New York Times, Wednesday, March 12, 2014

Genius, simply pure genius. What else can I say about my "JEFF vs. DAN" contest... or should I say, my "JEFF vs. DAN" con? (rubbing hands deviously together)

For those of you not familiar with JEFF vs. DAN, I speed-solve my own puzzles against five-time American Crossword Puzzle Tournament champion Dan Feyer. It's now been years of sandbagging, pretending like Dan's been beating me by a long shot, whining about how I'll never catch him, even though I know all the answers in advance. And it finally paid off! For I have pulled off the heist of the century.

Danny Ocean? A mental midget compared to myself when it comes to pure devious plotting. (Vizzini? Moron.) See what I have achieved: I finished today's puzzle in -0:43 (yes, that's negative forty-three seconds), clearly besting Dan for the first time ever, using my trade-secret combination of dual-handed solving, Asimovian psychohistory, and warp-induction time travel. Call the Guinness Book people, folks!

And the coup de grace: by beating Dan on this most important of days, I won the ACPT 2013 title from him, based on the contract clearly implied by the JEFF vs. DAN contest. So sayeth my esteemed barrister.

Game.

Set.

Snatched your trophy.

I WIN, FEYER, BWA HA HA!

P.S. My actual time, having studied all the answers before clearing the puzzle and solving it on computer as fast as possible: 1:59.

I've said over and over how I'm never going to tackle another puzzle with perimeter themers. They take so long to execute and are so difficult to fill smoothly / with sparkle. You'd think I'd learn one day.

I had toyed with this idea for well over a year before I finally settled on the basic concept, and coming up with enough distinct drinks was a challenge in itself. Even when I came up with enough to fill the perimeter, it felt inelegant. Who cares if it's just a random listing of drinks? So it wasn't until I was able to group the drinks into four linked categories that I felt like this was maybe worth the effort. It wasn't until I figured out how to intersect CIDER and VODKA into DRINKS ALL AROUND that I thought it was finally worth pursuing.

Then came year two. Trying to fill a puzzle like this from the center out almost guarantees you'll have too many ugly entries in the corners, but I tried it anyway. And indeed, I was able to come up with some snazzy entries around the center, but as I approached the four corners (and the sides to a lesser extent) I jammed myself into a world of hurt, overconstraint forcing a partial or a weird abbreviation or simply a collection of too much Ug. I came up with some fills that I would have green-lighted earlier in my construction career, but these days I am terribly, terribly unhappy if a puzzle doesn't feel top-notch rated-A clean.

Switching to working from the corners in helped a great deal, of course. Still though, it took me over 40 iterations to finally come up with something I felt was worthy of the NYT. FYI, not every puzzle can be filled super-cleanly (without a single "bad" entry), and I think that's okay. I would much rather allow for ambitious constructions that require a NOW I and an AS AN to hold them together. Not everyone will agree with me of course, but I'm firmly in the camp that creativity gets stifled if it's tamped down by overconstraint.

I do agree that a majority of puzzles can be filled 95%+ cleanly though, and if they can, they should. After so many versions of this puzzle, I tend to believe that this one can't be filled without a few bits of ugly here and there, but I'm certainly willing to listen to anyone who could give me a pointer.

P.S. I had a great time at the ACPT, where it was easy to yell out DRINKS All AROUND! (seeing as it was on Will's dime).