14th Westchester Is October 1

One of the favorite tournaments the Puzzle Brothers customarily attend is the Westchester Crossword Tournament, held in Pleasantville, New York, and hosted by Pleasantville's own Will Shortz. The 14th edition of the tournament has been scheduled for Friday, October 1, 2010, at the tournament's traditional home, St. Mark's Episcopal Church in Pleasantville. As is the custom, the event will benefit the Pleasantville Fund for Learning. Jeffrey Schwartz is the event's defending champion; for the two years prior the tournament was won by The Puzzle Brothers' own Bob. We have already marked our calendars for this annual event and are looking forward to seeing all our friends and colleagues in the puzzle world.

Administrative Stuff

We have decided to no longer maintain thepuzzlebrothers.com as a separate domain. Our blog will remain available at thepuzzlebrothers.blogspot.com and will also be accessible from Facebook.

We are in the process of republishing our other pages at blogspot. This may take a few days.

Dan Katz Tries His Hand At "Jeopardy!" Tonight

Puzzlers may recognize the name Dan Katz. So, too, may "Jeopardy!" fans, as twenty years ago there was a five-time champion by the same name. Well, the Dan Katz who placed second in the B division in 2009 (losing to that Dan Feyer guy) is going to be on "Jeopardy!" this evening. Puzzlers have the first chance to root on one of their own since Stella Zawistowski was on a few years ago.

Katz placed 18th in his most recent ACPT, in 2009.

ACPT Video from Time

Return of the Washington Post Sunday Crossword!

Starting Sunday, April 11, the Washington Post will run a weekly 15x themeless. It will be edited by Peter Gordon and will have the following constructors: Trip Payne, Patrick Berry, Frank Longo, Michael Shenk, and Karen Tracey. (Thanks to Trip for the info)

"How I Met" Will Shortz

The tweet from Neil Patrick Harris offered some enticing wordplay in the style of the master as he effused about the show's latest big-name guest star. "Ten letters, 'Death Document' plus 'legless pantz'. I geeked out. I'm a fan."

New York Times crossword editor Will Shortz flew to Hollywood to make a cameo appearance on the hit sitcom "How I Met Your Mother", which stars the former Doogie Howser child star who has become quite an adult star in his own right, thanks to his TV appearances and his riotous performances in the "Harold and Kumar" movie series.

The episode, entitled "Robots vs. Wrestlers", casts Shortz as a guest at a party that Barney and friends decide to crash; another party guest is Arianna Huffington, queen of the The Huffington Post. The episode is expected to air on CBS during the May sweeps.

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 Final Replay

DAN IS THE MAN!

Dan Feyer has won the 2010 American Crossword Puzzle Tournament in a very entertaining "A" finals over Howard Barkin, second, and Anne Erdmann, third. Dan was the only one to complete the playoff puzzle correctly in A and one of only four (not three as originally thought) solvers to do so in all three skill levels.



In his first tournament, Joon Pahk finished ahead of all B-level solvers earning him a trip to the B finals, defeating Katie Hamill and Ron Sweet there.

C division belonged to Louis Lana. He defeated young rookie David Plotkin and Barry Haldiman to earn that crown. Dan Singer had earned a seat in the C finals due to Pahk's ascension to the B division, but failed to show for the playoff round.

Other winners:

D: Beth Welch
E: Ryan Hecht
Junior: Tyler Hinman
50's: Al Sanders
60's: Doug Hoylman
70's: Julie von Hamm
Senior: Mimi Raphael
Rookie: Joon Pahk

West: Tyler Hinman
Connecticut: Jan O'Sullivan
Other New England: Kiran Kedlaya
New York City: Dan Feyer
Long Island: Peter Gordon
Upstate New York: David Plotkin
New Jersey: Howard Barkin
Mid-Atlantic: Doug Hoylman
South: Trip Payne
Midwest: Anne Erdmann
Foreign: Jeffrey Krasnick

Congrats to all the winners. The 34th annual American Crossword Puzzle Tournament will be held on March 18-20, 2011. Hope to see you all there.

expected finalists

A: Dan Feyer, Howard Barkin, Anne Erdmann
B: Joon Pahk, Katie Hamill, Ron Sweet
C: David Plotkin, Louis Lana, Dan Singer

AFTER 7 PUZZLES

1. Dan Feyer
2. Howard Barkin
T3. Anne Erdmann
T3. Tyler Hinman
5. Trip Payne

17. Robert Mackey
49. Dave Mackey

Happy Sunday Morning From Brooklyn

Within a few hours, we will know if Tyler Hinman has won his sixth American Crossword Puzzle Tournament, or if there will be a new champ. What's in his way? Specifically, three people: Dan Feyer, Howard Barkin, and Anne Erdmann. He's somehow got to find a way to overcome the one-minute lead of Barkin and the three minute lead of Feyer, all the while hoping that Anne Erdmann somehow slips. The fourth puzzle will tell the tale.

Early indications are that if there is a tiebreaker between Hinman and Erdmann and everyone was still solving to form, it would go to Erdmann. Cold truth: Tyler may not even make the podium this year.

We'll try to get interviews with some of the contestants and we will be interspersing them throughout our live coverage. Come back here around 12:00 noon and the Live Blogging Window will suddenly spring to life with Robert and myself providing live play by play of all three final divisions.

As expected Puzzle #7 was by Merl Reagle. This leaves Mike Shenk to handle the final puzzle.

Last evening's games were "Clueless Crossword" with John Chaneski. You had to literally remember all of the Across clues from Puzzle #1. This game is a constructor's dream and you really had to think like Stan Newman.

This was followed by "Who Are You" and "Listmania" - in the latter game, teams of four had to complete a series of lists, such as (these are examples) continents, chemical elements beginning with C, or National League baseball teams. The game had written qualifying round and an on-stage playoff round, which resulted in one of the funniest tournament moments ever. The category was "Books of the Bible that end with the letter 'S'". One team member said, "Romans," immediately followed by a loud "SON OF A...!" from another stage player. The room exploded with laughter.

More Videos

Pit game in the hallway.



Who Are You? In this game, you had to guess the name of the girl that was being sung about.

New Vlog

Feyer Maintains Lead After Six

Dan Feyer has continued his good streak at the tournament, holding his fifty-point lead over Howard Barkin after six puzzles. Ann Erdmann and Tyler Hinman remain in the mix, with the top eight having solved the Maura Jacobson grid in less than five minutes. Ellen Ripstein, Katherine Bryant and Eric Maddy maintained their relative positions while each falling back by 25 points.

The Puzzle Brothers have been perfect through the first six puzzles. Bob Mackey is now in 17th place, behind Joon Pahk by 75 points. Pahk will likely be the year's top rookie, with a slot in this year's B finals quite possible. Dave Mackey is 49th, five points behind Barry Haldiman.

Standings Through Five Puzzles

1. Dan Feyer
2. Howard Barkin
T3. Anne Erdmann
T3. Tyler Hinman
T5. Kiran Kedlaya
T5. Trip Payne
T7. Stella Zawistowski
T7. Francis Heaney
T7. Ellen Ripstein
T10. Eric Maddy
T10. Al Sanders
T12. Amy Reynaldo
T12. Katherine Bryant

21. Robert Mackey
48. Dave Mackey

Six Down, Two To Go...

We are recovering from a day of doing puzzles. Puzzle 5 was not the "bitch mother" of previous years... it was a solid, solvable puzzle.

As you can see below the official standings have been posted. We did not realize that Howard Barkin was step-for-step even with Feyer when we posted our vlog about the first three puzzles. Some of our friends from Facebook have been posting their own little tidbits. Stella Zawistowski for one is surprised at her performance (currently tied at 11), since she's under the weather today.

Bob and I looked at our scans of the first three puzzles and they are clean. We think we've both aced the final three puzzles of the day. We are looking forward to No. 7 tomorrow which in all likelihood will be by Merl Reagle, and then the playoff puzzle tomorrow which will be by Mike Shenk. And please remember that Bob and I will be here tomorrow at 12:00 for all the playoff puzzle action, in real time for the first time.

Top Solvers Through 3 Puzzles

T1. Howard Barkin
T1. Dan Feyer
3. Anne Erdmann
T4. Tyler Hinman
T4. Trip Payne
T6. Kiran Kedlaya
T6. Al Sanders
8. Katherine Bryant
9. Ellen Ripstein
10. Steve Smith
T11. Francis Heaney
T11. Eric Maddy
T11. Stella Zawistowski

17. Robert Mackey
57. Dave Mackey

Both Puzzle Brothers were perfect on the first three puzzles.

Day One, Part One

Here are the Puzzle Brothers themselves with their take after three puzzles have been solved by the entrants.

The Official Word

Here is the link to official standings information. The electronic scoring system installed last year has been upgraded with new computers and scanners, thanks to the good work of Matt Ginsberg and Doug Heller. As mentioned before, since the judging will be done in green pen, you cannot use green ink in your solving.

As of last night, the contestant count was 634. That number will fluctuate as people register today and others simply do not show up.

http://www.crosswordtournament.com/2010/standings/rank.htm

We Want To Know About Your Local Tournament

Hi everyone! Good Saturday morning. The Puzzle Brothers are enjoying coffee in their room. Haven't ventured out yet, and we're 2-1/2 hours to showtime.

Anyway, the first thing we bring you this morning is a public service announcement. You will notice that our sidebar has grown significantly since we've arrived at the tournament, thanks to the various flyers hanging around the ballroom and foyer areas. We'd like to help publicize YOUR crossword-related event! If you are the contact person for any kind of crossword tournament, corner us at the tournament with the information. Who are we? The guys wearing the hats!

Night 1 Is Done

Save a few laggards at the bar, no one is staying up late tonight. The first night of the American Crossword Puzzle Tournament saw many of the high-profile solvers steering clear of Friday evening activities. Those who did hang around enjoyed the traditional Friday wine and cheese festivities and social games. The Puzzle Brothers enjoyed the company of many of the contestants who weren't too proud to hang out with the B and under crowd and try to figure out if a Norwegian gentleman was lying or not about how he punched Ingemar Johansson in the stomach at the age of 3.

Our first gallery of pictures is up. We hope to have many more when the big guns surface.

Also, watch the space below, for soon a video will magically appear. This is video of an indignant solver calling in to complain about a recent Frank Longo puzzle. It's sort of hard to hear so Will will provide a translation. I hate rebuses as much as the next person, but geez....

Let The Games Begin... And End

The Friday night icebreaker games have concluded. Eric Berlin brought a variation on Siamese Twins puzzles that used visual clues projected in random order three seconds at a time. Magnus Palm offered a series of statements about Sweden, where he is a puzzle master, and you had to guess true or false. Grand prize: his crossword cufflinks.

The Tournament Before The Tournament

Bob vs. Stan Newman on my themeless. Bob had a one minute head start. Stan pretty much has the puzzle filled in now. But Stan was stumped on some clues. Bob wins this round.

First Juicy News from ACPT

The first rule of the 2010 ACPT is NO GREEN PENS.

The second rule of the 2010 ACPT is, NO GREEN PENS.

Your constructors in no particular order: Patrick Berry, Liz Gorski, Maura Jacobson, Stan Newman, Mike Nothnagel, Brendan Emmett Quigley, Merl Reagle, and Mike Shenk. Only given is Maura is #6 as always.

Haven't counted the contestants yet. Bob will be a walk-on this year.

Jay Kasofsky will be competing for the 33rd time, a unique distinction. The only 32-year competitors are Mimi Raphael and Ellen Ripstein.

Puzzle Brothers On Facebook - Follow Us!

If you would like to see our 2010 ACPT tournament updates on Facebook, please visit http://www.facebook.com/home.php?#!/pages/The-Puzzle-Brothers/332613355217?ref=ts. (Thank goodness you don't have to type that in. We will try to sync both the blog and Facebook.

33RD (and a third?) REVOLUTION

The number 33. It's not a prime number 3 x 11 = 33. It may mean different things to different people. The speed of a long playing record, plus that pesky little third. The mysterious digits on the side of a bottle of Rolling Rock. With an apologetic little ', it becomes a year in the great Depression, the same year that Popeye the Sailor Man made his first cartoon in the New York studios of Max and Dave Fleischer. The year that FDR introduced a lot of his New Deal agencies. But most importantly, the year Prohibition ended.

Whatever the number 33 means to you, to about 700 crossword fanatics, it is the magic number for this weekend as today begins the 33rd annual American Crossword Puzzle Tournament, at the Marriott at the Brooklyn Bridge, the tournament's newly established home. Welcome to our pre-game show.

As always, Will Shortz presides over the marquee event of the cross-world, attracting the best solvers and constructors who gather for an always-magical weekend of solving and side activities. Much of what goes on is already known - games Friday night, cocktail hour afterward, six puzzles Saturday, #5 will kill a lot of on-the-fence solver, "Puzzle number six is by Maura Jacobson," and the nail-biting Sunday finals.

Yet questions remain. The biggest is can Tyler Hinman hang on and win his record-shattering sixth straight ACPT? Is there ANYONE OUT THERE who can beat him? Some say yes. A lot of the crossword community is putting money on a relative newcomer to the elite ranks, Dan Feyer. I fully expect it to be a two-way shootout between Hinman and Feyer. Who will be the third wheel? Lots of logical choices - Trip Payne, Al Sanders, Jon Delfin, Ellen Ripstein... I just can't choose, but the anticipated Hinman-Feyer tilt is going to keep a lot of people in that ballroom after the lower prizes have been handed out.

Sure, the playoff puzzle is the Cadillac event, but the first six hold the key. Those early puzzles are going to be key in determining who takes the stage on Sunday - last year, four solvers were in a dead tie for A contention, and it came down to tiebreakers to determine who went to the podium. (And for the record, that fourth solver who was shut out of A-level contention? Dan Feyer, who went on to win the B division.)

Tournament No. 33 marks the end of an era for Dave and Bob Mackey: The Puzzle Brothers will be competing in their last ACPT ever in which they will not have an age designator next to their name in the standings. Reluctantly, we are entering the ranks of the fifty-plus solvers next year. I fully expect that Puzzle Brother Bob will be the cream of the new crop of 50's as the likes of Al Sanders, Jon Delfin and Ellen Ripstein move on to the next strata.

Naturally, we are excited about what the weekend will have in store. We are looking forward to seeing you all there.

ACPT Registration Up From Last Year

A source within the ACPT has informed me that preregistrations are up from last year. The tournament packet last year boasted 616 contestants. The final number of contestants last year was 675, and the all-time record number of contestants was in 2008, the first year in Brooklyn, when 699 people played in the tournament.

Don't let that statistic stop you! We're looking forward to seeing you in Brooklyn. You could be the next champion if you're good enough, smart enough, and doggone it, if people LIKE you! (Apologies to Sen. Franken.) The 1998 tournament in Stamford had a last-minute entrant who wound up winning the B division and the rookie trophy (I'll leave it to you to find out his identity). So it's not too late. Go to www.crosswordtournament.com and get all the details. Join the party!

Our 2010 ACPT Puzzles

These will be distributed at the Tournament but you can do them at anytime online using Across Lite!

Dave's Themeless
Bob's Themeless
Hold That Note
Lose Weight Now! Ask Me How!

Live Blogging Of ACPT Finals

We are upgrading our coverage of the American Crossword Puzzle Tournament this year.

Thanks to a service called Cover It Live, we will be live-blogging in real time the tournament in a special window on our website. The live blogging coverage will begin at 12:00 noon on the day of the finals, Sunday, February 21. The real time blogging means that you won't have to wait for a round to be finished to get the play-by-play.

Our finals coverage will include live blogging with (for the first time) commentary from both Puzzle Brothers (unless one makes the podium) of all three upper-echelon divisions, C, B and A, fun polls, videos, and hopefully interviews. Results of lower divisions and age and geographic champions will be disclosed at that time as well.

We thank Harry McCracken, an old friend of the Puzzle Brothers for over two decades, for pointing us toward this site. Cover It Live was used quite a bit yesterday at Apple's launch of the iPad, but didn't work quite so well. Over the next few days you will see the blogging window and reminder posts. You can pre-register and get an e-mail reminder. We hope that our live blogging is the next best thing to being in Brooklyn.

If you want to see what the live blogging will look like, visit our sister blog, DaveMackey.com for Dave's annual review of the Super Bowl Sunday advertising campaigns.

Will Will Pong For Charity Tomorrow

Will Shortz is among the celebrities taking part in "So You Think You Can Pong", a charity table-tennis event to be held Wednesday, January 13, at Spin New York, on 23rd between Madison and Park. The beneficiary is 826NYC, a non-profit that helps young people with their expository writing skills.

Other participants in the tournament will include hockey player Sean Avery, actors Mike Myers, Catherine Keener and David Schwimmer, authors Sarah Vowell and Dave Eggers, and chef Mario Batali.

You can support Will or any of the other celebrities via a donation or you can even play in the tournament should there still be spots available. For more information visit their website.

One Puzzle Brother Going To Brooklyn

I have sent in my registration for The Tournament. I am looking forward to seeing my crossword friends in Brooklyn.

When Do We Eat?

The preliminary schedule of events for the 2010 American Crossword Puzzle Tournament has been posted and there is a huge change on Sunday - there is no longer going to be an awards luncheon.

Sunday instead will have the "Puzzler's Variety Program" at 11:00 a.m., followed by a brief awards presentation at 12:00, then the finals at 12:15 in the C, B and A divisions. As always, the Puzzle Brothers will be on the scene live-blogging the finals.

No information yet on the Friday and Saturday evening programs other than the Eric Berlin "Visual Crossword" scheduled for Friday night.

Peter Gordon is Back!

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

WIE Update

A favorite of 3-letter word aficionados, golfer Michelle WIE is still not yet in the LPGA, so please don't clue her as "Michelle of the LPGA" just yet, 'kay?

Will Watch

Heads up for "Who Wants To Be a Millionaire" fans: Will Shortz will be appearing in the role of Expert on the program next week. The "Ask the Expert" lifeline is new to the show this season and the experts rotate roughly every week.

Merl's NYT Simpsons-Related Puzzle

Transparently, it is your basic Merl Reagle puzzle... but I recommend you do this puzzle before watching the show to enjoy all the surprises of this puzzle.

http://query.nytimes.com/premium/xword/Nov1608.puz (Subscription to NYT Premium Crosswords required)

FOX Publicity For This Week's "Simpsons"

I'll leave it to you to figure out which one is Merl and which one is Will.

And does Matt Groening still draw all these himself after 450 or so episodes?

Reworking Galleries

We are reworking the galleries plus adding a few events we didn't have galleries before. We are now in the process of publishing these and if you see little red X's, don't worry, we're taking care of it.

"The Simpsons" To Spoof The Crossword World

In an episode airing on Sunday, November 16, "The Simpsons" will delve headlong into the world of crosswords. "Homer and Lisa Exchange Cross Words" casts Lisa as a whiz at crosswords, so she enters a local tournament. Meanwhile, Homer sees the seamy side of crossword tournaments with its underworld betting scams, and winds up having to bet against his daughter in another tournament. Will Shortz and Merl Reagle will provide their own voices for the episode.

According to some reports, there will be a tie-in with that day's New York Times Sunday crossword puzzle.

Huang Crowned Sudoku King

Veteran puzzler Wei-Hwa Huang has won the second annual Philadelphia Inquirer Sudoku National Championship. He bested first-year champion Thomas Snyder on the final puzzle by a margin of 26 seconds. Here's a report from Marketwatch.

S&S 3 Now Out

Simon & Schuster has just now published the third volume of the Mega Crossword Puzzle Book. The Puzzle Brothers (well, one of them, anyway) have now entered the pantheon of S&S creators, with a puzzle by Dave called "Stretching Reality" - it's a 19x, which is a size unique to S&S. Buy it, if not for Dave's puzzle, but the 299 other puzzles you get in the book. There will be more puzzles to come from both Dave and Bob in future volumes of the Mega.

"Sun" Subscriptions Now Available

Hot steamin' deal! The New York Sun crossword puzzles are now exclusive to the Web, and the first flight of puzzles, through late February, is only $12.50 at the newly-designed Cruciverb website.

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.

Westchester Tournament Tonight

Just a reminder... this evening at 7:30 is the Westchester Crossword Tournament, at St. John's Episcopal Church, 7 Sunnyside Avenue, Pleasantville, New York. The tournament is run by Will Shortz and benefits the Pleasantville Fund For Learning. $30 to compete as a single, $45 for a team, payable at the door. Bob and I hope to see you there tonight.

"Sun" Puzzles Will Continue!

According to Kevin McCann's Cruciverb website, the New York Sun puzzles edited by Peter Gordon will be available free for the next few days, then by subscription thereafter. This comes in the wake of the cancellation of the Sun print newspaper, which as of today (October 1) is no more. I hope you continue to take advantage of Mr. Gordon's skills as an editor, which are quite enormous.

Sun Done?

Unless something miraculous happens - and frankly, there's a lot in New York that could use a miracle right now, right, Mets fans? - The New York Sun will publish its last issue on Monday, September 29.

Crossword? Right now, there's nothing on their crossword pages on their website. That can't be a good sign. However, if you access the Sun directories via Will Johnston's Puzzle Pointers, Peter Gordon has puzzles locked and loaded through the end of next week (Friday, October 3).

I suggest you pull down these files while you still can before The Sun takes its servers offline. And please show your love for Peter and his very hard work by making a donation to Peter Gordon, 15 Shadow Lane, Great Neck, NY 11021, or pokefun@optonline.net. Thank you.

"Sun" Going Down?

According to this media report, the New York Sun newspaper - home of one of the most challenging daily crosswords in the country - may fold within weeks, if new cash is not found.

The modern incarnation of the New York Sun, based on the name of a newspaper that folded in 1950, began publication in April 2002. Soon afterward, the paper began its daily crossword, edited by Peter Gordon. The newspaper itself has a smallish paid circulation and gives many of its copies away, but Gordon's crosswords have become known far and wide as one of the only worthy challengers to Will Shortz' daily dominance - and many find Gordon's work as editor to be top notch and the most challenging daily solve of all.

Second US Sudoku Championship Announced

Thomas Snyder will try to regain his title at the 2nd Annual U.S. Sudoku Championship, sponsored by the Philadelphia Inquirer and hosted by Will Shortz. It will take place from October 24-25 at the Philadelphia Conference Center. Top prize in the expert bracket will be $10,000. More information in the link at the sidebar.

12th Westchester Tournament Announced

The Pleasantville Fund For Learning has announced its annual evening of crosswords, and this year it's a little earlier (shades of the ACPT!). The 12th annual tournament hosted by Will Shortz on his own turf will be Friday, October 3, beginning at 7:30 p.m. Format should be the same as in years past - three preliminary puzzles (October 6, 7 and 8 NYT puzzles) with the podium puzzle being Thursday's.

Last year's tournament was won handily by our own Bob Mackey. Will he repeat? Come on out to the St. John's Episcopal Church on October 3 and find out - and if you can't be here, we'll be sure to let you know.

An Eight Letter Word For Table Tennis....

An April 5, 2008 peek into the world of competitive table tennis, featuring a man who claims to play table tennis for the same reasons many solve crossword puzzles.

The Undersung Crossword Hero

Clearly, the constructors get all the glory. But what about the undersung heroes of crossword making? Such as the guys who ink in the diagrams?

Howard Barkin Wins "Lollapuzzoola"

Full report here.

NYT Black Square Record Broken

Kevin G. Der broke the record for fewest black squares with Friday's New York Times puzzle. The new low-water-mark is 18, beating Manny Nosowsky's old record by one.

NYT 8/22 puzzle (requires subscription to NYT puzzles)

"Lollapuzzoola" This Saturday

"Ryan And Brian" of the blog "Ryan And Brian Do Crosswords" (http://crosswords.ryanfacestheworld.com) are throwing their own crossword tournament. "Lollapuzzoola '08" will be held on Saturday, August 23 from 12-4 at the Community Church, 81-10 35th Avenue, Jackson Heights. The constructors will include Mike Nothnagel, Brendan Emmett Quigley and Ashish Vengsarkar.

What The...

Few extol the virtues of Stan Newman's Sunday Newsday puzzle, but it's a good workmanlike puzzle that is a relatively easy solve.

Most of the time.

There was one answer in today's puzzle (by Shirley Soloway) - in four letters, "Phnom ___."

PENH, right?

WRONG... the answer they were looking for was PNOM.

Ever hear of Phnom Pnom? I tried Googling it (with quotes) and got only 21 hits, most of them nonsense search peeks.

Please strike that word from your databases, kids.