Jack Reuter author page
1 puzzle by Jack Reuter
with Constructor comments
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This is my first puzzle to get accepted for publication, which I'm very excited about! I've always been interested in puzzle construction, mostly for the challenge of creating a fun, vibrant grid. I'm a big fan of games like Bananagrams and Boggle, and generally find the problem of stacking words neatly into a symmetrical grid very appealing. I think it appeals to the math-y side of my brain.
This puzzle has been in the works for a while. I've been going back to it sporadically for the past year or two, and just finally hunkered down and finished it. I came up with the idea after going to the World Chess Championship in NYC back in 2016. I was on a big chess kick—playing online and doing chess tactics every day—and thought ‘hey, wouldn't it be cool if you could somehow put a chess tactic inside a crossword puzzle?'
After that, it took some fiddling to figure out how best to do it. I knew it had to be a checkmate, so I spent some time looking through some "mate-in-one" puzzles to find a suitable one. I eventually found one I thought could work, saw that the solution KNIGHT TO B EIGHT lined up length-wise with CHECKMATE-IN-ONE, and decided to try it out. With some adding and removing of pieces (while being careful to keep the checkmate intact) I was able to fit it into the grid and fill in the rest from there.