New York Times, Tuesday, January 21, 2020

My name is Carl Larson, I'm 56, retired and living in Studio City, California. When working, I was an electrical engineer and marketing manager in the computer industry. I'm very excited to have one of my crossword puzzles published for the first time in the New York Times!

I've been doing puzzles for as long as I can remember. I was a Games Magazine early adopter, sneaking in puzzle solving during high school classes. I've been doing the New York Times crossword for nearly as long, and have fond memories of sitting in the back of math class with a friend trying to finish the Sunday puzzle each week to the annoyance of our teacher. Win-win.

Near the end of 2018, I decided that getting a crossword puzzle accepted for publication in the New York Times would be a 2019 goal and bucket list item. I had toyed with crossword construction a couple of times in the past but was daunted by the difficulty of hand constructing. Today's crossword constructing software and online databases ease the task.

Today's puzzle was my 5th submission, and it was accepted for publication in May 2019. I came up with the idea when I was browsing through XWord Info for inspiration. Specifically, I was looking through the list of past puzzles with circled or shaded squares thinking about constructing a puzzle with one of those elements. I noticed that 3x2 blocks of circles had not been used in many puzzles. It occurred to me that a 3x2 block of circles looked like a six-pack of cans viewed from above, and a theme idea was born. As it turns out, there were plenty of 6 letter beer brands to choose from. STROHS, MODELO, LABATT, PERONI, MOLSON, and BUDICE were left in the cooler.

I'm guessing that Jeff will enjoy my puzzle. I know from reading his notes that he gets a kick out of pointing out when different constructors come up with the same theme. Today he gets to do it with one of his puzzles. Back on June 24th, 2019, Jeff and his co-constructor Ari Richter, scooped me with a Universal puzzle with a very similar six-pack theme, including 3 of the 4 brands I used. Doh! I enjoyed Jeff and Ari's added level to their puzzle with the JOE SIX PACK revealer and JOE-related theme entries passing through the six-packs in their grid.

Welcome to the latest installment of "The SWIK Show!" (Shows What I Know) Ari's original idea was more similar to Carl's, and I suggested that more could be done with it. An extra layer would make the puzzle so much more distinctive than just a couple of SIX PACKs sitting in the puzzle.

SWIK! A cleanly-executed puzzle — focusing on those SIX PACKs, with nothing else to potentially distract — made for a punchy visual.

How should the letters be oriented, Ari wondered. Clockwise? Back and forth? Anagrammed? Like a book? Definitely, like a book, I said. It's too hard otherwise — wouldn't solvers be befuddled if we did anything else?

SWIK! Carl's approach is a bit confusing at first, but it's consistent. Better yet, it delays the a-ha moment, piquing and holding solvers' interest. I stared at STEALL for ages, anagramming, wondering if SALT was somehow involved. I didn't figure it out until hitting SIX PACK OF BEER, and that's after having done extensive work researching (read: drinking) various six-letter beers for the previous puzzle!

Ari asked, wouldn't it be better if we had four SIX PACKs? Three might be too thin? I thought about it; a valid point. Having the extra layer would ultimately more than make up for it, though, while four SIX PACKs alone felt like Al Bundy sitting around and drinking empty calories.

SWIK! The four SIX PACKs and a long revealer in SIX PACK OF BEER made for a chewy stout, hardly your average MILLER Lite. The lack of long theme answers running through the SIX PACKs also gave Carl huge freedom in filling around all those letter combinations, and I appreciate the smoothness / newb-friendliness of the overall product.

It's amazing that anyone ever listens to me. (No one tell that to my kids!)

A strong debut, aimed perfectly at early-week beer enthusiasts and more.