Curse you, Will Shortz

February 19, 2009 11:23 AM

Help me do crossword puzzles FAST.

So after years of procrastination and excuse-making, I've decided to finally go to the national crossword puzzle championships this year and embarrass the hell out of myself.

And I need some help. Not with how to actually answer the clues, obviously- if I couldn't do that I'd be in some trouble at this point. What I need to know is how to do them FAST. These guys are crazy with the speed and I'd like to at least be competitive.

What I'm looking for is things like writing in lowercase because it's fewer pencil strokes, not reading all the clues, doing the puzzle in quadrants- that's pretty much all I can come up with myself so if you guys know of any other practical tips for upping my speed, I would hugely appreciate it. The tournament is next weekend so I don't have THAT much time to adjust my gameplay but I want to do what I can.

Thank you!

PS If anyone has gone to one of these things and can give me advice on what to expect, that would be awesome too, but it's not the primary question. I've seen Wordplay but that pretty much focused only on the top five guys whose experience, sad to say, will probably not be much like mine.

posted by Dormant Gorilla to sports, hobbies, & recreation (16 comments total)

I think the only way to do crossword puzzles fast is just by doing them all the time. you begin to understand more quickly the way in which clues are worded for how to solve them correctly. This may be something you already do, but as far as writing in lower case; i don't think that will help you will speed as much as just practices and becoming more quick to answer the clues.

this may be obvious, but i think it's really the only way. I can't imagine writing in lower versus uppercase is going to matter that much.
posted by wocka wocka wocka at 11:26 AM on February 19

doing the puzzle in quadrants

I'll expand on that a bit and suggest you solve one or two adjacent clues and then solve the clues that intersect with those, then the clues that intersect with those, and so on. Basically don't do all the acrosses that you can and then hit the downs. It sounds like you already know not to do that, though.
posted by soelo at 11:45 AM on February 19

Oh I do do them all the time- solving the clues isn't what I'm looking for help with. I just haven't timed myself till recently. And it really does seem like you can knock tons of important seconds off your time with tricks like writing differently and changing your technique.
posted by Dormant Gorilla at 11:50 AM on February 19

Do lots, because lots of puzzle authors will reuse their favorite words & clues. If you can find out who's authoring the puzzles you'll be doing at the competition, you'll have some idea what the common ones might be. If you don't know an answer right away, skip it and come back when you've got more letters to work with.

If you've been doing puzzles for a while, though, you may know all of this already.
posted by echo target at 11:51 AM on February 19

Do what you can to determine who will be writing/editing the clues, and work on puzzles of that person if you can find them.

I was amazed how much the succession to Shortz slowed me down after the Maleska era, despite the fact that when I had adapted to his (somewhat irritating) style the puzzles often seemed too trivial to bother with.

Good luck! I'll be rooting for you in spirit.
posted by jamjam at 11:54 AM on February 19 [1 favorite]

The online crossword puzzles time you. M-W.com Uses the Universal Daily crossword and the LA Times crossword puzzles, both are free and won't give you hints if you change the skill level. They both tend to be on the easier side, the Monday puzzle takes me 8-12 minutes, I know that isn't super fast. Boxerjam also has a crossword puzzle where people compete for time, some of the times are cheatery fast.

I'm guessing that you're talking about paper and pencil crossword puzzles but the online ones may give you a chance to perfect your strategy.
posted by 517 at 12:00 PM on February 19 [1 favorite]

If it's a Shortz puzzle, learn who all of the minor Simpsons characters are- like the bartender and the 7-11 owner.
posted by Zambrano at 12:01 PM on February 19 [1 favorite]

If it's a Shortz puzzle, learn who all of the minor Simpsons characters are- like the bartender and the 7-11 owner.

Also Brian Eno and Enya.
posted by Evangeline at 12:09 PM on February 19 [1 favorite]

jamjam also makes a really good point about knowing the author's style. Learning the difference between their default space-filler words --the word Aria is much more common in crossword puzzles than anywhere else I've seen-- and what exactly they mean by "?", and if they tend to string words together, can make a pretty big difference in time.
posted by 517 at 12:09 PM on February 19

Draw your a's and e's in lowercase, and your G's in uppercase with no crossbar.
posted by Tin Man at 12:10 PM on February 19

In other words, fewer strokes per letter = faster solving time.
posted by Tin Man at 12:10 PM on February 19

Oops, you said you already know that one. Never mind.
posted by Tin Man at 12:12 PM on February 19

Pick off some of the low hanging fruit in both directions to provide a starting reference for the more challenging answers. I think this is what you meant with the quadrants. Also, the NYT puzzles get much easier once you solve the theme. Start from the bottom up as the theme is often revealed there and the bottom seems easier many times. Maybe authors spend too much of their creativity and energy at the top of the puzzle, or maybe my perception that it is easier is off.
posted by caddis at 12:43 PM on February 19

This is great stuff. And it didn't occur to me to find out who's doing the puzzles- I don't think they tell you in advance, but I'm definitely going to go and bone up on the styles of the major contributors.

This is nerve-wracking. You think you're good while you're sitting at the kitchen table with a bagel but I have a feeling that this is going to be...humbling. Yet fun.

Thanks so much guys- all of this is hugely helpful.
posted by Dormant Gorilla at 12:59 PM on February 19

Sounds like you have most of the strategy down already!

Scan downs before acrosses. They're easier to locate on the grid.
posted by painquale at 2:43 PM on February 19

If I were doing something like this, I would want to plan some tricks to help keep me In The Game. You might not be a thing like me, but I can see myself having thoughts like "oh, my god, I'm going too slow!" and "she can't be done already," and second-guessing previous answers. I would want to be prepared for such thoughts, acknowledge them, then get right back to it, rather than letting them slow me down like they might otherwise.

Hopefully, this kind of internal monologue is not really an issue for you, but it would be for me :)

Good luck to you! Please let us know how it went.
posted by thebrokedown at 7:09 PM on February 19