ACROSS LITE PUZZLE: [ THEMELESS MONDAY]
PROGRAM: [Across Lite]
PROGRAM: [Java]
PRINTOUT PUZZLE: [ THEMELESS MONDAY]
PROGRAM: [Adobe Acrobat]
I have been inhaling marker fumes all weekend. I haven’t sniffed that much eau de Sharpie since, oh, I dunno, fifth grade? You see, us judges at the American Crossword Puzzle Tournament graded papers by coloring in incorrect squares. Yellow means wrong, pink if you accidentally colored a yellow square you didn’t mean to, blue for correct squares if it was easier to just focus on the right words. Hours and hours of coloring in little tiny squares. I think the beeping noises in my head are starting to dissipate. Let’s do this write up, shall we?
To the surprise of, well, really nobody, “Steely” Dan Feyer won. This was a complete ass-whupping from the get go. Oh, to be sure, there was plenty of worthy competitors: Howard Barkin, Anne Erdmann, Tyler Hinman, and Trip Payne, second to fifth place finishers respectively. But let’s face it, Dan was in “there is no fucking way I’m going to lose this” mode since Saturday morning. It’s up for debate he’s been in that mode since the end of last year’s ACPT. Who knows? Total domination from puzzle number 1. Him winning this tournament was never questioned. I butchered an NBA metaphor for the Visual Thesaurus on my Saturday recap when I called Dan’s stunning statistics of his 25+ puzzles-a-day training regimen for the last two years as practically “Wilt Chamberlain-esque.” I opted out of butchering another NBA metaphor in my Sunday recap, but I’ll do it here: Dan was like Larry Bird at the 1986 three point contest. Before the shoot around, the Celtics legend walked into the locker room, surveyed the competition and asked: “Who’s finishing second?” The unspoken question in the Brooklyn Marriott seemed to be the same thing. </Grade Z Bill Simmons impersonation>
BEQ.com note: Dan, Howard and Anne regularly post their blinding speeds in that leaderboard over there to your right, Tyler’s one of my test sovlers, Trip catches up on all the Hard ones monthly. Coincidence that they’re the best of the best? I think not.
Thank you to all the regular readers who introduced themselves at the ACPT. It was a pleasure to meet you all. I may post some of your pictures, or at least some links to them on Facebook or Flickr, on Wednesday. I will also announce a winner in the “find my brother-in-law’s father-in-law” contest. He finished 110th overall, and 8th-best in the Rookie division. Not too shabby, Stuart. Oh yeah, big ups to another one of my test solvers, Joon Pahk: winner of the B division, 16th overall. Okay, where was I? Yeah, for Wednesday I also plan on posting a “behind the puzzle” thing of my ruthless puzzle #5 as well. BTW: it’s never too late to do the Tournament puzzles by mail.
Brief reminder: if you’ve enjoyed the puzzles for February, and you find have a little bit extra in your wallet, please consider hitting up the tip jar. One random donor from this week’s drive will receive their choice of anything in the BEQ.com store. Thanks again for the support.
Congrats again to Dan, and all the contestants. Share the puzzle. New one and more wrap-up on Wednesday.
Great puzzle #5. Kicked my ass on Saturday!
I’m headed out to a boring meeting, so BEQ is coming along. Today’s puzzle should provide just the right degree of frowning concentration and deep thought writ upon my features…. the first couple of clues I looked at were ouch-inducing.
Thanks for the great write-up; looking forward to more, Mr. Q.
Ruthless indeed. I solved the set online, and your puzzle absolutely destroyed me in the rankings. Which just means I need to train harder, here. Next time, maybe I’ll crack the top 300.
I didn’t get a chance to say hi (except in passing) at the tournament. I’ve been doing your blog puzzles, and I finished Puzzle 5 cleanly with 6 minutes to go. Coincidence? I think not. I knew that to hang on to the #1 spot in CT, I’d need a hard Puzzle 5, so thanks! I’ll be hitting the tip jar!
BEQ, thank you for the write-ups, and for the Puzzle 5 that was right on my wavelength! It wasn’t until then that I felt like the front-runner.
I’ll always be in awe of you, and Tyler, and Trip, since my skills are pretty much limited to solving these things…
when you hear the beep, you’re there.
Was a great weekend all around.
Another cool thing about the ACPT is you can talk to and thank the people that make the puzzles you enjoy solving during the year.
Plus, you have a rare opportunity to contribute directly to the ‘tip jar’ via beer. Post-ACPT, I highly recommend the tip jar, though.
Will solve this one sometime later, as I puzzed ’til my puzzler was sore (apologies to Dr. Seuss).
great weekend. nice to meet everybody, and congrats to dan, howard, anne, and all the other winners.
really smooth puzzle today, too. loved that triple stack, although why must SCOTTISH/ABERDEEN and CHARLES/GENERAL have the same number of letters?!? at least it’s a lot easier to “erase” in across lite.
The “with” puzzle was also my downfall in the online ACPT. It was a great puzzle though and I was able to finish it in about 20 minutes after the deadline when I relaxed enough to figure out the theme. All in all 45 min is not a bad time for me for a challenging BEQ puzzle.
Congrats to you too, Joon, fantastic debut! You’ll be contending for A finals soon. Like, next year. Augh!
And ditto on Dan’s comment. I don’t think I could produce fill for a 3×3 square on my own. I’m in awe of all constructors.
Brendan, I owe you for “RIFTVALLEY” in #5 and will repay via tip jar. 🙂
Hey now, I was going to mention that entry in my Wednesday post!
I’d stopped believing you recently when you called a puzzle hard. I’m a believer again.
Congrats to Dan above.
And to Joon. (And to anybody else who won I might have missed or whose names I don’t recognize above.)
If it had been RIFT GULLEY I would have been clean this year. So close.
I should probably know this, but what’s a SERT? Or plural SERTS? I figured FODOR was right, but I had no idea on 22A.
Thanks again.
Shoot, I should have participated in the find your brother-in-law’s father-in-law contest, because I sat by Stu both days and I chatted with him and Helen for a good hour and a half. (Stu, if you’re reading this, congrats on the award, and keep in touch!)
I’ll echo Jan and say that, so far as I can tell, the only reason I was able to go clean on #5 with a few minutes to spare was because I was tuned into the BEQ wavelength from all the puzzles I do here every week. Ba-zing!
Yeah, I looked up SERT(S) and couldn’t figure it out.
I also don’t get the answer to 12 down. It must be a play on words that I’m not understanding.
I don’t get SERTS or ARCO, either. Never heard of GORAN IVANISEVIC (I assume that’s how it splits — the R was the last letter to fall) or SANDRA OH (or is it Oh, Sandra!) or the SAONE River.
Had GROAN at 47-D, but that was no biggie. Loved going from CLAP to ROAR to, finally, PEAL at 10-D.
RENE McLean didn’t even show up at OneLook.com when I typed in ?ENE MCLEAN. And all google gave me was Jackie. WTF, BEQ? Is this some guy in your neighborhood?
Love your puzzles…but will wait a few weeks to let the memory lapse and try again in the comfort of my home for another go at #5. Whew! My claim to greatness begins and ends that it was corrected with yellow and not blue. And thank you for the photo op with you Saturday night. I owe you a six pack of PBR next year. My goal as a rookie was to be in the top 200 and was successful. Best of all was meeting all of these great, fun people who don’t think wordplay nerdy.
SERT(S) is referring to the artist Jose Luis who made the mural at Rockefeller Center, American Progress. Sheets is referring to music and ARCO is with a bow.
Tough puzzle got the whole bottom but needed significant help in the center and in the NE.
There is some evidence on Google that Jose Maria Sert was the creator of the two works mentioned in the clue.
Brendan,
Congratulations on your #5 this weekend! I thought it was very tough, but exceedingly fair to solvers, even though I had to stare at one $&!%# letter for several minutes before figuring out my mistake. Keep up the great work.
I wiped out on #5 (though not as badly as I had thought I would after the first few panicked moments) and literally felt like my brain had been twisted and subjected to aerobic exercise. Aerobic exercise is good. This proves I should’ve started doing BEQ puzzles sooner than a month ago.
However I did meet my goal of not making stupid mistakes on the other puzzles!
Bizarre… Totally smoked that one – for my crossword solving level anyway, I don’t think I’ve finished one of your themelesses in even twice this time before! And it was nearly the same as today’s (Tuesday’s) NYT! Anyone else hesitate putting in 25A considering BEQ was heading down that path again… First entry: RHODESIA a gimme and was all plain sailing from there! Lots of frabjous entries as usual, though lots of “foreign” too!
Bizarre… Totally smoked that one – for my crossword solving level anyway, I don’t think I’ve finished one of your themelesses in even twice this time before! And it was nearly the same time as today’s (Tuesday’s) NYT! Anyone else hesitate putting in 25A considering BEQ was heading down that path again… First entry: RHODESIA a gimme and was all plain sailing from there! Lots of frabjous entries as usual, though lots of “foreign” too!
BEQ, you da man. #5 busted me. Had every square filled but there were 5 errors. I was looking at it and looking at it and just couldn’t parse the whole thing, even tho I’ve lived in BEQ-land for a while now. Sigh. The frustrating thing for me is that it was do-able. I shoulda, coulda, woulda….Maybe next year.
Thanks for clearing up “arco” for me.