A Month In Crosswords: ACPT and Me

ACPT. It came. It went. It rocked, as always.

It was also exhausting, as always. I never sleep well at ACPT. I never sleep well in hotels, period. That's one of the ways in which I'm becoming an old man. I'm not there yet, but I'm definitely developing some old-man-ish attributes, such as never wanting to sleep anywhere but my own bed. And I'm a fussy fall-asleeper in general. I need to have everything just so to easily conk out. I need to be in my own bed, with my own pillow, feeling the tender touch of my own wife as she passes gas and grunts at me for hogging the bed sheet (I just have broad shoulders!). Absent these things, I will often lie in bed for hours wondering how little sleep somebody could get and still function like a normal human the next day. I think I slept about two hours Friday night, and that's a personal high for the first night of ACPT.

I participated in the tournament as a judge -- my third "straight" ACPT in such a role. I rode up Friday afternoon with my usual DC/NoVa crossword/trivia crew -- Dan Felsenheld, Michael Berman, and Brian Cross. I hadn't seen any of them since before Covid, so it was nice to catch up. The company for the drive was good, but the traffic was not, so we got into Stamford later than expected. The judges dinner was already underway when we arrived, and I was kinda starving, so I didn't have a chance to mill around the lobby and glad-hand a bit like I would have liked to have done.

[Damon Gulczynski: ACPT 2022 Champion, Super-Stud Division]

There was a small issue with my room, in that they first told me I didn't have a room, which is very bad, and then they told me I actually had two rooms, which is much better, but still not ideal, because it meant I had to pick between two other judges to room with. (Thanks for putting me on the spot, hotel guy!) Puzzle 7 constructor Mike Shenk was one of the options, so I picked him, because I roomed with him once before and found him to be a perfectly nice guy, and I had never met the other judge. I felt kinda bad about it though, because I thought maybe the guy I didn't pick was going to get his own room, and so by being a perfectly nice guy Mike was getting the short end of the stick.

I'm not sure if this was actually the case, but there definitely was a mistake because the next morning while sitting in the lobby drinking my morning coffee, I overheard the tournament organizer apologizing to Mike for a room mix-up and asking him if having me as a roommate was okay. It was one of those awkward situations where two people start talking about you, right in front of you, but don't realize it. Thankfully, Mike didn't say anything even remotely negative about me (perfectly nice guy, remember), and I quickly interjected with something like "actually your roommate is right here!" so that they'd know I was, in fact, right there. I had to make a quick decision to either reveal myself or try to blend in with the chair like a chameleon. I went with the former and I think it was the right move. Things could have gotten really awkward if I didn't say anything, and then they noticed me sitting there silently.

I had a new position this year within the tournament administration apparatus. I was a member of the tech team! My job was to take graded puzzles (wrong answers marked with highlighter) and scan them into a computer. It's not that simple, though, because you have to make sure everything scans correctly, and you have to make fixes manually if it doesn't. Something in Puzzles 1 and 4 were tripping up the scanner (they had circles in the grid, which was probably it), so I had to count the number of incorrect squares and words for about 95% of those puzzles by hand. Luckily there were relatively few mistakes on those puzzles. Had that happened on Puzzle 5 (a wonderfully brutal BEQ offering) it would have been a legit disaster.

I wouldn't say the job was "fun," necessarily, but it suited me just fine. It was very satisfying, and I enjoyed bonding with the other tech people the way you do when you spend 13 hours over two days accomplishing a common goal. The biggest downside to it is that you don't get to interact with that many other judges. You are in the tech room all day with the same seven or eight people (and you don't get a chance to work the ballroom, which is probably the funnest judge job). Beyond some basic pleasantries, I didn't get a chance to talk to as many of the other judges as I have in years past. I did get to hang out with fellow tech teamer John Lieb (he of Boswords fame), so that was cool -- he's a good guy. And I had a few delightful conversations with Tracy Gray and Robyn Weintraub. They're both great -- just a lot of fun.

After the work was done for the day, I'd go to the lobby/bar area and talk to whoever was willing to talk to me. It's an interesting social dynamic because you meet so many people, but you can't meet everybody, so you just see people around and know who they are without ever actually meeting them. And then sometimes I actually forget if I've met somebody or just thought I met them because I've seen them around so much.*

*This is another getting-to-be-an-old-man-ish thing. Twenty years ago I never forgot meeting anybody. I used to pretend I did though, so that I wouldn't seem like some sort of stalker-y weirdo, especially around girls. Oh, hey, you're Summer Lang, we had freshmen English together three years ago, you sat in the third row, wore baggy jeans and a backpack with a sunflower on it, and once you wrote an essay about the time you saw Rage Against the Machine with your sister at The Gorge... no, we never actually met or even talked, I just remember a lot about you for no particular reason, never struck me as the world's greatest pickup line.    

The tournament itself went pretty smoothly -- no major gaffes on our end. We had a mini panic when we couldn't find the last puzzle for a top B competitor (Jenna LaFleur), but it turned out she overslept and didn't solve it! That really, really sucks. She was on pace to be a shoo-in for the big board, and instead she dropped way down the rankings. I feel terrible for her, and I don't even know her. But at least it means we didn't lose a crucial puzzle.

The A division finals was very chalky with Dan Feyer, David Plotkin, and Tyler Hinman making the big board. Tyler won, which is cool, but I always pull for Dan, because I'm friendly with him and we seem to have similar puzzling sensibilities. I don't think I've ever met either David or Tyler (though I've certainly seen them around a lot).

It was a reasonably close finals between Tyler and Dan. Tyler got off to a better start and held on as Dan closed the gap a bit toward the end. (At least I think that's what happened; it's kinda hard to tell who's winning and by how much when you're watching it live.) David really struggled. He finished well behind the other two, and he had an error to boot. It's weird; he always does so well on the "regular season" puzzles -- he finished in first place this year -- and then he always comes in third at the big board. It kinda sucks for him, but, on the flip side, if we think of this like the Olympics, he's got like a half-dozen bronze medals to his name and that's certainly nothing to sneeze at.

Anyway... that was ACPT 2022.

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In other news, a puzzle of mine dropped in the New York Times this evening. I think it's pretty good. I like puzzles like this where most of the word play is in the clues. They are a good change up to the usual entry-based word play puzzles. (Here's another one like this I made a few years ago.) I don't have a ton else to say about it. I might hop back on with an update after I read the blogs and some of the comments.

Although, I can probably guess already what the bloggers will say.

XWordInfo: Jeff will point out the merits of the puzzle before comparing it to a similar puzzle, possibly one he co-constructed, from seven years ago. Although he won't say it explicitly, you'll get the impression he liked the older one better. Also, there will be dad jokes.

Crossword Fiend: They'll point out that in cluing LEHRER as a white man, I missed an opportunity to highlight the accomplishments of Salvadorian-born landscape artist MIA LEHRER. The comments section will then burst into flames.

Rex Parker: Rex will pick a nit -- possibly about how the RNC is a hate group or how LAMÉ is an ableist slur -- write five paragraphs about it, and then briefly mention that my theme is either stale or clever (it's about 50-50 with my puzzles). Whatever the case, the conclusion will be that the NYT needs a new crossword editor.

Wordplay: They'll provide insightful commentary because everybody who writes there does really great work and has brilliant takes on crosswords. And I'm not just saying this because they are the in-house blog for the New York Times who published my puzzle. That's totally a coincidence.

I kid, I kid... I mean, it's all kinda true, but still, I kid.

Actually, Jeff really could compare my puzzle to a similar puzzle, but not one that he co-constructed, nor one that was written seven years ago. Sam Donaldson published this excellent puzzle in Fireball a little over a year ago. Sam's puzzle has the same basic idea as mine, but the roles of clues and entries are reversed. Also, he uses a bigger grid with more themers.

In a previous entry, I discussed the phenomenon of similar themes, and this is a great example. I hadn't seen Sam's puzzle prior to creating mine (my puzzle had already been accepted when his ran), so there's no way I could have copied him, even subconsciously. We both just thought of the same basic idea at about the same time, totally independently. It happens. I guess Sam and I are the Leibniz and Newton of our day.

By the way, to find the link to Sam's puzzle, I went through my old emails to get the date it was sent out by Fireball, and guess when it was... January 6, 2021. This might explain why I don't remember being particularly bothered by the fact Sam had kinda beaten me to the punch -- we all had real things to fret about that day.

And on that cheery note...