# July 23 NY Times Puzzle was a bear! (spoilers possible, after the first post) **URL:** \ **Category:** The Game Room\ **Created:** [July 23, 2020, 12:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/july-23-ny-times-puzzle-was-a-bear-spoilers-possible-after-the-first-post/916110 "2020-07-23T12:51:44Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 6\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![Maserschmidt](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/maserschmidt/32/18829_2.png) [@Maserschmidt](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Maserschmidt)\ **Post date:** [July 30, 2020, 2:41am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/july-23-ny-times-puzzle-was-a-bear-spoilers-possible-after-the-first-post/916110/21 "2020-07-30T02:41:12Z")
The structure of the puzzle made it very quick, in some ways it felt more like a Monday. Hey! A Thursday I won’t complain about. 🙂 ---
**Author:** ![RitterSport](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/rittersport/32/6326_2.png) [@RitterSport](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RitterSport)\ **Post date:** [July 30, 2020, 11:08am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/july-23-ny-times-puzzle-was-a-bear-spoilers-possible-after-the-first-post/916110/22 "2020-07-30T11:08:45Z")
Yeah, pretty easy. I got hung up on the lower left with a couple of mistakes that screwed some things up, but I still ended up with my new best time for a Thursday, eleven minutes and change. Not quite as zippy as @pulykamell, that’s for sure! Nicely done, there. ---
**Author:** ![Chronos](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chronos/32/134_2.png) [@Chronos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chronos)\ **Post date:** [July 30, 2020, 12:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/july-23-ny-times-puzzle-was-a-bear-spoilers-possible-after-the-first-post/916110/23 "2020-07-30T12:28:13Z")
Hard to say without a basis for comparison. But it sounds like they follow the same schedule as the NYT: Get harder through the week, Thursday has a gimmick, Friday has a theme to the long answers, Saturday is straightforward but just plain hard. ---
**Author:** ![pulykamell](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/pulykamell/32/3166_2.png) [@pulykamell](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/pulykamell)\ **Post date:** [July 30, 2020, 12:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/july-23-ny-times-puzzle-was-a-bear-spoilers-possible-after-the-first-post/916110/24 "2020-07-30T12:48:01Z")
Well, reading over at Rex’s site, it does seem this Thursday’s puzzle created a lot of new Thursday records, and was pretty much universally panned as an underwhelming Thursday with poor fill and no challenge. I was not surprised at all to see Rex hate the puzzle, but pretty much all the commentators disliked it as well. I thought it was a decent puzzle, though I do agree the fill was a bit garbage-y in places, I still enjoyed the solve, though I like my Thursdays with a bit more fight in 'em. ---
**Author:** ![RitterSport](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/rittersport/32/6326_2.png) [@RitterSport](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RitterSport)\ **Post date:** [July 30, 2020, 1:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/july-23-ny-times-puzzle-was-a-bear-spoilers-possible-after-the-first-post/916110/25 "2020-07-30T13:03:23Z")
Yeah, usually, there’s a gimmick plus some trickiness. This one was all gimmick. I guess the hard part is that you only have half the clues for the across answers, which could make it harder, but they over-compensated by making the rest of it too easy. ---
**Author:** ![Maserschmidt](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/maserschmidt/32/18829_2.png) [@Maserschmidt](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Maserschmidt)\ **Post date:** [July 30, 2020, 1:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/july-23-ny-times-puzzle-was-a-bear-spoilers-possible-after-the-first-post/916110/26 "2020-07-30T13:18:33Z")
I just noticed that I got a personal best as well for Thursday. And skimming through the comments section on the website, it seems we are not alone in that! [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/july-23-ny-times-puzzle-was-a-bear-spoilers-possible-after-the-first-post/916110.md?page=1)