Were the studs finishing the easy puzzles in less than 3 minutes, or less than 4 minutes?
Also, in that competition, are the easy puzzles on par with Monday NYT puzzles?
Also, for anyone that does the NYT dailies with Across Lite, is there any information anywhere about averae/good times/scores? Thanks.
Usually between 3 and 4 minutes – keep in mind that in the finals, the top people get a set of clues at Saturday level of hardness. (There are three levels of the finals, with easy-[ish], medium, and hard clues.)
Easy in the tournament is probably more like a Tuesday or Wednesday.
Dunno on the third.
Paging jackelope, who’s actually competed in Stamford.
twicks, who’s merely judged at Stamford
In the movie, they rewarded time based on what minute you finished in. So, a guy with a time of 3:01 got the same score as a guy with a time of 3:59.
I couldn’t remember if they were finishing in 3:50, or 2:50.
Yes, that is correct (that 3:01 and 3:59 both get credit as having finished in three minutes).
Good competitors use that information wisely – they check the second hand on the Official Clock to see where they are in the minute, and if there’s time, they’ll use the extra seconds to double-check their work (no blank squares, etc.). If they’re close to the minute-change, they have to decide how confident they are about the completeness and correctness of what they’ve written.
I just saw this documentary and was wondering about the puzzle Merl Reagle wrote during the movie, prominently featuring “word” and “play.” Does anyone know what date it appeared in the New York Times?
May 31, 2005
Missed this the first time around; I was in Stamford, competing, while the crew was there shooting “Wordplay.” I also spoke briefly with one of the cameramen, though I don’t think he said anything relevant to this thread.
Less than four minutes, as I recall. As twickster said, finishing in 3:01 is the same as finishing in 3:59; a lot of the old-timers I spoke to said that when you finish a puzzle, you should look at the clock, and if there’s a good-sized chunk of a minute left, use some of it to check over your answers and make sure you didn’t leave any spaces blank. (This would have saved Al Sanders in the final, of course.)
Again, as twickster said, the easy ones are about like a Tuesday or Wednesday puzzle, not terribly difficult for anyone who solves puzzles regularly. Those rounds are a bit like Jeopardy!, where the key isn’t so much knowing the answer as knowing it immediately.
Interestingly, there was at least one round that was a fairly easy puzzle, but was a very large grid, bigger (IIRC) than a Sunday NYT. That one, I suppose, was testing not just how fast you could go, but how long you could maintain speed as well. The cheetah wins in short sprints, but the tiger will beat it after a quarter-mile.
For us Bassett hounds, though, the question of “Who’s the world’s fastest?” is pretty well moot anyway.
I don’t get the NYT daily puzzle, but I am on the mailing list of a friend who send out his own puzzles in Across Lite, and I don’t see how you could tabulate times; the program doesn’t have a built-in timer, does it? Maybe it does; I don’t think I’ve ever noticed it, though.
Dewey Finn, I thought I remembered something in the movie about what was done with that puzzle. Was it run in the LA Times one day? Or come to think of it, was that the puzzle that the celebrities (Jon Stewart, et al.) were seen solving in the movie?
There is a companion book to go along with the movie which answers some of these questions. It also includes most of the puzzles in the film, and benchmarks for scoring yourself.
Thanks, Robot Arm.
Yes, there’s a built-in timer, at least in version 2.0 of the Across Lite software, although it may not be enabled.
I enjoyed the documentary, and even found the ending exciting, even though I knew who the winner was. The tournament looks like fun, but I think it’ll be years before I’m good enough to attend.
The tournament is definitely a lot of fun, and a lot of people attend who don’t have any kind of serious shot at finishing in, say, the top 400. You should go just for the experience.
Thanks for the encouragement. It’s a little amazing that the tournament is still open to all comers, after all these years (although that probably speaks to the small number of competitive crossword players, unlike, say chess). I wonder though if the next tournament, the first after this movie’s release, will be more popular.