Crossword Puzzles

Mansi Kothari makes her New York Times Crossword debut in a collaboration with Erik Agard.Jump to: Tricky CluesFRIDAY PUZZLE — If you solve crosswords regularly and have wondered what it would be like to make one of your own — perhaps you would like to see your byline in a publication such as The New York Times one day — you should know that there are experienced constructors who are happy to mentor new puzzle makers. They volunteer their time so that a wider range of voices and worldviews will be present in our crosswords, and that is a good thing. In fact, I think these constructors provide a noble service, right up there with the person who eventually ends daylight saving time so we can all get more sleep.Learning the ropes from an experienced constructor is important, especially if you would like to see your creation published within the next decade, because puzzle making is not an intuitive art. There are a lot of rules that need to be followed and broken as well. Part of the art is in knowing whether breaking a particular rule is a good idea or whether it’s an idea that will land your puzzle on the reject pile — a mentor can help you with that. Take my word for it, this will save you a lot of time.Erik Agard, a constructor for The New Yorker and former editor of the USA Today crossword, mentors aspiring puzzle makers, but he also contributes something else: He believes puzzles should be made conscientiously, with the intent to educate.Some solvers just want an escape from the world to go with their morning coffee, and there is nothing wrong with that. But there is also nothing wrong with learning something from solving a crossword. Awareness is the first step toward understanding, and understanding solves a whole host of problems.This is Mansi Kothari’s Times Crossword debut, and she acknowledges Mr. Agard in her constructor notes for demonstrating the importance of including entries that make people think. I liked the mix of trivia, pop culture and clues about social topics like the ones in 10D and 34A.Well done, Ms. Kothari. I hope to see more from you soon.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

Joe Marquez’s theme is about my favorite type of puzzle.Jump to: Today’s Theme | Tricky CluesTHURSDAY PUZZLE — The following is simply my thoughts about today’s puzzle. As always, your mileage may vary.After solving crosswords for many years, I’ve come to the realization that, even when I come across a puzzle that is perfectly enjoyable, there is probably a similar one I’ve already solved that was — I don’t want to say “better,” just closer to what I had hoped for in today’s theme.That’s the problem with having a lot of grids under one’s belt. You start to compare them. And I try very hard not to do that. Sometimes I fail.Joe Marquez’s theme is tight and impressive, but it’s just not the May 29, 2011, puzzle by Tony Orbach and Jeremy Newton (Here’s the Wordplay column if you’re interested.) It didn’t have exactly the same theme, but the mechanics of Mr. Orbach and Mr. Newton’s crossword were exemplary and turned the solve into something that felt alive. Of course, the 2011 puzzle was a 21×21 Sunday, so there was more room to play around with design. But something like that in Mr. Marquez’s similarly themed puzzle would have really elevated it.Maybe this is just me, but if you’re going to make a puzzle about this topic, and it runs on a Thursday — the day that is more likely to contain a trick than others — I feel as if there should be some sort of interactive feature to solve it.I liked Mr. Marquez’s puzzle, and if I were a new solver I would have been happy with it. But that’s the downside of experience: I have the solving skills, but I also know what’s possible.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

E. M. Capassakis makes calculated choices in her New York Times debut.Jump to: Today’s Theme | Tricky CluesWEDNESDAY PUZZLE — If I have occasionally joked about my slight distaste for math-related clues and entries in the daily crossword, it’s only because I think of numbers and language as standing somewhat at odds with each other. One represents pure logic, the other creative expression. How can you love both in equal measure?E. M. Capassakis offers one possible answer to this question via today’s crossword puzzle. In her New York Times debut, numbers and language not only coexist but are codependent. Solving the grid may invite you to consider whether we need to separate the two at all.Ready to go? I’ll count us in.Today’s ThemeRevealerless puzzles are sneaky but fun, because they leave us to identify patterns and crack the theme. In today’s grid, a series of numerical clues — at 17-, 19-, 31-, 47-, 62- and 64- Across — add up to our answer.The clue “101” is shorthand for a beginner’s understanding of a subject — an INTRO CLASS (17A), in other words. And “007” is a longtime code name for James BOND (19A). These automatic associations are no accident: Numbers double as words. We can say “420” and refer to CANNABIS (31A), euphemize “666” with THE BEAST (47A) and so on.Tricky Clues16A. The “End of a noodle?” isn’t a slurp: It’s an IDEA, since this refers to the kind of noodling done with the mind.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

Lynn Lempel stares into the space between.Jump to: Today’s Theme | Tricky CluesTUESDAY PUZZLE — To explain what makes Lynn Lempel’s crossword theme so clever, I’d like to take a brief detour from the crossword and talk about Spelling Bee; I hope you’ll forgive the digression. The Bee, for those unfamiliar, features a honeycomb grid with seven letters and challenges solvers to find the pangram, a word that uses every available letter in the grid.I can’t seem to solve compound pangrams. When faced with jumbled letters, my brain doesn’t want to conceive of two words as one. Airflow? Gumdrop? Windfall? All invisible to me. It’s only when someone else looks at the grid and identifies the term that I can see it plainly.In her puzzle, Ms. Lempel put words together so slyly that the theme acted on my brain in much the same way that those compound pangrams do. I couldn’t have conceived of what she was up to without the revealer, but now that I’ve figured it out I’m wondering how I didn’t see it.Today’s ThemeUnlike professional sports, crosswords have no built-in “Game break” (63A) — that is unless you happen to be solving Ms. Lempel’s latest puzzle, in which HALFTIME not only exists but also serves as “a hint to interpreting the first parts of 17-, 26-, 36-, and 52-Across.”The clue at 17-Across is “Parent dressed up at a pride parade, perhaps?” and the answer, at first, seems to be MAIN DRAG. But taking the first part of this answer and halving it turns it to MA IN DRAG. The “Choice between a haircut and manicure?” is not DOORNAILS, but DO OR NAILS. And so on. See what I meant about putting words together in sly ways?We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

Trent H. Evans sends out a few letters.Jump to: Today’s Theme | Tricky CluesMONDAY PUZZLE — Most crosswords that appear in The New York Times are themed grids, with the exception of Fridays and Saturdays. These themes come in all shapes and sizes. They may make use of puns or anagrams — or, in the occasional devilish Thursday puzzle, require the solver to enter more than one letter per square. In each case, cracking the code is up to the solver.In today’s crossword, Trent H. Evans gives us the runaround, using a distinctive theme style. The pattern is subtle, and takes no great pains to identify. Sam Ezersky, a puzzle editor for The New York Times, described it as “simple, but also executed very elegantly.”The theme’s simplicity is, notably, what makes this a perfect Monday puzzle. Mr. Ezersky encouraged those who are anxious about crosswords, themed or otherwise, to give this one a shot: “This puzzle is just the sort of puzzle I want to point to future solvers and say, ‘See, you can do this!’”Today’s ThemeMr. Evans’s themed entries struck me as having a certain cinematic quality: They seemed to be zooming out with each passing row.We begin in a close-up, with 17A: “In Europe, it’s known as a ‘twin town.’” That’s a SISTER CITY. Our frame widens with the “Hotly contested area in a U.S. election” (29A), better known as a PURPLE STATE. “France, for the 2024 Olympics” (45A) takes us wider with HOST COUNTRY, and we end on an aerial view with “Extraterrestrial’s home, to us” (60A), an ALIEN WORLD. Credits roll.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

Daniel Grinberg adds a themeless grid to his portfolio of New York Times crosswords.Jump to: Tricky CluesFRIDAY PUZZLE — “Beware the Ides of March,” a soothsayer warned Emperor Julius Caesar in Shakespeare’s play. Sure enough — spoiler alert — Caesar was assassinated on March 15, 44 B.C.Thankfully, there is nothing remotely like that at stake for us this Ides, but Daniel Grinberg’s crossword is still a Friday toughie for those who are not used to the less straightforward nature of late-week puzzles. So beware the Ides, but by all means have fun.Mr. Grinberg incorporated a basket weave of six grid spanners into his 15×15 design, making the solve a bit more challenging but a lot more fun for me. Look at all those great, long entries! The placement forms a kind of frame or skeleton of the grid. The fill is mostly lively, with a nice mix of high-value Scrabble letters, such as J, Z and X. Those letters do not appear frequently in English words, so they are fun to find in a puzzle.This is the kind of crossword that newer solvers may enjoy if they take their time. Fill in the gimmes, take a break and try again. Be patient and keep coming back to the grid. If you’re persistent, you may find Mr. Grinberg’s first themeless puzzle for The New York Times a fun and satisfying brain teaser.Tricky Clues17A. PHILLIS WHEATLEY, who was captured from Africa and enslaved, went on to become a poet who is considered the first American of African descent to publish a book. Her story is moving and fascinating.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

Jeffrey Martinovic wishes us all a happy holiday.Jump to: Today’s Theme | Tricky CluesTHURSDAY PUZZLE — I am not really an observer of occasions such as the one that Jeffrey Martinovic highlights in today’s puzzle, but, if you are, please celebrate responsibly. Run in circles, eat desserts that are not cake. By all means, have a fabulous time.Just don’t round up numbers that should not be rounded up. More about that fabulous story in the theme section of the column.Today’s Theme (and a Great Story About it)You probably guessed Jeffrey Martinovic’s theme right away when you noted the date and saw the black squares in the shape of the Greek letter pi (π), which represents the constant 3.14. The amount of theme material here is a bit light, but his grid is flanked by the mathematical giants STEPHEN HAWKING (3D), who died on PI DAY (33D) in 2018, and ALBERT EINSTEIN (11D), who was born on that day in 1879. In addition, Mr. Martinovic’s puzzle includes Leonhard EULER (29D), whose famous mathematical identity ︎includes pi.The value of pi has been known for almost 4,000 years, but the mathematical constant that is used to help calculate the area of a circle had what is thought to be its first celebration in 1988 at the San Francisco Exploratorium. In 2009, the House of Representatives recognized March 14 as National Pi Day, and we’ve been eating fruit pie on this day ever since.Speaking of government recognition, this declaration was not the first time that pi had been the subject of discussion in the halls of civic discourse.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More