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Lollapuzzoola 16
About 5 days after I got back from England, I was off to New York. That is, admittedly, a much shorter trip. (I use Amtrak for that, because it is comfortable and reasonably relaxing, especially if you sit in the quiet car.)
The primary purpose of my trip was Lollapuzzoola 16, though I leveraged off that to do several other things, primarily theatre going. That will be in a separate entry.
Anyway, Lollapuzzoola is an annual crossword tournament held on a Saturday in August and is a tournament I particularly like because of the sheer craziness of the puzzles there. The shenanigans make it challenging, but it’s still fair. I will as usual keep the plain text write-up spoiler-free and use rot13 for any spoilers. (You can go to rot13.com to decode them.)
Puzzle #1 by Matthew Gritzmacher and Doug Peterson was reasonably straightforward. I wasn’t particularly fast, solving it in 7:28, but I didn’t make any mistakes either, which is the important thing.
Puzzle #2 was by Sara Cantor. This was a little more complicated than the first puzzle had been (see spoiler), but the theme was easy enough for me to suss out. I solved it in 12:24, which was a little slower than I’d hoped for. But, again, I was focused on solving cleanly, so I was okay with that. (Note that the top solvers take about half the time I do on puzzles like these first two.)
Spoiler for Puzzle #2:
Gur gurzr qvq vaibyir n erohf, v.r. zhygvcyr yrggref cynprq va pregnva obkrf. Va guvf pnfr, gubfr jrer jbeqf eryngrq gb gur gurzr. Vs lbh'er hfrq gb qbvat, fnl, n Guhefqnl Arj Lbex Gvzrf pebffjbeq, guvf vf abg rfcrpvnyyl gevpxl.
The shenanigans picked up a bit with puzzle #3, which was by Ricky Cruz. Instead of a simple grid, things wrapped around three faces of a cube. This wasn’t actually difficult but it did make it slower for me because I had to keep thinking about what direction answers went in. In addition, there were three boxes at one side that you also had to fill in, and several people didn’t grasp that. It took me 17:58. But, again, the important thing was not making mistakes.
Puzzle #4 is traditionally the hardest puzzle of the competition. This year’s torturer was Kevin G. Der. The grid was unusual with three mini-puzzles as part of it. There were actually two separate tricks involved overall and I will admit that I solved this cleanly without having completely grasped one of them. (See spoiler.) My time of 20:35 was actually pretty good, though (of course) nowhere near what the top solvers do.
Spoilers for Puzzle #4:
Va gur zvav-chmmyrf, gur yrggref Ur (sbe Uryvhz, ercerfragvat uryvhz onyybbaf) jrer n erohf. V svtherq gung bhg whfg svar.
Jung V qvqa'g dhvgr tenfc vf gung guvf jnf fhccbfrq gb gryy lbh gb envfr / yvsg pregnva cnegf bs gur gurzr nafjref gb gur znva chmmyr. gb gur arkg zhfvpny abgr cubargvpnyyl. Fb, sbe rknzcyr, eryngviryl tbbq vaqvpngbef bs svanapvny urnygu fubhyq or "NN ENGVATF" ohg lbh punatr gur zhfvpny abgr "ER" gb "ZV" naq vg orpbzrf "NN ZRRGVATF." V whfg svtherq gung nf ybat nf nyy gur qbja nafjref jbexrq naq gur npebff nafjref jrer npghny jbeqf be cuenfrf, V jnf bxnl. Naq, vaqrrq, V jnf.
Normally, Puzzle #5 would be back to something nice and straightforward. Instead, this year’s puzzle, by Rebecca Goldstein, achieved peak shenanigans. This was obvious right from the beginning as the puzzle was accompanied by an envelope containing 6 slips of paper and 6 brads. The puzzle itself was straightforward, but you then had to figure out what to do with the contents of the envelope. It was pretty clear that you had to write something on those slips of paper and use the brads to attach them to the puzzle. And that’s where I screwed up. Let’s just say that I should have gone back and re-read parts of the puzzle. (See spoiler). So the puzzle took me 31:36 and I had 31 errors. And there went my clean solve for the day.
Spoiler for Puzzle #5:
V unq svtherq bhg gung gur gurzr jnf "cva gur gnvy ba gur qbaxrl" naq gung gur fyvcf bs cncre jbhyq vaibyir fbzrguvat lbh unq gb "cva" (Hfvat gur oenqf) gb cneg bs gur gurzr nafjref. Ohg V pbzcyrgryl snvyrq gb abgvpr gung gubfr gurzr nafjref unq yrggref va cneragurfrf gung lbh arrqrq gb nantenz gb svther bhg jung gb jevgr ba gur fyvcf bs cncre. Bar bs zl fbzrjung enaqbz thrffrf jnf npghnyyl pbeerpg be V'q unir qbar rira jbefr.
So how did I do? I finished 151st out of 242 contestants overall and 83rd out of 169 in the local division. So, pretty much middle of the pack. I choose to believe that my screw-up on puzzle #5 was entirely the result of jet lag.
More importantly, I got to see several friends and I had a good time overall. Which is what’s really important.
The primary purpose of my trip was Lollapuzzoola 16, though I leveraged off that to do several other things, primarily theatre going. That will be in a separate entry.
Anyway, Lollapuzzoola is an annual crossword tournament held on a Saturday in August and is a tournament I particularly like because of the sheer craziness of the puzzles there. The shenanigans make it challenging, but it’s still fair. I will as usual keep the plain text write-up spoiler-free and use rot13 for any spoilers. (You can go to rot13.com to decode them.)
Puzzle #1 by Matthew Gritzmacher and Doug Peterson was reasonably straightforward. I wasn’t particularly fast, solving it in 7:28, but I didn’t make any mistakes either, which is the important thing.
Puzzle #2 was by Sara Cantor. This was a little more complicated than the first puzzle had been (see spoiler), but the theme was easy enough for me to suss out. I solved it in 12:24, which was a little slower than I’d hoped for. But, again, I was focused on solving cleanly, so I was okay with that. (Note that the top solvers take about half the time I do on puzzles like these first two.)
Spoiler for Puzzle #2:
Gur gurzr qvq vaibyir n erohf, v.r. zhygvcyr yrggref cynprq va pregnva obkrf. Va guvf pnfr, gubfr jrer jbeqf eryngrq gb gur gurzr. Vs lbh'er hfrq gb qbvat, fnl, n Guhefqnl Arj Lbex Gvzrf pebffjbeq, guvf vf abg rfcrpvnyyl gevpxl.
The shenanigans picked up a bit with puzzle #3, which was by Ricky Cruz. Instead of a simple grid, things wrapped around three faces of a cube. This wasn’t actually difficult but it did make it slower for me because I had to keep thinking about what direction answers went in. In addition, there were three boxes at one side that you also had to fill in, and several people didn’t grasp that. It took me 17:58. But, again, the important thing was not making mistakes.
Puzzle #4 is traditionally the hardest puzzle of the competition. This year’s torturer was Kevin G. Der. The grid was unusual with three mini-puzzles as part of it. There were actually two separate tricks involved overall and I will admit that I solved this cleanly without having completely grasped one of them. (See spoiler.) My time of 20:35 was actually pretty good, though (of course) nowhere near what the top solvers do.
Spoilers for Puzzle #4:
Va gur zvav-chmmyrf, gur yrggref Ur (sbe Uryvhz, ercerfragvat uryvhz onyybbaf) jrer n erohf. V svtherq gung bhg whfg svar.
Jung V qvqa'g dhvgr tenfc vf gung guvf jnf fhccbfrq gb gryy lbh gb envfr / yvsg pregnva cnegf bs gur gurzr nafjref gb gur znva chmmyr. gb gur arkg zhfvpny abgr cubargvpnyyl. Fb, sbe rknzcyr, eryngviryl tbbq vaqvpngbef bs svanapvny urnygu fubhyq or "NN ENGVATF" ohg lbh punatr gur zhfvpny abgr "ER" gb "ZV" naq vg orpbzrf "NN ZRRGVATF." V whfg svtherq gung nf ybat nf nyy gur qbja nafjref jbexrq naq gur npebff nafjref jrer npghny jbeqf be cuenfrf, V jnf bxnl. Naq, vaqrrq, V jnf.
Normally, Puzzle #5 would be back to something nice and straightforward. Instead, this year’s puzzle, by Rebecca Goldstein, achieved peak shenanigans. This was obvious right from the beginning as the puzzle was accompanied by an envelope containing 6 slips of paper and 6 brads. The puzzle itself was straightforward, but you then had to figure out what to do with the contents of the envelope. It was pretty clear that you had to write something on those slips of paper and use the brads to attach them to the puzzle. And that’s where I screwed up. Let’s just say that I should have gone back and re-read parts of the puzzle. (See spoiler). So the puzzle took me 31:36 and I had 31 errors. And there went my clean solve for the day.
Spoiler for Puzzle #5:
V unq svtherq bhg gung gur gurzr jnf "cva gur gnvy ba gur qbaxrl" naq gung gur fyvcf bs cncre jbhyq vaibyir fbzrguvat lbh unq gb "cva" (Hfvat gur oenqf) gb cneg bs gur gurzr nafjref. Ohg V pbzcyrgryl snvyrq gb abgvpr gung gubfr gurzr nafjref unq yrggref va cneragurfrf gung lbh arrqrq gb nantenz gb svther bhg jung gb jevgr ba gur fyvcf bs cncre. Bar bs zl fbzrjung enaqbz thrffrf jnf npghnyyl pbeerpg be V'q unir qbar rira jbefr.
So how did I do? I finished 151st out of 242 contestants overall and 83rd out of 169 in the local division. So, pretty much middle of the pack. I choose to believe that my screw-up on puzzle #5 was entirely the result of jet lag.
More importantly, I got to see several friends and I had a good time overall. Which is what’s really important.