If you ever feel the need to cheat, check out www.oneacross.com. You can type in a clue and search based on patterns. (For example, if you know that the first letter of a five-letter answer is “A”, you can search for “A???”.) It’s actually fairly useful. If you’re a dirty filthy cheater, anyway.
I’ve never, ever been able to complete a Cryptic Crossword. I think I’ve gotten about four or five correct answers in my entire life. And yet, every now and then, I’ll try again and fail again. Even looking up the answers rarely helps. I still have no idea how the clues lead to the answers in many cases. The logic behind them just seems so arbitrary.
Sudoku is fun for a little while, but I too found it a bit easy. I wrote a simple Sudoku solver in Javascript / HTML (works on MOST puzzles, anyway …), which was more fun that actually doing Sudoku.
My grandfather always says it keeps Alzheimer’s away. In a way, it makes sense, I suppose-they say the more you use your brain, the more brain cells or whatever you have. And the more you have, the less likely you end up with Alzheimer’s.
(I still think he’s got some mild demensia-mostly related to strokes).
Sudoku sounds all fine and good for those who like it, but I prefer crosswords because I adore trivia. I have a head for all sorts of useless facts.
I absolutely love them, and my sister does, too. It’s funny, because neither of our parents does them, although our grandmother was always working on one.
I don’t like the super tough ones, like the NY Times one…I’m not that motivated. We both like medium-hard themed puzzles. There’s a great publication called Superb Crosswords that is monthly, and has all themed puzzles, which are pretty much the only ones we do.
I ran an SDMB crossword tourney a while back, using Yahoo puzzles. Maybe I should start another when I get back from vacation.
I started doing the NY Times puzzles again when the New Yorker had an article about setters. I can do Monday and Tuesday ones starting from the uppermost left square and going sequentially across, using mostly across clues, using down clues only to fill in squares I have trouble with. I can do Wednesday’s also some times.
Add me to the list of crossword lovers. I started last year, when I was doing a job that required very little mental labor and I felt like my brain was beginning to shut down. I would usually obssess over it for the day, then use Google to finish it off before I went to bed. Very rarely would I finish the damn things without using Google for at least one or two of the words.
My wife’s a crossword fiend, I could never get interested that much until we discovered cryptics. Something about them just seems way more fun than ordinary crosswords. And if they’re done properly, the answers never seem arbitrary at all, any more than a regular crossword – in fact, they seem like things of beauty.
The trouble with non-cryptics is, if you’re stuck, you’re stuck. With cryptics, there are (usually) two parts to the clue, giving two routes to the answer (although you have to locate the split between them yourself). If one part isn’t helping, try the other. One you get used to the conventions and “cryptic grammar”, cryptics can be easier than the harder straight puzzles. Some of the harder NYT puzzles, with their intimidatingly terse clues, are tough.
You can increase the learning by when an answer you fill in is unknown to you, you look it up on the internets. I have read some interesting articles that way.
I have heard they are a help in keeping old timers away. It makes sense to me.
I am not addicted to crosswords and can stop them at any time.
I have an affinity for the NYT Crossword and do enjoy that one more than others.
Is it really cheating tho’ to look up some clues? I mean, there are crossword dictionaries and stuff, so is it really cheating if there are published books to help you cheat? Don’t the authors expect solvers to do a little looking up of clues? (I’m hoping the answer is yes!) Google and Wiki are my friend in this regard as I usually do the puzzles at work where I have internet access.
I justify looking up clues by telling myself helping me learn. For example I am horrible at geography, so by looking up clues like names of rivers or countries I am really becoming smarter in the process.
Right…??? Right??
Upon edit, I see that gonzomax is with me on clue-looking-up.
I’ve been hooked on crosswords for over ten years. I know there is love for the NYT crosswords, but I’ve always had a love for Los Angeles Times crosswords. They are free online, although registration is required. I worked a very early shift for a while when I lived in LA, so I spent many hours doing the crossword.
Oh, yeah, we are puzzle nuts. I grew up with the NYT, and we are fans of lots of different ones now. ALthough I worry about the amount of brain-space used up by words that I will never find a use for in real life…
Love crosswords. I’ve just gotten back into them after a lengthy hiatus. I subscribe to the NY Times online. I can usually solve even the Saturday ones, but doing them on the computer makes them easier because you can guess wildly and delete painlessly if wrong. With a couple of long flights coming up, I’ll probably print off some from the archives to keep me busy.
That crossword thread was the one that made me think I should go give the national tournament a shot; I put it in my sig line (which I don’t think I’ve used since).
It’s interesting to go back and give that thread a read; I’ve done the Yahoo crossword every day since, and I finish them in under four minutes pretty much every day now. Sunday is the exception; Sunday takes six minutes or so.
It’s weird to see the specific ways in which practice can make you better at something that seems so objective.
I have also enjoyed crossword puzzles since college. I started with the puzzles in our daily student newspaper when I was bored during lectures, and it really took off when I started buying books of puzzles to do on the bus on the way to my summer job. If that makes me old, I’ve been old since I was 18.
I don’t have much downtime right now to do puzzles, but I enjoy them when I do. I subscribe to Games Magazine, which has many different types of pencil puzzles. I like sudoku, but I am not obsessed with them like some (my mother, for example) are…I feel more satisfaction finishing a crossword. However, my favorite puzzles are the ones that Games calls “Paint-by-Numbers”. You use logic to fill in a grid–when you are done, the grid has a picture on it! I’m very surprised that sudoku is everywhere and these are so hard to find comparatively–they are that much fun.
There’s supposed to be a Nintendo DS game that just came out with NYT crosswords…does anyone here have it? Is it good?
ETA: I just re-read the thread and I see that Slacker answered my question. Guess I’ll have to look for it!
It is good. It also has an option to fill in the clue letter by letter as hints (which I use more often for later puzzles) and you can have several different puzzles on the go saved, so if you like you can switch between them.
I have to agree with the satisfaction thing about Sudoku. I do Sudoku when I want a mostly mindless thing to do on the bus, by the time I’m done it’s sort of ‘okay… I’m done…’ and go on to the next one. But when doing a crossword puzzle, especially harder ones that I don’t usually finish, the more of them I get the more satisfied I feel.
I also look up things on Google and such. Learn some interesting things to stuff in the back of my mind.
I think such things are up to the individual solver. I don’t consider it cheating to use a crossword dictionary or other handy resource. But many times, I have nothing handy. Still, when something is handy, I’ll turn to it as a last resort, and not consider it cheating. In other words, as long as I’m not consulting the official puzzle answer, it’s not cheating.
One thing I’m not fond of is when other people say something like, “Oh a crossword! Can I help? What are you stuck on?” While it’s not cheating (IMHO), it’s also not me solving the puzzle if I allow this. At the risk of sounding like a child learning to tie his shoes, “I wanna do it myself, without your help!” At least I can say this here, without offending my Friendly Neighbourhood Barman, who always offers to help when I pop in to do a puzzle while drinking a beer.
Since we seem to have a number of crossword solvers here, I’m going to throw out a question I’ve always wondered about: pencil or pen?
Me? Pen always, and for as long as I can remember.
Unless you’re entered in a tournament where certain rules are spelled out, there’s no such thing as “cheating.”
If you were to ask Will Shortz. he’d tell you the same thing. A puzzle is supposed to be fun. So, if you’re doing a puzzle in your own home, YOU make the rules. If you want to keep a dictionary by your side to look things up, go right ahead. If you want to ask other people around you for help, feel free. You bought the newspaper, so the puzzle is yours. Enjoy it whatever way you like.
