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.

The $199,000 Answer: Who is Joon Pahk?

The oft-intersecting worlds of crosswords and game shows have been colliding for roughly the last week or so. Joon Pahk, B division winner of the 2010 American Crossword Puzzle Tournament and also a constructor, has been making regular appearances on "Jeopardy!" and thanks to broad general knowledge and kamikaze wagering on Daily Doubles, has amassed $199,000 over his first seven appearances on the program. (Opponents found both Daily Doubles in the Double Jeopardy! round on Tuesday's program, but Pahk still made it a runaway.) As early as his second or third appearance on the program, Alex Trebek was already making comparisons to Ken Jennings, the show's all time money winner. Pahk can't say if he's still taping the show or how much he's won, but he's been reporting nightly on his adventures to his Facebook friends after the show has aired. Nancy Shack has been making his appearances available on YouTube; later today we'll post a complete list of links so you can track his progress.

It's generally held that the best showing by a crossword personality on a game show prior to Pahk's run has been that of Stanley Newman, the New York Newsday crossword editor, who won $112,480 (about $177,000 adjusted for inflation) on the 1991 program "The Challengers", hosted by Dick Clark and produced by game show master Ronnie Greenberg. (Yes, Jennings competed at Stamford in 2006 and won C division and rookie trophies - that was also the year I won the D trophy - but he hasn't been back to the tournament.)

There have been a number of other crossword and other puzzle folk who've been on "Jeopardy!" including Ellen Ripstein, Stella Zawistowski, and Scott Weiss, whose crafty wagering enabled the show's first and only three-way tie. Comment if you know of others and I'll add them to this post.

The Fabulous Fifties

In 2011, the Puzzle Brothers will become eligible to compete in age-related brackets at the ACPT for the first time. Coming off a very strong Westchester Tournament win in which he swept all the puzzles, Bob Mackey is going to be the new force in the 50's age bracket. (Me, minorly so.)

We are absolutely pleased to be in the same company, albeit for a few years, with former champions Ellen Ripstein (who will join the 60's bracket for the 2013 tournament) and Jon Delfin (2015), as well as prominent non-winner Al Sanders, who at the age of 52 is our closest contemporary among the elite solvers. By 2019, Trip Payne will be in his 50's as well... it's going to be interesting to see if we can all hold our skills as we rack up more tournament experience.

12th Westchester Crossword Tournament

BOB MACKEY MAKES HIS A DOUBLE

Bob Mackey makes room for another trophy on his increasingly crowded mantel as he has taken his second straight Westchester Crossword Tournament. Jeffrey Schwartz placed second, and Elaine Lippman was third.

Elaine finished the stage puzzle - next Thursday's New York Times puzzle, constructed by Doug Peterson - first, but left one letter blank, giving Bob, who finished perfectly in second place, the win. Jeffrey Schwartz finished not soon after Bob.

Taking a cue from past ACPT winners, Bob didn't react to Elaine's call of "Done" - he just kept plugging away at his puzzle. Even after he walked over and saw the one blank square on Elaine's grid, he still didn't realize he was the winner until Elaine was announced in third place.

The tournament program was the same as in previous years - the first three puzzles were the Monday-Tuesday-Wednesday puzzles from the ensuing week's New York Times. (Brace yourselves for an unusually shaped grid for Monday's puzzle by Patrick Blindauer - that's all I'm going to say.) The first place finisher from each puzzle goes on stage to complete Thursday's puzzle. Elaine was first on the Monday and Tuesday puzzles; Bob got to the podium by finishing second on Tuesday by the slimmest of margins. Jeffrey was in third place on Puzzle 3, getting in by benefit of first-in finisher Ken Stern having one wrong square, and second place on that puzzle was Bob. (Thanks to Ellen Ripstein for the correction.)

Stan Kurzban acted as head judge, and other judges included Pat Merrell, Ellen Ripstein, Nancy Schuster, Frank Longo, Patrick Blindauer, Tony Orbach, Deb Amlen, Ashish Vengsarkar, Mike Nothnagel, Caleb Madison (who became the youngest NYT constructor ever this past year), and - much to the relief of the elite solvers - Howard Barkin.

As always, the tournament was held for the benefit of the Pleasantville Fund For Learning, with our hosts supplying coffee and pastries for our enjoyment. All in all, a great night - and we're already looking forward to next year.

Games Time

Hello from my perch just outside the Jackie Gleason room at the Marriott. Right now, the Saturday evening festivities have ended and it looks as though the game time will be a little more participant friendly than last night.

The standings are up on the website now and here's how the top 10 stack up after 6 puzzles:

1 Tyler Hinman
2 Howard Barkin
3 Francis Heaney
4 Trip Payne
5 Ellen Ripstein
6 Roger Barkan
7 Al Sanders
8 Katherine Bryant
9 Jon Delfin
10 Kiran Kedlaya

19 Robert Mackey

58 Dave Mackey