, over $25,000 last year.

The image gallery is now up. I recommend you go there after you've solved Thursday's NYT puzzle. For more pictures, check out Elaine Lippman's Facebook gallery - thanks Tyger!

ACPT DATES MOVED ONE WEEK EARLIER

The American Crossword Puzzle Tournament will be held one week earlier than originally scheduled. The new dates are February 19-21, 2010. Venue continues to be the Brooklyn Bridge Marriott.

Westchester Tournament Is EARLY This Year!

CORRECTION - Date confirmed by Will Shortz

The 13th annual Westchester Crossword Tournament will be held in September this year - it will be on Friday, September 25. Location will once again be the St. John's Episcopal Church in Pleasantville, New York, and will be hosted as always by Will Shortz. The tournament will feature light snacks and competition, singly or in pairs, on the New York Times crosswords to be published from September 28-October 1. The tournament once again will benefit the Pleasantville Fund For Learning. Puzzle Brother Robert Mackey will be trying for his third straight win in this tournament.

Congrats In Order

Constructor and competitive solver Stella Daily is getting married today on her birthday. We wish her and Dave nothing but the best as they fill in this new chapter in their lives.

The Case Of The Missing Acrostic

Here, from the Wall Street Journal, which blithely makes room on Friday for a Sunday-sized puzzle which is often very good, is a report on the disappearance of the Hex acrostic from the Sunday New York Times print edition.

Please Stand By

Our webhost is making some changes to our hosting platform. This may result in the site being invisible for a day or two as our new DNS is being assigned. So if you were looking for us and we seem to have disappeared, that's why - and thank you for visiting the Puzzle Brothers website!

ACPT "Dinner Impossible" Airs Tonight On Food Network

Please watch - or set your VCR's, if you still like to use tape, for - tonight's "Dinner Impossible" episode. You will recall that during this past February's American Crossword Puzzle Tournament, the buffet menu was kept hush-hush. Reason for that was it hadn't even come to fruition until hours before the buffet, thanks to daring chef Robert Irvine. The story of the weekend will be told in tonight's episode, "Crossword Puzzle Crisis", giving viewers another look inside a corner of Will Shortz' puzzle empire - and hopefully boosting up attendance at the next tournament next February, just as "Wordplay" did.

Food Network has up its episode page for the show including many of the tasty recipes from tonight's episode. Basically, he created a number of dishes, each based on a famous saying. Such as "soup to nuts" yielded a coconut soup with carmelized nuts. The dishes were then described and tournament attendees including five-time champion Tyler Hinman had to guess the sayings the dishes were based on.

As Crossworders Gather In Boston...

...looming is the possiblity of the Boston Globe print newspaper folding. The Globe carries a weekly Sunday crossword alternately authored by Henry Cook and the team of Emily Cox and Henry Rathvon. For a brief period last year, Liz Gorski was doing some puzzles filling in for Hook. It's too early to think about the crossword's fate now.

We are not at the Boston tournament due to other commitments today but we wish the competitors well and hope to bring you news of whoever is victorious there. Will Shortz is directing the tournament, using next week's NYT puzzles. Ironically, Shortz' boss, The Times Company, owns the Boston Globe.

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.

Chicago Tribune Puzzle To Be Discontinued

Tribune Media Services has announced the discontinuation of the Chicago Tribune Crossword, effective March 22. This daily and Sunday puzzle series was edited by Wayne Robert Williams. TMS has announced that papers currently receiving the Tribune crossword will now be serviced with the Los Angeles Times crossword, edited by Rich Norris.

Last month, the New York Sun puzzles were very quietly discontinued after an attempt by editor Peter Gordon to self-market the remaining puzzles after the newspaper folded. And last year saw the end of the Fred Piscop Washington Post crossword, with its clients now served by Merl Reagle's Sunday.

BEQ Commentary

Here's a great recap of the tournament from judge and Puzzle 2 constructor Brendan Emmett Quigley.

ALL ALONE

It's not clear from this picture if Tyler Hinman knows that the two grids on either side of him have errors.

But he probably already knew that he is the luckiest son of a bitch on the face of the earth. Tyler Hinman, for the fifth straight time ACPT champ, and again at the expense of faster mistake-makers. I guess slow and steady does win the race!

Both Trip Payne and Francis Heaney made the same exact error on their grids. What made this extremely nailbiting was that Tyler was stuck on a word at lower right, and finally broke through and solved it with maybe 1:30 left to go in the 20:00 puzzling period.

Pictures from the awards banquet are now up and you can check www.crosswordtournament.com for all the rest of the standings.

As for us, I finished a very disappointing 66th. (Disappointing considering I could have done much better, but it still ties my best finish ever.) Bob finished 24th. Oh well, maybe next year.

2009 ACPT A FINALS

This is it! The final showdown between (from left to right) Trip, Tyler and Francis. This is the first time all three have had the same starting time. There is an issue with the contestants' headphones that the judges are trying to resolve. Sound check lines: "You're really handsome, Tyler." "You're really handsome, Trip." "Dumb dad sorry for his bet." "1-Across is ZOLAESQUE." "RPI sucks."

Liane Hansen in the house. She, of course, hosts the Weekend Edition Sunday for which Will has been providing puzzles for the past several centuries.

Ready, set, go! All three race out of the starting gate. "A LeMans start, everyone racing for their cars." There is an answer about a key and Francis and Trip both write in _M__OR, smartly. Trip has a little edge so far. 15-A is a very tricky clue that Tyler has nailed. Tyler is almost finished with the upper left. Now he is finished. Both Trip and Tyler have the last Across-clue. Tyler has now pretty much finished the middle. Francis has gotten a lot of the top left done now. Trip has bottom right. Tyler is now working bottom left. Francis has made some progress on the bottom left. Trip has a lot of the bottom right done. Francis is now working upper right. Trip is working for the middle and is now going to the lower left corner. Tyler has about half the puzzle solved. Trip working upper right now. Francis now has half the puzzle solved too. This could be a photo finish. Trip now has a mistake upper right and he's moved away from that corner. Tyler is now working top right. Tyler now has a mistake upper right. Tyler is fixing his mistake now. "Nobody thinks as fast as Tyler does, when backed into a corner. Except maybe Spider-Man." Trip signals done. The crowd reacts to the mistake and Trip says, "You're kidding me!" Now Francis has made the same mistake that Trip has. Tyler is checking his grid... he doesn't look happy. Francis is finishing up. Tyler is rewriting in the bottom of his grid. Tyler is shaking his head. Francis looks to be finishing up. Francis signals done. He's wrong too. Tyler still checking his board. He's AT SEA. He doesn't have a clue! First time in five years, not perfect? He's got some blanks to do. This could come down to what Tyler does in the next five minutes and it could come down to wrong squares!."I don't know," says Tyler. This is nail biting! Tyler has one wrong square and one blank. He knows he has a few more minutes left. Tyler is now jogging in place, doing the Rocky thing. TYLER HAS FOUND HIS MISTAKE AND FINISHED PERFECT! HE WINS!

3rd place - 2 squares wrong - Francis Heaney
2nd place - 2 squares wrong - Trip Payne
YOUR 2009 ACPT CHAMPION - TYLER HINMAN

ACPT 2009 - B Finals

Right to left we have Katz, Feyer, and Len. Since we have two Dans, we're going to call em by their last names. Hope they don't mind. Feyer will have a large head start, :50 over Katz and an additional :05 over Len.

Neal Conan is back on mike this year with Merl. Welcome back, Neal. Hopefully they can say funny stuff that we can tell you about this year. Will did mention that this year, the white noise is on iPods for the first time.

Feyer begins. "It's a beautiful day for a crossword puzzle tournament!" "LET'S PLAY TWO!" Food Network cameras are starting to catch this action as well. Feyer is scattershotting the grid. Katz and Len begin. Katz is working the upper left very rapidly. Len is working on the middle. Feyer has maybe 60% of the puzzle done in less than 4 minutes. Katz and Len are working bottom left. Feyer has most of the left side done so far. No one has made any errors thus yet. Katz has a stray "A" in the upper right. Len's doing quite well on the bottom of the puzzle. If I say "Dan" you'll know who I mean. Feyer just has upper right to do at this point. Katz has significantly more squares to put in. "I've been rehearsing my adlibs all morning," says Conan. Feyer is rapidly finishing. Feyer is checking his completed grid and signals done. Katz is headed to a solid second and Len is lagging behind with a lot of the top still to do. Katz signals doe with about 12:48 left on the clock. It's down to Len now, finishing up to the top. "So you think constructors have an advantage here." "No." "Why?" "Weren't the C finalists all non-constructors?" Len finishes at about 11:00.

3rd place - 8:55, 2 letters wrong - Len Elliott
2nd place - 7:12, perfect - Dan Katz
B DIVISION CHAMP - 6:38, perfect - Dan Feyer

ACPT 2009 - C Finals

The contestants left to right are Jerry, Roberta and Mark.

Roberta has a huge 39 second head start. As always, there is no commentary during this round. Roberta begins with 2-Down, then 21-Across. Jerry is given the signal to begin, with Mark starting third. Roberta pretty much has the upper left corner filled in. Now she begins working the middle. Jerry's got a lot of the upper right done, but not the topmost word. Mark is working the upper right as well and is now migrating lower into the right center. Roberta's got some right center action going too. Jerry is beginning to work further down into the puzzle. Mark has nothing on the left side of his grid yet. It appears that Roberta now has the top half of the puzzle. Mark is starting to go to the left. Jerry now has the entire top half filled in too. Roberta is working lower left. Mark has lower left finished. Jerry is erasing something. Roberta is now working the last section of her puzzle. Mark is in the upper left. Jerry is filling in the center square section. Mark signals done first. Roberta finishes second (the head start apparently doing her no good) and Jerry will finish third.

3rd place - one letter wrong Jerry Cordaro
2nd place - Roberta Strauss
C DIVISION CHAMP - 5:46 - Mark Dixon

ACPT 2009 Finals - Meet The Finalists

C
3rd place - 10,435 - Mark Dixon
2nd place - 10,560 - Jerry Cordaro
1st place - 10,955 - Roberta Strauss

B
3rd place - 11,380 - Len Elliott
2nd place - 11,430 - Dan Katz
1st place - 11,930 - Dan Feyer (tied for A)

A
There was a four way tie in the A Division. Due to tiebreakers, here are the three who will compete.

3rd place - 11,930 - Francis Heaney
2nd place - 11,930 - Trip Payne
1st place - 11,930 - Tyler Hinman

My Tournament Is Over

This is our first blog post from outside the Jackie Gleason room, which for years was our standard haunt.

My happy ending didn't happen this morning. I made one mistake on Puzzle 7, and I did have the time to check it over and fix it. I saw the clock reaching xx:00, raised my hand, realized I had two squares unfilled, and filled them in, one wrongly. Ugh. There goes my Top 50 goal.

Puzzle 7 by Mike Shenk. Puzzle 8 will be Patrick Berry.

Stay tuned as we live blog the finals and hopefully maintain our standards of getting you the big news out there as it happens!

Chef Revealed

Will Shortz and Robert Irvine - the Food Network chef who will be creating today's luncheon menu - commandeered the ballroom for an interview this morning. The filming is for Irvine's series, "Dinner Impossible".

Sunday Morning In Brooklyn

Snow, foreboding a larger storm this evening and tomorrow, is starting to fall outside the Marriott. The Puzzle Brothers went to bed around 1:00 a.m. after playing some Fluxx games with the likes of Joni Dashoff and Doug Hoylman and members of his crew.

We understand that there was filming at 3:30 a.m. this morning for a Food Network segment related to the luncheon this afternoon. We still don't know who the chef is that is concocting our meal, but Will Shortz noted that it's going to be revealed sometime this morning.

Game Show Night

We'd like to thank the three ladies who joined us on our "Family Feud" team, including Susan Boardman, Harriet Geller and Fiona Newman (our scribe from Canada). Although we didn't get on stage to play the game we thank you for your enthusiasm!

The "Chain Reaction" game was actually the show's current endgame, which has been used in various forms on other Bob Stewart shows like "Go". Two contestants alternate words in asking a question to get a third player to say a word, name or place.

Stan Newman's trivia games were a lot of fun; he says he'll be asked back to do the next one in about ten years.

Standings Through Six Puzzles

1. Dan Feyer
T2. Francis Heaney
T2. Trip Payne
4. Tyler Hinman
5. Al Sanders
6. Jon Delfin
7. Roger Barkan
8. Amy Reynaldo
9. Anne Erdmann
10. Katherine Bryant

25. Robert Mackey

50. Dave Mackey (pending review of Puzzle #2 scoring)

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

Puzzles 4, 5 and 6

Here's how the fourth, fifth and sixth puzzles shook out. The fourth puzzle was a 15x by Andrea Carla Michaels and Myles Callum. The #5 puzzle - referred to by various unfamily-friendly monickers - was by Patrick Merrell. For the first time in five years I finished Puzzle #5. And Puzzle #6, as always, was the dessert after a hearty meal - that's the Maura Jacobson puzzle.

I think I'm headed toward a personal best for this tournament. We don't have any posted results yet, but the general feeling in the room is that there may be a new champion this year. Tyler Hinman told me he needed to gain a minute on the Maura puzzle, and just missed it by seconds.

For now, we've got a nice chunk of time where we'll just be chilling. Game Show night begins at 8:00. Look for me or Bob downstairs if you want to be on the Puzzle Brothers' team for Family Feud. Remember: the team must have one under 30, one over 50, and no more than three A or B solvers. The Puzzle Brothers are not quite yet 50 and are A & B, so choose wisely.

New Wrinkles In Scoring System

The actual scoring method hasn't changed, but what has is the way the papers are being processed.

The corrections to the papers are now being done with special green and yellow pens. Then, each paper has a special sticker attached which includes a bar code corresponding to the contestant's number. The papers are scanned and the score table is automatically updated. The score tables will be updated online for those using computers, but I still expect to see papers taped to the walls with everyone's scores.

Moreover, the contestants can now look at the scanned puzzles online by providing their contestant number, and see exactly where they screwed up without having to bother the judges or send endless emails to Will.

The technology to do this is all housed in the Jackie Gleason ballroom. Kudos to Matt Ginsberg and Doug Heller for making this work.

Puzzle #3

A characteristically punny puzzle from Merl Reagle rounded out the morning session. We have heard of at least one top solver who overlooked one of Reagle's sneaky puns. So did Bob, for that matter. BEQ said on his Facebook that Ellen Ripstein was first in on this puzzle.

Puzzle #2

BEQ. And quite a few people didn't survive this puzzle.

BEQ noted on his Facebook page that Kiran Kedlaya was the first to solve this one.

Puzzle #1...

By Byron Walden. What a shock.

Brendan Emmett Quigley is providing tournament updates via Twitter. He noted that Francis Heaney was the first one to finish this puzzle.

Saturday Morning

Bob just got back from a brief sojourn downstairs. He reports the only person walking the earth this hour is former ACPT champion and our elder stateswoman, Miriam Raphael.

We are looking forward to getting back into the action this morning. There were some spirited games last evening and we are looking forward to a little more action on that end tonight, after the game show night presentations.

Bob thinks the eight puzzles are going to break this way:

Michaels/Callum
Merrell
Reagle

Shenk
Quigley
Jacobson

Berry
Walden

We'll see. Keep tuned HERE for all the latest this morning and afternoon as what we came here for - the competition - gets underway!

The KenKen Song

Here's an excerpt from the song about KenKen. Sung by Amanda Yesnowitz with her little band.

KenKen Lecture

Next up was Tetsuya Miyamoto, the inventor of the KenKen puzzle, combining the numeric thrills of Sudoku with the addition of mathematics skills. The first KenKen puzzle, produced in 2004, was a 4x4 puzzle and only used multiplication. He discussed the evolution of the puzzle into its present form.

Test Videos

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.

Number Of Contestants And Other Wrinkles

A list of preregistered contestants indicates that there are 616 pre-registrations for this year's tournament. A fair amount of walk-ins are going to need to walk in to push this tournament over last year's record of 699 contestants.

The Saturday game show night will include "Crossword Clued Family Feud" by last year's producers of the "1 vs. 700" extravaganza, Greg Pliska and John Chaneski. The other game shows will be "Last Quizzee Standing" by Stan Newman and "Chain Reaction" by Will Shortz.

There's also some musical entertainment on the horizon - a small musical group which includes the esteemed Vic Fleming was heard rehearsing a song about KenKen in the ballroom.

UPDATE: Will has stated 645 preregistrations. That may include noncompetitors.

Puzzle Authors in the Tournament

Patrick Berry, Maura Jacobson, Patrick Merrell, Andrea Carla Michaels and Myles Callum, Brendan Emmett Quigley, Merl Reagle, Mike Shenk, Byron Walden

Greetings!

The PuzBros in da house! We have arrived and checked in to our room. We're never quite sure what sorts of stories are going to emerge from this 32nd ACPT but we can assure you this - we will be all over the place gathering stories and soaking up the local color.

I just saw Tyler Hinman yawn.

Welcome to the Tournament!

BEQ's "Biggest Involvement"

Might we actually know the identity of one of the contributors to this year's ACPT? Brendan Emmett Quigley hints of some rather big doings this year.

And On This First Day Of The Tournament...

The Puzzle Brothers present the gallery from the 2006 Community Blood Services Tournament.

Tomorrow

The Puzzle Brothers will be rolling into Brooklyn about late afternoon tomorrow. We usually like an earlier entrance, but circumstances are keeping us closer to home until the latest we actually have to leave and still be considered early. If you are on the New York Times "Cru" we will be happy to see you at the Cru Dinner tomorrow evening.

Mrs. Puzzle Brother will not be with us again this year. In two weeks, she will be having surgery, plus she has other family commitments this weekend. We are both hopeful that Tracy will be healthy enough to join us in full fettle next year.

We will be passing along as many of the particulars of the tournament as we can, but as usual, we have to keep the content of the puzzles themselves secret, as there are online and at-home solvers that the tournament serves and although they are not competing for the big bucks, we would like to make sure their solving experience is as unsullied as possible.

Now, to pack, and to do some final training. As they say in the biz, see you tomorrow!

Meet the Stars!

From today's Chicago Tribune, a profile of that city's other hometown favorite, Amy Reynaldo.

Say Goodbye To The Etui

The changing language of crosswords, as delineated by our friend Erin McKean.

Games Between The Games

For the uninitiated, one of the side effects of the American Crossword Puzzle Tournament - now kicking off just five days from now - is the rabid late-night gaming community. These activities would take place in the ballroom in Stamford, but for security reasons, the ballroom in Brooklyn is closed at night, so the games have moved to tables set up in common spaces. These games are not your dime store, mass produced games. Usually they are boutique card games with small but faithful followings and games that are home made such as "Jeopardy!" boards created by the likes of Adam Cohen and Trip Payne. If you have a Quizzard device, either separately bought or out of the old "Sale of the Century" home game, bring it! It will certainly be useful.

The Puzzle Brothers are going to be bringing three games that we don't believe we've ever seen at the games festival. They are, listed in order of anticipated interest:

• Likewise (Buffalo Games): Up to 6 can play this fast paced party game which harkens back to the original "Match Game" of the 1960's. There are two card decks, one with descriptors and one with nouns. Shuffle the decks and draw one card from each. Everyone must write an answer on their paddles (dry erase pens included) and points are scored for matches. There are 71 of each kind of card, meaning there are thousands of random combinations.
  
  
• PDQ (Gamewright): There is one deck of 84 cards with all letters of the alphabet on it. You draw three cards and you must make up a word that begins with the first letter drawn and has the other two letters in order somewhere within it. Dennis James and Dick Enberg not included.
  
  
• Ninety Nine Or Bust (Legendary Games): Fast action card game, family approved, rated highly educational. Teaches quick addition skills.

We look forward to playing with you Friday and Saturday night!

Two Weeks To Go!

We are but two weeks away from The Big One. I don't know how much solving Bob has been doing, but I've been going like a house afire on Friday and Saturday New York Times puzzles. The other day I did six Merl Reagles in a little more than an hour, so I'm ready for his puzzle, whatever it may be. Still have to drill on some Maura Jacobson puzzles, as she's always the sixth puzzle.

The Puzzle Brothers will be snapping pictures at the tournament and please don't be shy about having your picture taken. The galleries will be created on-site this year, as last year, so you can plug in your notebook and look at pictures from the weekend as things are happening.

From our vantage point as competitors, we will be letting you know how our own personal tournament is going. Last year, Bob finished 23rd (down three places from the year before) and Dave finished 76th (down 10 places). Clearly, we both want to do better this year.

And don't forget that for the last three years, the Puzzle Brothers has been FIRST ON THE WEB with the unofficial tournament results, so if you're not at the tournament this year, just tune into our website and refresh, refresh, refresh to your heart's content! Will Tyler win his fifth? Will one of the new young turks topple him off his crown? What about the veterans like Ellen and Al and Jon? Lots of questions that will be answered on Sunday, March 1. We hope you join us. Look for us in our distinctive TPB gear.

More ACPT Updates

The program is slowly but surely being fleshed out.

The special guest this year is Tetsuya Miyamoto, who is the inventor of KenKen. For the uninitiated, KenKen is a Sudoku-like number game that uses addition, subtraction, multiplication and division to arrive at the correct numbers in each square. The championship playoff round will once again be announced by Neil Conan, who is returning after a year's absence (Grant Barrett did the honors last year). Miyamoto will help hand out the trophies at the awards luncheon, which will feature a buffet menu prepared by a surprise chef from Food Network.

Plans for the Saturday night game show night haven't quite jelled yet.

If you have yet to register, please visit the tournament website at www.crosswordtournament.com and do it today! Credit cards and PayPal are being accepted. The tournament begins Friday, February 27 and ends Sunday, March 1.

Applications Now Being Accepted...

...for the 2009 American Crossword Puzzle Tournament, which will be held on February 27-March 1, 2009 in Brooklyn, NY at the Brooklyn Bridge Marriott. It's less than eight weeks away...can you feel the excitement?

Program highlights this year will be a panel of crossword bloggers, including the team of Ryan and Brian as well as Amy Reynaldo, a Friday night "Pick your Poison" contest, and a Saturday night game show program. All the other fun events you have come to expect from this tournament are still in place. All else you need to know is here, or in your mailbox anon.

Online or Printable Registration