We’ve got two quick updates for you today from the world of crosswords. And both of them involve opportunities for you to get out there and show off your cruciverbalist talents!
On Monday night’s Boswords broadcast, Will Shortz joined Andrew Kingsley and John Lieb to announce some changes for the American Crossword Puzzle Tournament.
In 2026, the ACPT will be held at the Stamford Marriott, possibly for the last time.
No, worry not, the ACPT is still going strong. So strong, in fact, that it will be moving to Philadelphia for the 2027 tournament! The new space will be able to accommodate up to 1,250 solvers.
It’s a sad moment for Stamford, but not entirely unexpected. Attendance has been pushing the Marriott’s limits for years, and registration for this year’s tournament closed more than a month early because of high demand.
It’s also not the first time Stamford has said goodbye to the tournament. From 2008 until its return in 2015, the ACPT was held outside Stamford.
You can check out the full announcement here:
Will Shortz joined us on our Boswords broadcast tonight to share news about a future location for the American Crossword Puzzle Tournament (ACPT). You can watch the interview at https://t.co/b2iKNr7ExMpic.twitter.com/8Uv6oq6Hz0
Overall, I think this is a great move for the tournament. There’s greater opportunity to attend the tournament, plus a ballroom space fit for voracious solvers of all ages.
I can’t wait to see what 2016 and 2017 bring for the American Crossword Puzzle Tournament.
Remember that registration opens on January 1st for former contestants and on January 8th for rookies!
Reminder: Puzzmo Open Submission Week is Fast Approaching!
From the mecca of in-person crossword solving to one of its most ambitious and welcoming online platforms, we move from one impactful puzzly institution to another that has very quickly made its mark on the world of puzzles.
Puzzmo is holding their next Crossword Open Submission Week from December 29th to January 5th, 2026, with new and established constructors all welcome to submit their puzzly creations.
Themed and themeless puzzles are welcome, as long as they fit Puzzmo’s specs, and the Puzzmo team has created an impressively thorough document to assist aspiring constructors with their efforts. Grid specs, examples of previously published puzzles, and more await anyone hoping to see their work pop up on Puzzmo.
It’s a very cool opportunity to test your puzzly mettle in a creative space known for strong crossword fundamentals as well as playfulness with language and themes (particularly their signature “apt pairs”).
I would highly recommend checking out Puzzmo, whether you’re planning to submit puzzles or not. The minis, midis, and big crosswords are all great fun to solve, and new constructors are bound to learn a thing or two from the terrific names on Puzzmo’s roster of puzzlesmiths.
Will you be attending next year’s ACPT or submitting to this year’s Puzzmo Open Submission Week? Let us know in the comments section below. We’d love to hear from you!
Summer is always a fun time for crossword fans who enjoy a good tournament.
Westwords wrapped up a few weeks ago, as did the first World Cryptic Crossword Championship in London. Boswords is less than a week away, Lollapuzzoola is coming up in August, and the 7th Bryant Park Crossword Tournament not long after in September!
And while discussing the Scripps National Spelling Bee with a friend recently, they asked me, as a puzzle guy, if I thought that crosswords could ever become a spectator sport like that.
While crossword tournaments aren’t currently televised, I happily informed him that crosswords are pretty much already a spectator sport.
Every year, people at the ACPT not only enjoy watching the live-solved final puzzle, but they get commentary from Greg Pliska and Ophira Eisenberg!
Tournament finals are often live-solved in front of their fellow competitors, adding some drama and showmanship to these wonderful puzzly events.
We’re even getting behind-the-scenes videos on the tournaments now, like this one for Westwords:
But in terms of crosswords as a spectator sport, the World Cryptic Crossword Championship took things a step further.
The final round of the tournament wasn’t a live-solved puzzle, it was a single cryptic-style clue. No crossing letters or grid for context. Just the clue, and the competitor only had ten seconds to solve it before the next competitor took their shot.
I’ve never had to solve a puzzle in front of an audience like all the tournament finalists, but I can imagine it’s nerve-wracking. But giving someone a cryptic-style clue with NO context letters and ten seconds to solve it in front of an audience?
Good lord, thank you for the new anxiety nightmare fuel, WCCC.
That being said, it was an entertaining watch, and another step forward for crosswords as a spectator sport:
What do you think, fellow puzzler? Will we be seeing the ACPT or another puzzle tournament on an ESPN sister channel soon? Or perhaps as an Olympic event?
Let us know in the comments section below! We’d love to hear from you.
I finally had a chance to sit down and try my hand at the puzzles from this year’s Westwords Crossword Tournament. Given the talent involved amongst the organizers and constructors, I had high expectations, and I was not disappointed.
So let’s put those puzzles under the microscope and see what’s what!
Puzzle #1: Brace for Turbulenceby Kevin Christian
The tournament launched with this 16×15 grid loaded with two-word entries (ROUGH CUT, SAVAGE GARDEN) where the first word (the west word) was a synonym for “wild,” aligning with the revealer WILD WEST.
It was a solid starter puzzle with a nice flow and cluing that knocked any solving ring rust from the competitors and prepared them for the day’s events. My only qualm was the repetition of ALL with ALL EARS and AFTER ALL, but that’s more a personal preference than any fault with the construction.
Interesting grid entries included CAJOLED, SALINAS, BEER RUN, and VALLEJO, and my favorite clues were the dual usage of the clue “Pizzazz” for ZING and BRIO, and “Online ‘Reader’ whose name is hidden in ‘Nunavut News'” for UTNE. Nice bit of Crostic-style cluing there!
Puzzle #2: Suspension of Disbeliefby Willa Angel Chen Miller
The second tournament puzzle was a freestyle 16×15 with a grid-crossing spanner nicely tying the grid together. It was definitely tougher than Puzzle #1, but the stellar fill and engaging cluing made this one of my favorite puzzles of the tournament.
Miller absolutely made the most of this themeless and jammed loads of long entries into an elegantly constructed grid.
Interesting grid entries included DEAR LORD, EGGS BENNY, SAINTLY, and the pair of WE SHOULD TALK and I BLAME YOU, and my favorite clues were “Device that can affect its user’s balance” for ATM, “Big name in construction” for LEGO, “Two objects in a row?” for OARS, and “The rest of the day?” for SIESTA.
Puzzle #3: State Linesby Amie Walker
The third and largest puzzle of the tournament was this 21x puzzle where the themed entries across were clued with state nicknames — “Beehive state?” for GENERATING BUZZ or “Gem state?” for PEARL CLUTCHING) — and crossed entries where the state abbreviation for that state-specific clue was concealed in the down entry. (CA crossed the entry clued “Golden state?” for example.)
This was really smart and well-executed construction, managing it six times in the grid and never feeling shoehorned-in or inorganic. The simple title not only hinted at the cluing but allowed solvers to add “crossing” to “State Lines” subconsciously. This puzzle was a treat.
Interesting grid entries included HAT TIP, BARBIELAND, OBI-WAN, and SATSUMA, and my favorite clues were “Bird with a notable top spin?” for OWL, “What’s rhymed with ‘pretty mama’ in the Beach Boys’ ‘Kokomo'” for BAHAMA, and “This is so you-coded” for DNA.
Wait, right message, wrong West…
Puzzle #4: Go Dubs!by David Steinberg
With this devious 15x, Puzzle #4 in Westwords could build a similar reputation to the eternally-challenging Puzzle #5 at the American Crossword Puzzle Tournament.
The toughest puzzle of the tournament, this very clever entry from Steinberg featured several entries clued with words starting with W where you had to ignore the W to read the actual clue.
For instance, one clue was “Witch”, but the actual clue was “Itch” and the “W” was a directional hint. The answer, HANKERING, had to be entered into the grid facing west, like GNIREKNAH. Each themed entry followed this pattern, giving us EIGHT literal west-running words for Westwords (as confirmed by the revealer)!
Interesting grid entries included ACETIC, RENATA, PRELAW, and VAIO, and my favorite clues were “One thing, or two people” for ITEM and “Performance at 100-120 BPM” for CPR.
Puzzle #5: L.A.byrinthby Nate Cardin
After Puzzle #4’s trickery, it was nice to have some clear directions to follow with Puzzle #5, an 18×15 grid where Cardin’s clues literally directed solvers through a series of LA roadways grayed out in the grid from top to bottom. Each clue containing part of the pathway through the grid was written like someone giving you directions, i.e. “Okay, now take the 101…” for ENTRY LEVEL COURSE.
Using number-based clues that both hint at the answer and feel like proper conversational directions is a narrow tightrope to walk, but Cardin does a terrific job balancing the style with the substance. This felt totally different from every other puzzle in the tournament and the visual element was great fun.
Interesting grid entries included CORONAL, WAVES HI, and SO SORRY, and my favorite clues were “Board game with ‘RuPaul’s Drag Race’ and ‘Scooby-Doo’ versions” for CLUE and the very appropriately thematic “Like one navigating a freeway maze, hopefully” for ALERT.
Puzzle 6: Finalby Caitlin Reid
The final puzzle for the tournament boasts a different set of clues for each of the divisions — Beach and Mountain — and Reid constructed a puzzle with loads of intriguing entries and personality to spare.
The Beach cluing was smooth and accessible while still testing solvers, while the Mountain side offered some very challenging trivia and clever wordplay to keep competitors guessing to the very end.
Interesting grid entries included ROSHAMBO, AU REVOIR (very fitting), LIVE IT UP, COMIC-CON, and ADORBS.
As for favorite clues, here’s a list:
BEACH: “Word before can or tan” for SPRAY BEACH: “Like a town that’s hardly worth a dot on the map” for ONE-HORSE BEACH: “Las Vegas institution with a silent partner?” for PENN AND TELLER MOUNTAIN: “Current law maker?” for AMPERE MOUNTAIN: “Seat in the House of Lords?” for ARSE
Overall, I really enjoyed my first experience with Westwords. (I have the puzzles from the 2024 event but haven’t solved them yet). Solvers have high expectations when it comes to crossword tournaments these days, and the creativity and skill level of the constructors for this year’s Westwords puzzles absolutely did not disappoint.
We got several different puzzles playing on the Westwords gimmick, some delightful visuals, and a host of terrific clues for fresh grid fill and classic crossword words alike.
If you’ve never tackled tournament-style puzzling before, I would highly recommend giving Westwords a try. The puzzles are tricky and fair in equal measure, and I enjoyed the arrangement of puzzle difficulty throughout the day.
West Coast puzzlers, you’re in excellent hands.
Did you attempt this year’s Westwords tournament puzzles, fellow solver? If so, I’d love to hear from you in the comments section below!
The American Crossword Puzzle Tournament was this past weekend, and unfortunately I wasn’t able to attend. I did my best to keep up with the event through social media, enjoying everyone’s observations, jokes, highlights, victories, trials and tribulations.
One message in particular stuck out to me, though.
I can’t remember if it was posting the results after the sixth or the seventh puzzle, but they remarked that they were excited to see some new blood in the top ten.
I couldn’t help but laugh, because all the names were pretty familiar to me.
Paolo Pasco won the tournament for the second year in a row, dominating the final puzzle with a record-breaking time of 3 minutes and 45 seconds. (Solver Paul Edward did the math on Facebook and calculated that Paolo spent less than 34 minutes across the 8 puzzles that weekend. WOW.)
Will Nediger and former champ Dan Feyer duked it out for second place, with Will edging out Dan by ONE SECOND, solving the puzzle in 4 minutes and 38 seconds. What a nailbiter!
The next day, after the tournament was over, I still had that message lurking in my brainspace.
Now, anyone who reads this blog can tell that I’m a nerd for many things. I’m a nerd for puzzles, games, and RPGs. I’m a nerd for trivia.
And I am absolutely a nerd for statistics. I love numbers and analysis and compiling data.
So I read through the full results available for each tournament going back years, focusing on the top ten from this year’s tournament and reflecting on their ACPT careers. I had to see if that “new blood” message had any merit or not, and I figured this was the best way to find out.
Let’s see, shall we?
Emily O’Neill
Emily has been competing since 2005 (unless there’s a name change involved, which is possible), and has been in the top ten twice. She has been in the top 30 ten times!
Glen Ryan
Glen has been competing since 2013 (where he placed 3rd in Division B), and has been in the top ten five times. He has been in the top 30 ten times!
Al Sanders
Al has been competing since 1999 (where he placed in the top three), and has been in the top ten TWENTY times. He has been second place twice and in the top 3 seven times. He has never ranked lower than 21!
Stella Zawistowski
Stella has been competing since 2001, and has been in the top ten THIRTEEN times. She has been in the top 30 nineteen times!
Andy Kravis
Andy has been competing since 2011, and has been in the top ten six times. He has been in the top 30 ten times!
Tyler Hinman
Tyler has been competing since 2001 and is a seven-time champion! He has been in the top ten NINETEEN times (including five times in a row at second place and fourteen times in the top three). He was the Division B winner in his second appearance.
David Plotkin
David has been competing since 2010, and has been in the top ten TWELVE times. He has been in the top 3 six times and has never ranked lower than 28th!
Dan Feyer
Dan has been competing since 2008 and is a nine-time champion! He has been in the top ten SIXTEEN times (literally every time except his first tournament appearance).
[It’s not until the final two names that we really get anyone who qualifies as new blood.]
Will Nediger
Will has been competing since 2021 and has been in the top 3 twice. He has been in the top ten three times (meaning every time he’s competed).
Paolo Pasco
Paolo has been competing since 2021 and is a two-time champion! He has been in the top ten five times (every time he’s competed). He was also the Division B winner in 2022.
You have to go back to the year 1998 to find a tournament that didn’t feature one of these ten people as a solver. That’s amazing!
Originally, I was just going to focus on the top ten solvers from this year’s tournament and their many accomplishments.
But as I was going through the rankings year by year, I was struck by how many names I recognized, and how many times I got to see those names. I got to experience the tournament community as a microcosm across literal decades.
I watched the changing of the guard as some names slowly slipped out of the top ten and were replaced by others. Names like Anne Erdmann and Trip Payne and Jon Delfin and Ellen Ripstein and Douglas Hoylman. I was more familiar with some than others.
The slow evolution of solvers really struck both the puzzle nerd in me and the history nerd in me. I ventured back before my own career in puzzles started (back in 2003).
I’ve never competed at the ACPT, but I attended the event for several years, working the Penny Press / Puzzlenation table in the common area, and I grew familiar with a lot of attendees. Puzzle people are genuinely nice folks, and so many of them were happy to visit for a bit, introducing themselves, checking out our magazines, and taking advantage of our pencil sharpeners.
Everyone was so friendly, sharing their excitement for the event and letting me know their thoughts on each puzzle as the tournament went on. It really is a delight.
(Just don’t start a conversation about which pencils are the best for solving and you’ll be fine!)
New blood or not, the crossword scene is clearly thriving, and I can’t wait to see what next year’s tournament brings.
And we’ve got news on a crossword convention, upcoming tournaments, a worthwhile puzzle-fueled charity endeavor, and a new Hallmark puzzly mystery debuting tonight.
So, without further ado, let’s get to the puzzle news roundup!
Crossword Con
April 4th marks the second annual Crossword Con, presented by the puzzle app Puzzmo.
Crossword Con is all about bringing together crossword fans and constructors to discuss crosswords as a cultural touchstone and an art form.
For their second outing, the organizers are casting their eyes to the future, asking “what’s on the horizon for crosswords, and what changes are already bubbling just beneath the surface?”
Although it’s only a half-day event, it is certainly jam-packed with notable names with plenty to offer on the subject of crosswords! Speakers and guests include Kate Hawkins, Will Nediger, Ada Nicolle, Brendan Emmett Quigley, Laura Braunstein, Rob Dubbin, Natan Last, Adrienne Raphel, and Brooke Husic.
With Crossword Con in New York and the American Crossword Puzzle Tournament starting the same day in Stamford, April 4th is certainly an eventful day for crossword fans all over (and particularly those in New England).
Crossword Tournaments
And speaking of crossword tournaments, if you’re a competitive crossword fan, the gears are already in motion for puzzly challenges all year long.
The registration for October’s Midwest Crossword Tournament opens on April 2nd, just a few days before this year’s American Crossword Puzzle Tournament (April 4th through the 6th) will be held.
And the activities alongside this year’s tournament are a doozy. There’s an event celebrating the 20th anniversary of the “Wordplay” documentary, a magical puzzly performance from David Kwong, and an acrostics event on Friday night!
Lots of competitive puzzle fun coming up!
These Puzzles Fund Abortion 5
There’s a long history of activism and advocacy through puzzles. Women of Letters, Grids for Good, Queer Qrosswords… these are just a few prominent examples of constructors and creators donating their time and puzzly efforts to benefit the world at large.
And for the fifth year in a row, cruciverbalists and editors have united to help fund safe and affordable abortion care.
These Puzzles Fund Abortion 5 contains 23 puzzles “centered around social and reproductive justice themes,” all for a minimum donation of $25.
In the original, a luxury private island murder mystery experience turns real when a dead body is found during the event. It falls to psychologist Dr. Emilia Priestly and detective Jason Trent to unravel riddles, deceit, and shadowy motives to solve the murder.
In tonight’s sequel, we return to the island for another murder mystery game, this time created by our crime-solving duo of Emilia and Jason. With a cash prize on the line, tensions are already high, but things take a dark turn when an employee turns up dead during the game.
Anyone who enjoyed my recaps and reviews of Hallmark’s Crossword Mysteries will be happy to hear that I will be reviewing not only the new Mystery Island sequel, but the original as well!
Mystery Island: Winner Takes All debuts tonight at 8 PM Eastern on Hallmark Mystery.
Phew! So much puzzly goodness going on. Will you be attending any crossword events this year? Let us know in the comments below.
AI continues to encroach on nearly every aspect of our lives, online or otherwise, and crosswords are not immune to this effect.
Actually, crosswords and computers have walked hand-in-hand for a long time.
Some companies use computer programs to generate their unthemed crosswords, no human intervention necessary. Computer programs like Crossword Compiler aid constructors in puzzle design and grid fill, allowing them to build and cultivate databases of words with which to complete their grids.
Matt Ginsberg’s ever-evolving crossword-solving program Dr. Fill won the American Crossword Puzzle Tournament in 2021 — although the top prize still went to a flesh-and-blood solver — a first-time occurrence which garnered a lot of media attention:
The first computer to win the event, Dr. Fill completed most puzzles in well under a minute and only made three mistakes, edging out its top human competitor by 15 points.
To be fair, several constructors responded by vowing to make a crossword for the following year’s tournament that would thwart any computer. And I respect such inspired declarations immensely.
(I’ll have to do more research and find out if any of them succeeded!)
Really, we shouldn’t be surprised. They wrote an entire Crossword Mysteries movie on the Hallmark Channel about a crossword-clue-solving AI (and the people who would kill for the technology).
But I digress.
I have AI on the brain today because I just checked out an AI-fueled competitive mini-crossword arena, and I have mixed feelings about it.
It’s called Crossword Race, and it uses AI to generate 5×5 mini-crosswords, clue them, and load them up for solvers to complete in as fast a time as possible.
Yes, the cluing is very bland and overly technical (feeling more like oddly-worded dictionary definitions), but there seems to be a genuine desire to build and serve a puzzle-solving community.
And I can see the value.
If you’re a puzzler trying to get better at solving — especially if you have friends posting their mini-crossword results on the daily — this is a safe space to practice your solving, your grid navigation, and shake off the nerves that come with any timed competitive endeavor. (You can create a profile to track your stats or play anonymously.)
But I’m also a writer, a puzzler, a content creator, and such push-button “creativity” gives me the ick. Beyond the soullessness that comes with so many AI creations that lack the heart and inspiration of human touch, there are already too many computer-generated crosswords these days with crap clues, poor fill, and frustrating Naticks/crossings that would stump the average solver.
I looked at a puzzle book from one of these companies a few years ago. I mean, it was almost impressive that one computer-generated puzzle managed to cram FIFTEEN abbreviations into a 13×13 grid, often crossing or piled together in corners. It was an abysmal solving experience.
Now, abysmal is not a fair word to use when discussing Crossword Race’s grids. Let me be fair here. I don’t like the cluing, but the grids are reliably filled with beginner-appropriate vocabulary.
And I want PuzzCulture to be a place where we discuss what’s going on in the world of puzzles. That includes AI.
So it’s up to you, fellow puzzlers, if you decide to use Crossword Race or not, or if Crossword Race is a net good for puzzlers worldwide. Time will tell, I suppose.
In the meantime, I wish you happy puzzling, folks! And remember to support your friendly neighborhood cruciverbalist! Sign up for a Patreon, buy a puzzle book, attend a crossword tournament, every little bit helps!
PuzzCulture 