Last week’s American Crossword Puzzle Tournament at the Brooklyn Marriott was great, as always. I brought a whole stack of printed Devil Cross puzzles and put them on one of the tables in the hotel lobby in between one of the rounds, and much to my amazement, they were all gone when I came back. I figured that either other solvers took them to solve, or some Marriott employee found them lying around and threw them away. Here’s hoping it was the former.
As for the tourney itself, I finished in 187th place out of nearly 600, which is my best finish thus far. Just a little more practice — say, solving 100,000 more puzzles and learning how to upload directly to my head Matrix-style the answers and clues to every single crossword ever — and I should be at the top with five-time reigning ACPT champ Dan Feyer. Congrats, Dan! Of course, the best part of the ACPT is just hanging out and chatting with friends who are just as into this whole puzzle business as I am. There are too many to name here, so I’ll just say good show, everyone! Let’s do it again sometime.
Oh, and here’s some other exciting news which I carelessly forgot to mention two weeks ago: Devil Cross puzzles are now available for download on the Android app Words With Crosses! Thanks a bunch to Adam Rosenfield for making that possible.
Enjoy today’s puzzle. There will be a new one on March 29.
Well done.
Great theme idea! I never would’ve thought of using [50-Across] as a revealer. How’d you think of it?
Thanks. I’m always thinking of possible theme revealers and ways to execute themes based on them. I’ve had this one on my list for a while because it’s a nice 15-letter entry, but I had some trouble getting my various grids to cooperate.