Will Shortz says it’s Thursday+ in difficulty. Others say it’s like Monday-Tuesday, with the theme thingy added on.
Damn… if that’s all the tougher it is… well, I guess I’m not so good. I usually solve it (many times with 1 or 2 letter errors, which drives me nuts!).
So, Dopers, what do you think about this great challenge? It’s a famous benchmark , but do you think it lives up to its reputation?
A guy who rents a room from me is a cruciverbalist, and he waits all week long for for the Sunday NYT. He says it is the most difficult regular crossword. He usually completes it, along with two others, by noon on Sunday.
I usually complete it, but not by noon. (But then, I don’t usually even start it by noon.)
It’s not the hardest puzzle, although sometimes it’s pretty hard. What I notice is that once I’ve worked out what the theme is, that usually makes it easier.
Today the newspaper left off a bunch of the Down clues. That made it a lot harder.:mad: I don’t think this was done on purpose. I think the newspaper blew it. (One other time I remember, the newspaper printed both the NY and LA Times puzzles and reversed the clues. That was fun…)
Yes, they’re easier once you discover the theme, or what I call the “gimmick.” But what I love even more than the NYT puzzles are the “World’s Most Ornery” from *Games *Magazine.
It’s definitely not the hardest regular crossword. The Saturday NY Times, for instance, is much harder than the Sunday.
It’s also no harder than an SF Chronicle Sunday, or the NY Sun.
It’s the standard, though, and rightly so. The NY Times established the rules for good crosswords - no two-letter words, symmetry, no squares that aren’t part of both an across and a down clue, etc.
I never noticed that.
To the OP: You can buy books of them and find out for yourself. I find the more I do crosswords, the easier I can solve them. I once solved a Sunday crossword, but I had a boring job as a receptionist and basically spent all day doing every crossword I could find.
I think the Sunday puzzle is about a Wednesday-Thursday level. Not too hard, especially once you’ve figured out the gimmick.
Actually paying attention to the title of the puzzle helps to figure out the gimmick. A couple of times, I’ve been stuck, until I noticed the title. And for me the worst are the letter substitution type of puzzles. For example, there might be multiple answers of the form three [something] but there is only one blank square before [something], so you need to use the numeral 3 to fill in the blank.
I’d say it’s not as hard as it could be, but it’s still pretty challenging. The theme adds a nice touch, and I find that once I understand what a puzzle’s theme is, the theme helps a lot.
If Shortz says the big Sunday puzzle is about a Thursday in difficulty, I’m inclined to believe him–to me, the Saturdays are difficult, the Thursdays (and Sundays) are challenging but doable, and the Mondays aren’t much of a challenge at all.
I’ve only recently started doing crosswords in earnest, and I can usually do the Sunday NYT puzzle in about 2 hours. I tend to hit a wall halfway through, but once I figure out the theme, it gets easier.
BTW, if anyone’s interested, the documentary Wordplay (about Shortz and some of his celebrity fans) is airing on 3/26 on IFC at 3:05 AM and 8:30 AM PDT. I’ve heard it’s quite interesting and I’m looking forward to seeing it.
Merle Reagle (sp?) does this too, but sometimes even worse. The specific one that comes to mind is a puzzle where the theme clues all contained the word “water.” Just as you say, instead of five boxes there was only one, in which the solver had to draw a little picture of a drop of water. While I wasn’t a huge fan of that specific theme, I do love Reagle and think his puzzles are the most fun out there.
This sort of thing is what’s known as a rebus theme, and I, for one, love them.
I just started one titled “Cruciverbalist”. Not much help so far.
We get the Sunday Puzzle a week later.
Actually, that puzzle was about a month ago. The gimmick isn’t very tricky and the title is definitely related.
The name does not open any doors. I figure at the end it will be ,Oh thats what it means’. But often the title will give immediate help.
I assume that you don’t want to know what the word means, or else you’d Google it. So I won’t spoil it for you.
True dat. i prefer to battle away.
I believe that, back in the days of Eugene T. Maleska, brand names were also not allowed. Perhaps Will Shortz changed that?
Thanks for the responses. I’m kind of surprised that, from my searches, there isn’t too much about this classic challenge on the web.
If you’re particularly interested in the New York Times crossword puzzle, you might like to read the NYT blog about it, located here. They post about each day’s puzzle, although I recommend not reading the daily entry until after you’ve attempted the puzzle.