For already the fourth time this decade, my final rank at the American Crossword Puzzle Tournament matched the ones digit of the year. How did it all happen? Well, that’s why I’m writing this. Away we go!
The trip got off to a cruddy start, if I’m being honest. I slept badly and then my flight was delayed two hours, though at least I was still in the lounge when I heard about the latter. I landed in New York with little to do but to go to bed, where my exhaustion would surely deliver me restorative slumber.
Ha ha, nope! Another terrible night of sleep. Maybe jet lag. I don’t know. In any case, though, Puzzmo’s second annual Crossword Con was worthy of rallying. If you missed it, you can check out nearly all the content from the comfort of your own home. I hope there’s a third edition next year!
After that fun and an uneventful train ride to Stamford, my travel-related misfortune made its return. I’d previously canceled my Marriott reservation and had my friend put my name on the room I was sharing with him. When I checked in, though, they instead opted to restore my cancellation for some reason, forcing me to move my stuff to another room when I realized what happened. I took a barely perfunctory nap, but managed to have an excellent evening at dinner and at the hotel bar with legions of friends. After that, I actually got myself a good night of sleep. Wonders never cease.
Two of Stamford's finest bars, where you can get delicious tacos and celonas
— Tyler Hinman (@thatpuzzleguy.bsky.social) April 4, 2025 at 6:07 PM
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Hey, you made it through my boring travelogue. Tournament time! Once again, I was coming into this thing ice-cold. However, I was pretty confident that, at my level of experience, the core mechanics wouldn’t take much jogging to click back into place. I buzzed through a few of the handout puzzles in my seat and felt pretty good. Happily, this was borne out in Puzzle #1, which I’ve always said is one of the more nerve-racking ones of the tournament because of the well-established benchmark in the top tier. I sailed under that three-minute standard well enough, although I was surprised that I had only fifteen seconds or so to check my work, as the solve felt faster.
I’ll note here that I’m not going to run down my performance and the standings’ shuffling puzzle by puzzle. The details are hazy two weeks on, and in any case they’re of limited utility. There were just two significant takeaways from the first day of competition for me, and one is that my quarter-minute cushion on Puzzle #1 was yawning compared to what I experienced most of the day with that all-important :00 threshold. In #2 through #6, I had a shrug-worthy :35 in there, but I also had two more in the :15 range, a :04, and, for what I think is the first time ever, an unnerving :00. I’ve certainly encountered my share of disappointing :58s and :59s in years past, and avoiding those was nice, but I also didn’t want to be dancing on the edge this much. I knew my score was pushing at the very limit of what I deserved…
…and it still wasn’t enough to be in contention. The second takeaway from the day was that I sat just behind David, a little further behind Paolo and Dan, and way behind Will, off in another time-bending galaxy somewhere. I was technically alive, but “technically” does a lot of heavy lifting there, and I knew I was more or less toast.
What I have to do tomorrow: – Beat David by a minute – Beat Paolo or Dan by two minutes – Achieve cold fusion while winning the Tour de France That last one isn't really part of it but it might as well be. #ACPT
— Tyler Hinman (@thatpuzzleguy.bsky.social) April 5, 2025 at 5:50 PM
I was perfectly happy to take a break from it all with the Saturday night festivities, watching Stan Newman be justly honored with this year’s MEmoRiaL Award, then taking an always-welcome look back at Wordplay, which somehow was filmed twenty freaking years ago. Half my lifetime. That movie quite seriously changed my life and it’s still amazing to think about.
With the official program in the books, I got in on Mike Shenk’s homemade Jeopardy! game, with lots of fun and laughs as always. I emerged to find out Duke had choked, which was pretty awesome. I hung around the bar for another drink longer before hauling myself up to bed.
We West Coasters don’t much care for the 9 AM start time for Puzzle #7, but I knew what I had to do. Unfortunately, I didn’t do it, and I knew right away. I found the puzzle far too knotty to achieve the lightning-fast, ultra-smooth solve I needed, and in the end I couldn’t come close to laying a glove on the four guys ahead of me. Paolo, Will, and Dan held onto their spots in the final, while I clocked one more :15-ish finish to complete a weekend of almost exclusively close shaves.
As I like to do, I immediately scooted upstairs after the puzzle to pack up and check out. I got back down in time to see David Kwong’s amazing show, though from much farther away than when I had the pleasure of catching The Enigmatist in LA some time ago. I found a seat at the back of the room for the final and tore into the A Division final as soon as it was handed to me. I had a slight misstep or two, but overall I swept through it handily, and I knew the championship round would be over mighty quick.
Look at that, I was right again. All three finalists summarily destroyed the puzzle, and Paolo defended his title with an eye-watering sub-four-minute solve. You know, I’m starting to think this guy might be pretty good at this. Well played, my friend! I knew I didn’t believe you when you said you’d take it easier this year.
And just like that, it was over. I lingered in the ballroom to offer congratulations and say goodbyes, or, in some cases, hellos. The huge attendance meant that there were many friends with whom I got precious little hangout time. There is still a homey feel to the event, but perhaps not quite as much as when I first attended. Nonetheless, this community remains a welcoming one, and I hope that future tournaments won’t have the attendance cap that have kept so many away in recent years. Easier said than done, certainly, but developments on that front seem to be forthcoming.
Anyway, I stayed at the hotel longer than I ever have before as I awaited a friend who was driving down from upstate New York. It was strange to see the lobby so emptied out after the chaos of the weekend. I passed the time with the women’s basketball final (title #12 for UConn, baby!) and enjoying the company of the few other crossword folks still around. Then it was 24 hours in the city with my friend, then a flight home (during which I made $400 from a second-place finish in my bracket pool; thank you Gators!), and another ACPT weekend was in the books.
Thus, I’m at the end of the recap and once again considering my feelings about where I stand in this competition. As I said to many people in the wake of the tournament, I really had no right to expect any better than the fifth-place trophy I took home. I didn’t work at it like other top competitors do. I’ve still got skills, but I haven’t done a whole lot to level them up, and that simply doesn’t cut it, especially these days, when it would be a brutal fight to get to the pinnacle even at the peak of my powers.
That’s hardly a new thought for me, but it feels more stark as the gap between me and first place grows likewise. I did manage to clip Dan and David on one puzzle each this year (#4 and #5 respectively), but they’ve had the consistency to eclipse me over the course of seven. And let’s face it: the two guys at the top of this year’s table are faster than I’ve ever been. (Apparently this isn’t even Will’s final form. Terrifying.) Plus, let me remind you of my perilously fortuitous timings. Tournament scoring rules meant that I was a total of about a minute away from losing six minutes. Considering that, I was much closer to, say, eighth place than to fourth.
So what now? Well, I could start training again. That certainly wouldn’t hurt my chances. But how much do I train? At what point would it start to feel like an obligation, especially with a life that tends to expand to fill the available space? Would I push past that threshold, especially when there’s surely a ceiling on my abilities and the reward is very far from guaranteed even if there weren’t? Is simple practice enough, or do I need to examine the finest of points, like writing E’s more efficiently? (That may sound like a joke; it assuredly is not.) Would any of this be fun? How much does that matter to me?
There’s another data point I haven’t mentioned directly: this year was by far the chillest I’ve ever been during ACPT weekend. I took the contest seriously, of course, and I pushed myself to perform as best I could. I’m certainly not suggesting that a lack of competitive drive was my only impediment. My point is just that I felt good emotionally. No anxiety, no knots in my stomach in the moments leading up to turning my paper over. I let go of the competition when I wasn’t actively participating in it. Perhaps some of that is attributable to age, but the nerves I’ve experienced over the years are undeniably tied to my expectations of myself. Being a clearer and clearer underdog has eased that tension; conversely, working to erase that status would likely bring it back.
On some level, those expectations are still high; I can’t deny that I’m disappointed with my results this year! Being happy about my emotional regulation doesn’t negate that. I enter the tournament in part to pursue a championship, and it’s not a good feeling to fall short. I have to decide how I’m going to react to that disappointment. I’d like to solve better, but I’d also like to maintain my equanimity. I think, if I choose to do so, I can do the former and at least try to decouple it from the stressors that jeopardize the latter. Multiple mind games at play.
As usual, I expect I’m overthinking this, even as I type this I feel sheepish about going on for that long about it. So let me conclude by thanking the organizers, constructors, judges, and friends that make this tournament such a cornerstone of my yearly calendar. Whatever hand-wringing I do about the competition itself, it’s a weekend I don’t see myself giving up anytime soon.