The American Crossword Puzzle Tournament
This weekend I’ll be attending the 48th annual American Crossword Puzzle Tournament (A.C.P.T.) in Stamford, Conn. This will be its last year at the Stamford Marriott, before moving next year to Philadelphia. The tournament has grown rapidly in the last few years. When I first attended the tournament in 2022, all of the contestants were able to fit in the hotel’s ballroom. In every year since, it has grown, and there are now multiple overflow rooms for solvers. People who can’t fit in the ballroom (or who prefer a quieter room) can solve the main set of seven puzzles from one of the basement rooms. The three highest scorers in the top three divisions solve the eighth and final puzzle live on a big whiteboard to determine the winner. The last couple of years registration filled up so quickly that many people who wanted to attend were unable to come. While I am glad that next year there will be more room for everyone to be together, I’m also sad to say goodbye to the hotel that I so strongly associate with the tournament. A.C.P.T. was founded by our crossword editor, Will Shortz, in 1978, and took place in Stamford every year until it moved to Brooklyn, N.Y., for seven years from 2008 to 2014. It returned to Stamford in 2015, where it has again taken place every year except for two years when it was disrupted by COVID-19. Attending the tournament in many ways feels like going to a family reunion. If you walk into the hotel on the Friday evening that the tournament begins, you’ll see many people exchanging hugs and greeting old friends. The hotel bar will be hopping with “crossnerds.” People will inevitably discuss who they think will win this year and what their solving goals are. Many will have the goal of “finishing clean,” or without mistakes, and others hope to beat their ranking from the year before. It’s not uncommon for a rookie solver to have the goal of not coming dead last. With over 1,000 competitors, nearly all of them will achieve this goal. What makes this trip even more special for me this year is that I’ll have my 8-year-old son, Wally, in tow. He will be volunteering as a “runner,” meaning that he will collect stacks of completed puzzles and run with them up to the judges room for them to be scored. Most of the runners are children and teens who have the stamina to spend a few hours running up and down the stairs, and most of them have parents or family members who are also working as officials at the tournament. I’m glad Wally will get to experience the last year that the tournament takes place in Stamford and that I can share this special place with him.
Solve Friday’s Crossword on Easy Mode!
In today’s Wordplay column, Sean McGowan writes about all the film references in this grid. For expert hints on today’s puzzle, read his column. Were you able to solve the Friday puzzle with Easy Mode? We want your input! Share your experience with us by email. Easy vs. HardIn today’s daily puzzle, 13-Across is clued as [Nested birds?]. This clue makes you think about bird nests, but you might want to think more about nesting dolls. For Easy Mode, I went with [Portmanteau for a bird-inside-a-bird-inside-a-bird entree], which still is colorful, but spells out what the word is a little more clearly.
How are we doing? Thanks for playing! Subscribe to New York Times Games. If you were forwarded this newsletter, you can sign up to receive it regularly here. P.S. The answer to Easy vs. Hard is TURDUCKEN.
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