New York Times, Wednesday, September 1, 2021

I am so excited to be making my New York Times debut! I'm currently a postdoc at Stanford studying ways to improve cancer immunotherapy. I got into solving crossword puzzles during college inspired by my dad, who has been a daily solver of the Times crossword since well before I was born. I took up construction during the pandemic as a new hobby to pass the time between long spells of Animal Crossing.

I was tickled by the idea of a "BIG IF" revealer based around grid art that literally spelled out a huge IF. In laying out the grid, I knew I wanted to keep all other black squares away from the central IF, which led to a lot of open space and long down answers. I went through many grid iterations to make the long downs pop while minimizing the crosswordese in the three letter answers (especially the central slot between the I and F). I hope solvers get a kick out of thinking 19-Down when they first open the puzzle!

Thanks to the editing team for their feedback! I had originally submitted the puzzle to run as a themeless, but the editing team thought it could work better as an "introductory themeless" run on a Wednesday. I liked the idea, and hope the puzzle helps newer solvers take the plunge into Friday and Saturday puzzles!

P.S. I'm starting up a crossword blog where I'll be uploading new puzzles weekly!

That's a big IF, all right! Couldn't get much bigger.

Could it?

Not surprisingly, I spent an hour goofing around with grids, trying to see what sort of layout I could achieve, that not only featured a giant IF but also reduced the number of 3-letter words. You can achieve this by shifting the I one column to the left and then rejiggering many of the other black squares, but it makes things messy.

One of the big problems is that because the I and F both use long, straight vertical lines, you need a ton of long Down entries. You can't break up the region between the I and F, otherwise you create some 2- or even 1-letter entries, and that's a big no-no.

"Big no-no" … crossword theme radar pinging …

Why does it even matter to have fewer 3-letter entries? Some editors don't care about this, or even brazenly fly in the face of a maximum count (often 20 or 22, compared to today's 31). As a solver, I find that having so many tiny entries gives a choppy feeling to my experience, forcing me to stop and start after typing in only two or three letters. Interrupts my flow.

Some impressive themeless-esque content, so rare to see even one of the bonus grid-spanners HABANERO PEPPERS, AND YET HERE WE ARE, SUNRISE MOVEMENT, BEYOND ONES GRASP, ENRIQUE IGLESIAS in a weekday puzzle. And don't forget GIFT RECEIPTS, DON'T YOU FRET! These enhanced my solving experience, even when dragged down by the necessary evils of glue like STD ESO OBE holding that tough central swath together.

Memorable debut, which is a rare event. THAT'S A BIG IF plus the grid art was too thin of a theme, though. I'd have enjoyed brainstorming on what else could be added to make it feel more satiating.

Post-publication corrections are rare in NYT crosswords, but a change was made for 35-Across. ESO was clued as [This, in Spanish] but [That, in Spanish] is better. We show the corrected clue here.