ACPT: Stuck in the Middle With You

Two weeks ago this morning I was sitting in the ballroom of the Brooklyn Bridge Marriot Hotel anxiously awaiting Puzzle #1 of the 36th Annual American Crossword Puzzle Tournament.  To prepare for this, my 4th ACPT effort, I did 10-12 extra Wednesday/Thursday level New York Times crosswords for the prior 8 weeks in addition to my regular daily NYT puzzle, even writing down any new words I encountered that I hadn't known (if you do crosswords regularly and you're not a genius, there's ALWAYS a new word that comes along).  I felt like Rocky training for the bout.  I was going to crack the top 200 this year after my best finish of #222 out of 652 last year.   Did any of the puzzles this year have the words I learned? No.......  Did I crack the top 200?  No.....

It takes a couple of weeks to digest the whole experience of the ACPT and come down from the excitement of it all, the highs (getting four puzzles "clean", the cool crossword insider term for "correct", and actually getting the theme of the brain-slog that is Puzzle #5 this year!), and the lows (not getting the theme of Puzzle #3, not having enough time to finish Puzzle #5 once I figured out the theme, and stupidly filling in one...yes one...wrong letter on Puzzle #6, which I am blaming on fatigue as well as not getting my new prescription eyeglasses BEFORE the tournament).  

If you love crosswords, attending the ACPT is like going to Mecca.  You are among your people.  The vibe is a combination of camaraderie, fun, and the grueling experience of taking a final exam in law school where your whole grade depends on the one test.  We all want to acquit ourselves well, do better than last year, even though the majority of us know we don't have a chance in hell of being in the top ten, let alone winning a trophy.  But we dream of it just a little....sitting there with our six or eight sharpened or fully loaded mechanical pencils, waiting for the "proctors" to pass out the puzzles face down, waiting for the person who still doesn't have a puzzle, looking up at Will Shortz in the front of the room with the clock stopped at 15:00 or 30:00 minutes or whatever (depending on the puzzle) and waiting for him to say "on your mark, get set....begin", then hearing 570 or so pieces of paper rustle over at the same time with pencils madly scratching away!

My place is all set with 8 mechanical pencils, water, diet coke, and 2 Tylenol

After four years of attending the ACPT, I am herewith offering some dopey things I've done (so you won't have to experience them) or suggestions to allay any fears if you've been afraid to try your hand at the tournament: 

First of all, after looking at the official photos from this year's tournament, I realized you are not required to raise your hand when you finish a puzzle (IF you finish before the clock) like you're still in Catholic school waiving "ooh, ooh, I know the answer!"  A regular raising of the arm without almost wrenching it out of its socket will suffice for a referee to see you and pick up your puzzle.

Don't memorize the spelling of the volcano in Iceland from a few years ago.  "Eyjafjallajokull" has yet to show up in a puzzle I've encountered....anywhere.  Not even from Patrick Blindauer.  You'll have wasted a good memorization.

Don't worry about coming in last as I did my first year.  Last place will go to the people who decide to quit before doing all the puzzles....if you try all seven you're probably safe.

When you are deeply engrossed in a hard puzzle and Will Shortz (who, I might add, is such a nice guy and always willing to take his picture with you if you ask) says the dreaded words "one minute left",  I can almost guarantee your brain will freeze for that final minute.

Will Shortz

Don't chew a piece of gum and wrap it in its wrapper and place it in your back pocket.  Especially not before the dreaded Puzzle #5.  When you are on your way into the ballroom for the start of the puzzle and try to retrieve the gum to throw away, you will discover it is stuck to your ass (in the pocket of your jeans, that is) as well as now on your fingers with no time to wash them.  It is distracting to have sticky residue on your fingers when you're trying to solve the hardest puzzle.

Sit in the first or second row so you can't see everyone raising their hands way ahead of you.  Horse blinders would also be nice (if they sell them to humans) because it's so unnerving to peripherally see the person next to you furiously pencilling in answers while you are trying to find a starting point in the puzzle.

Don't be late for Puzzle #7 on Sunday morning, especially if you are sitting in the first or second row!  After you place your supplies in your seat, don't go out to the lobby to send an email because you misread the program and thought the puzzle started at 9:30 despite being an anal-retentive person about time.  You will then have to saunter into the room at 9:25 to a hushed crowd of 650 people (except for the people you passed outside the ballroom BECAUSE THEY WERE ALREADY DONE) hunched over their puzzles and see that 13 of the allotted 45 minutes have already transpired!  Despite being all flustered and embarrassed, just pull yourself together, save your pity party for later, and try to finish.  You may even by some miracle finish in 20 minutes, even though it will be marked as finishing in 32 or 33 minutes (I've never quite figured out the clock thing after 4 years....maybe this is why I don't win trophies).  

Finally, don't check your standings right after the Sunday morning talent show and send out a mass email to friends and family that you finished #244/573.  If you were #308 the night before, you are not going to move 64 places up in the standings just by finishing Puzzle #7 in 20 minutes.  If you were a genius you would know this.  Especially when the guy next to you that morning tells you that they had not scored one of his puzzles and were working to correct that.  He was not an outlier for this.  It is then quite deflating to have to send out a mass retraction that you regret the error of saying you finished #244, but rather #288, which then jumped down to #299 while you slept Sunday night.  Perhaps one trick is not to go to sleep.  

So, alas, ACPT 2013, despite a valiant effort, I slipped from my best showing of last year back to the middle of you, #299/573, middle of the sixties age group which I just joined this year (along with Ellen Ripstein, only #10 overall!), middle of the Midwest contingent (which features Anne Erdmann and Amy Reynaldo...I have no chance there!), middle of the "C" group, even middle of the Illinois group.  At least I'm consistent.  The only way I could contort my way into a trophy in my head is that I am #1 from La Grange.  No one else from La Grange was in attendance.

I'm back in the middle just as I was in 2010 (370/639), and 2011 (329/655).  I think I am forever stuck there, but I decided I'm happy with the middle, with the solvers who cannot fill in a crossword grid in 2-3 minutes, other than with wrong letters....the ones who cannot think or write that fast if their life depended on it!  For one thing, I couldn't take the pressure of solving a puzzle on a whiteboard in front of 500 or so people. I am in awe of the geniuses at the ACPT, the ones who finish in the top 100 consistently, the people who can unscramble the letters "enigmaaz" during the  Saturday night Fun and Games and shout out the word "magazine" before I've digested the idea of adding the letters "a" and "z" to the word "enigma".  These people can actually reset the clock radio in their hotel room for the time change Saturday night to daylight savings time (or "DST" a favorite NYT answer....you're welcome), and not have to give up in frustration and then Google how to set the alarm on their iPhone instead. 

But this is precisely what makes the ACPT so great even if you're a middling solver like me:  you can compete with the geniuses on the same set of puzzles....it's equivalent to the Olympics letting regular swimmers compete with Michael Phelps.  We're still pushing off the starting board (or in my case drowning) as he is finishing the first two or four lengths of the pool, but we can say we were there and had fun doing so!  Because all of the competitors, at all levels, are such a welcoming group of people that you feel at home, even a middling solver like me.  I'd recommend the experience to anyone who loves the NYT daily crossword.  And knows at least 2 sports stars:  Mel Ott (baseball) and Bobby Orr (hockey).

The closest I will probably ever get to a trophy.....