I am a puzzle lunatic. I have always adored crosswords, and when Shawn did a post defining "enigmatologist", I knew she was talking about Will Shortz.
I thought it was too early to talk about the American Crossword Puzzle Tournament, but today I got my application form in the mail. My previous post on this topic is here.
This year's tournament is from March 24-26, where it has been since 1977: the Stamford, Connecticut Mariott.
I went about 3 years ago with my Dad. We stayed at theMariott. I met my puzzling hero, Merl Reagle. (He's not so puzzling, really.) No one makes better puzzles: Funny, challenging, fair.
My Dad and I did OK. We placed about the middle of the pack. But considering that "the pack" consisted of people willing to spend their hard earned money to fly, drive, bus to Stamford and then pay to stay in a hotel just to meet and greet the puzzle glitterati, and to compete with some of the world's best solvers, it's not so bad. Also, many puzzle constructors are among the contestants.
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One of the reasons we haven't returned is that the trip from LaGuardia to Stamford is tedious--not to mention the LaGuardia experience itself--our flight back was cancelled and after boarding and deplaning several times, we wound up at a subpar hotel right after the kitchen closed.
For those of you who would like to participate but don't want to travel to Stamford, they offer the option to test yourself by mail: They'll send you the complete set of puzzles, you take them and time yourself, send them back, and they will return your corrected puzzles and tell you how you would have scored in the categories in which you were a candidate, had you been there.
If you prefer doing your puzzles on line, this year they also offer the option of solving by computer. Beginning the weekend of the tournament (Saturday, March 25), the puzzles will be posted one at a time. Solutions will be scored instantly and you will be ranked and scored against other contestants. You can't win from home, though.
If you go, you can participate in the First American Sudoku Smackdown, and in a trivia quiz hosted by Ken Jennings (you all know who he is).
There will aso be a special screening: "Wordplay," the new feature documentary of the 2005 Americal Crossword Puzzle Tournament--an Official Selection of the 2006 Sundance Film Festival. It features Will Shortz, Merl Reagle, Jon Stewart, Ken Burns, The Indigo Girls, Mike Mussina, Daniel Okrent, Sen. Bob Dole, and Bill Clinton. Wow. Maybe I should go...
I guess I'll do them at home, with my kitchen timer, as I have the last couple of years. I still haven't gotten the hang of doing crosswords on my computer at home. I can, but my time is much faster with a #2 pencil.
[More images from Pixelhead]
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