ACROSS LITE PUZZLE: [ THEMELESS MONDAY]
PROGRAM: [Across Lite]
PROGRAM: [Java]
PRINTOUT PUZZLE: [ THEMELESS MONDAY]
PROGRAM: [Adobe Acrobat]
New York City’s Jeffery Schwartz took first place in this past Saturday’s Boston Crossword Puzzle Tournament. He decimated David Quarfoot’s upcoming Friday New York Times puzzle ahead of second place finisher Matt Matera, of New Haven, and third place finisher Jan O’Sullivan of Killingworth, CT. I believe for next year, the BCPT organizers will require the top three solvers to be from MA, but don’t quote me on that one. Nevertheless, it’s worth mentioning that all three are regular visitors to the BEQ.com. Coincidence? I think not.
DQ built another beautiful themeless with a ton of outstanding entries, no surprises there. I don’t want to spoil the party, so I’ve blurred out Jeffrey’s grid in the picture above. Actually, all the puzzles were quite juicy. Today’s Times puzzle was the first one, written by BCPT co-organizer Joon Pahk. Yours truly has Tuesday’s, deliberately making the first half of the puzzles a bit upside down. Joon and I are usually known for making harder puzzles. UPDATE: Puzzle is here: [Across Lite] [PDF]
BCPT remains the second-largest crossword tournament behind the grandaddy that’s held each year in Brookyln (this year boasted 129 contestants). While it’s great that Times editor Will Shortz is able to donate puzzles, as well as his graceful emceeing duties, I think the BCPT could start to feature more original work. Though that is slowly changing that as Pat Duggan constructed one just for the BCPT, PDF available here. UPDATE: Will bought Pat’s puzzle on the spot based on the positive response at the tournament, and it will run sometime in the future.
Of special note, contestant Ed Brody of Cambridge, MA, composed a funny song based on the puzzles that were featured in the tournament in between rounds. I was going to ask for the lyrics, but he rerecorded it for this video instead. Needless to say, tons of spoilers in there. Might want to come back to it on Friday.
Oh, and you were asking about the Hip Tanaka reunion show? We have a video of that one, too.
Share the puzzle. New one on Thursday.
Nice wide open grid – I noticed right away that none of the black squares touch. Looking forward to solving it once I’ve had my coffee.
Good one. I was happy to get some of the longest ones right away. That grid was nuts!
Being a long-time (longer than 19A has existed, by far) pro UNIX scripter, I guessed the right answer to 19A, but most of my scripts are in shell so “bash” would be more appropriate here. I normally code down to sh, of course. (And you shouldn’t be like the Linux newbs and assume sh is really bash. Ugh.)
Is this another one of those “in the style of” puzzles,” this time honoring Patrick Merrell? It must be, for the grid is very similar to the one Patrick displays at http://patrick.merrell.org/puzzlepages/pagesadult/1nyt.html (Friday puzzle), right down to the position of the eight 15-letter entries. Did I miss something or is there a reason for the lack of explicit reference here?
Great to see you on Saturday! All the puzzles were stellar, and I’m glad to hear that Will bought Pat Duggan’s puzzle for publication. I had been thinking that it was too bad it wouldn’t appear in the NYT.
I’m sure there would have been an all-MA finals if some of the top MA solvers weren’t so kindly volunteering at the event. And what a wonderful tournament it was; I’m so glad I finally got up there for it. Ed’s song was adorable; thanks for the video.
2D was among the last to fall because I had never heard of THE “ME” RESTAURANT
Despite some trouble getting started in the NW, I actually found this one to be one the easiest Themeless Mondays ever. Lots of short gimmes for footholds and a relatively high 72 words led to what I’m pretty sure is a personal best time. Fun smooth solve. Love the wide open grid, I’m going to steal it.
@Cole – I think BEQ was getting at a “theme restaurant”
Theme Restaurant. The Me Restaurant. They look the same when you’re gras pingats traws.
Yes I know it was intended to be THEME RESTAURANT; but I had THE__RESTAURANT and I was trying to figure out what the two letter restaurant was. THE ME RESTAURANT was not the first to come to mind.
Is it just me or is this puzzle easier than last Thursday’s (which I haven’t completed yet)? Really liked this one – Nice 15s. (Can’t stand stacked 15s simply for the sake of stacking them /pet peeve.) I’m definitely a fan of the overall interlock of this grid, easy to work my way around the tricky spots.
And congratulations, if your note at 17a. in today’s NYT is true!
Can we officially use ‘shotgun’ when referring to a grid where none of the black squares touch?
And, oh yeah…congratulations to you and Liz!
My sister was doing a crossword puzzle and noticed your name on it and said, wowow, he has the same name as one of our Uncles!! We are from Delaware and my Dad, who was a Quigley and died at 86, did crosswords every single day. Kept his mind sharp! He was a witty Quigley!!