I had a good weekend.
My friend Andy from my crossword-puzzle competitor crew joined with some of his fellow young independent puzzle constructor friends to create a new crossword tournament, the Indie 500 in Washington, DC, which happened this weekend. I wanted to support a buddy, and I haven't done a tournament outside the ACPT on my own in a few years, so it was an easy call to make arrangements to head to DC on Friday morning. (One of the perks of the freelance life. Did I mention that I'm freelancing three days a week now? I quit one of my day jobs! That deserves its own post; a task for another day.)
My bus arrived around 2 Friday afternoon. The bus station is a disappointment by Port Authority standards, which is saying something. It's not much more than a parking garage open to the elements adjoining the train station, which is much nicer. (Perhaps the difference is important people often take the train to DC, while poor schlubs like me take the bus.) I got lunch at the food court in the train station - there's a nice teriyaki counter - and found the Metro to Arlington, where my hotel was.
I haven't taken the Metro probably since my sister was at Georgetown Law School in the '70s. I didn't recall or realize how boring the Metro is. Dimly lit, concrete decor - nothing to see. A lost opportunity, I think. That said, it's pretty fast and there was plenty of ridership, and the pay-per-ride farecards print the balance remaining on the card when you leave the system, which is very nice, if totally unworkable for New York.
The hotel was about a mile from the Metro, and I walked it in about a half-hour, with my baggage. Since my back isn't in the best shape at the moment, I took the hotel shuttle bus to and from the Metro the rest of the weekend, but the part of Arlington I was in is somewhat walkable, and the room itself was pretty sweet for the price I paid (king bed, banquette, desk, huge flatscreen TV - I wish I had company). I spent the rest of the evening watching the Nationals play (and Stephen Strasburg get hurt) and relaxing.
Saturday morning, I found the tournament venue at George Washington University pretty easily once I had breakfast under my belt, and fauxklore arrived moments after I did. After taking a second to watch Andy painstakingly mark out squares on a whiteboard by hand, to be used for the final puzzle grid, we ended up sitting at one of the round solvers' tables with Joanne, another crossword friend who came in from New York (via Chicago), and five men, all of whom ranked in the top 100 in this year's ACPT. I was quite certain I wasn't contending for anything, but it was exciting to be among some of the top talent in the community.
There were five puzzles for the entire field. Each of the tournament organizers constructed one puzzle, and they chose a sixth from contest submissions. In my experience with the ACPT and Lollapuzzoola, the local NYC tournament, there's a trajectory of easier-to-harder-to-deadly-to-easier, but the Indie 500 puzzles didn't go that way. I'd say that on average they were slightly more difficult than those for the ACPT. They were impressively clever and imaginative for all that. fauxklore has spoiler-free capsule reviews of the puzzles in her report.
Scoring was computerized and updated to the Indie 500 website regularly, but there was no WiFi that my tablet could use to check. I asked another solver to look me up on her phone, and I was in 50th place out of 100. Middle of the pack, about where I expected to be, and I was having a great time, and that was enough to make the whole thing worthwhile. Right?
Turns out the scoring was incomplete, and I actually finished Puzzle 5 in 34th place (later slipping after scoring corrections to 35th place). (My solutions were all perfect, so speed or lack thereof was the big determinant of my ranking.) Now all the tournaments I've been to have two divisions (the ACPT has three): one for the superfast elite solvers and one for the rank and file. The top three solvers in each division compete head to head in the final. My rank, as it happens, was good enough for fourth place in what the Indie 500 calls the Outside Track - so just outside the top three. But then one of the top three disqualified himself from the final, because he'd seen one of the tournament puzzles before that day and it wouldn't be fair for him to compete. Which meant I was in! And when my name was announced, that was a real surprise. "Really!" I said. And so, on to the final!
My fellow Outside Track finalists were two complete rookies; for both Andrew and Josh, it was their first tournament ever. The way the final works is this: the finalists get the same grid to solve on whiteboards on stage in front of the crowd, and the fastest to solve the puzzle accurately is the champ. They wear headphones with white noise playing so any crowd comments aren't audible, which means the audience can't blurt out answers and affect the outcome. (The ACPT actually offers play-by-play for the grand championship final.)
One innovation the Indie 500 came up with was to have contestants choose their own entrance music, should they get to the final. That's how it happened that I got to make my grand entrance for the final to Also Sprach Zarathustra. Then I pantomimed throwing my marker into the hall as if it were a prehistoric animal bone.
We had 20 minutes to solve a themeless 15x15 puzzle, and I needed 15 1/2 of them to finish. It was tough, with some really obscure clues and some references I just didn't know. I could hear the applause over the white noise when Andrew finished, and then when Josh finished, and I felt soooo sloooow, but finish I did. And then the scorers took longer than I expected to ratify that I had a perfect solution, at the end of which they informed me that I had taken second place! Andrew had left a couple squares blank, so he got third place, and Josh took first place. Remember the names Andrew Miller and Josh Himmelsbach - I hope I see them both in Stamford next year, because they have chops.
One of the guys at my table, Eric Maddy, took third in the Inside Track, while crossword blogger extraordinaire Amy Reynaldo got second, and Joon Pahk took the championship. Incidentally, the Inside Track finalists solve the exact same grid as the Outside Track finalists (this is true at the other tournaments I know as well), only the Outside Track clues are only wicked hard, while the Inside Track clues are impossible. Joon managed to finish perfectly in 12 minutes and change. The crossword elite are on a whole other plane of being.
Thanks to all the Indie 500 team - Andy Kravis, Erick Agard, Evan Birnholz, Neville Fogarty, and Peter Broda - their special guest constructor Finn Vigeland, and the volunteers for doing a fantastic job getting all of this together. Do this again, guys!
I took a little time on Sunday to see DC before boarding the bus for home. fauxklore recommended the US Postal Museum, and given my connection to USPS via my father the postal inspector, it was a great choice. I didn't get to see everything and had to head to the bus just as I found the room devoted to the Postal Inspection Service, but that gives me a reason to come back. Next time I'll give myself an extra day in DC so I can get in more touristy things.
I guess this whole crossword thing is working out okay.
My bus arrived around 2 Friday afternoon. The bus station is a disappointment by Port Authority standards, which is saying something. It's not much more than a parking garage open to the elements adjoining the train station, which is much nicer. (Perhaps the difference is important people often take the train to DC, while poor schlubs like me take the bus.) I got lunch at the food court in the train station - there's a nice teriyaki counter - and found the Metro to Arlington, where my hotel was.
I haven't taken the Metro probably since my sister was at Georgetown Law School in the '70s. I didn't recall or realize how boring the Metro is. Dimly lit, concrete decor - nothing to see. A lost opportunity, I think. That said, it's pretty fast and there was plenty of ridership, and the pay-per-ride farecards print the balance remaining on the card when you leave the system, which is very nice, if totally unworkable for New York.
The hotel was about a mile from the Metro, and I walked it in about a half-hour, with my baggage. Since my back isn't in the best shape at the moment, I took the hotel shuttle bus to and from the Metro the rest of the weekend, but the part of Arlington I was in is somewhat walkable, and the room itself was pretty sweet for the price I paid (king bed, banquette, desk, huge flatscreen TV - I wish I had company). I spent the rest of the evening watching the Nationals play (and Stephen Strasburg get hurt) and relaxing.
Saturday morning, I found the tournament venue at George Washington University pretty easily once I had breakfast under my belt, and fauxklore arrived moments after I did. After taking a second to watch Andy painstakingly mark out squares on a whiteboard by hand, to be used for the final puzzle grid, we ended up sitting at one of the round solvers' tables with Joanne, another crossword friend who came in from New York (via Chicago), and five men, all of whom ranked in the top 100 in this year's ACPT. I was quite certain I wasn't contending for anything, but it was exciting to be among some of the top talent in the community.
There were five puzzles for the entire field. Each of the tournament organizers constructed one puzzle, and they chose a sixth from contest submissions. In my experience with the ACPT and Lollapuzzoola, the local NYC tournament, there's a trajectory of easier-to-harder-to-deadly-to-easier, but the Indie 500 puzzles didn't go that way. I'd say that on average they were slightly more difficult than those for the ACPT. They were impressively clever and imaginative for all that. fauxklore has spoiler-free capsule reviews of the puzzles in her report.
Scoring was computerized and updated to the Indie 500 website regularly, but there was no WiFi that my tablet could use to check. I asked another solver to look me up on her phone, and I was in 50th place out of 100. Middle of the pack, about where I expected to be, and I was having a great time, and that was enough to make the whole thing worthwhile. Right?
Turns out the scoring was incomplete, and I actually finished Puzzle 5 in 34th place (later slipping after scoring corrections to 35th place). (My solutions were all perfect, so speed or lack thereof was the big determinant of my ranking.) Now all the tournaments I've been to have two divisions (the ACPT has three): one for the superfast elite solvers and one for the rank and file. The top three solvers in each division compete head to head in the final. My rank, as it happens, was good enough for fourth place in what the Indie 500 calls the Outside Track - so just outside the top three. But then one of the top three disqualified himself from the final, because he'd seen one of the tournament puzzles before that day and it wouldn't be fair for him to compete. Which meant I was in! And when my name was announced, that was a real surprise. "Really!" I said. And so, on to the final!
My fellow Outside Track finalists were two complete rookies; for both Andrew and Josh, it was their first tournament ever. The way the final works is this: the finalists get the same grid to solve on whiteboards on stage in front of the crowd, and the fastest to solve the puzzle accurately is the champ. They wear headphones with white noise playing so any crowd comments aren't audible, which means the audience can't blurt out answers and affect the outcome. (The ACPT actually offers play-by-play for the grand championship final.)
One innovation the Indie 500 came up with was to have contestants choose their own entrance music, should they get to the final. That's how it happened that I got to make my grand entrance for the final to Also Sprach Zarathustra. Then I pantomimed throwing my marker into the hall as if it were a prehistoric animal bone.
We had 20 minutes to solve a themeless 15x15 puzzle, and I needed 15 1/2 of them to finish. It was tough, with some really obscure clues and some references I just didn't know. I could hear the applause over the white noise when Andrew finished, and then when Josh finished, and I felt soooo sloooow, but finish I did. And then the scorers took longer than I expected to ratify that I had a perfect solution, at the end of which they informed me that I had taken second place! Andrew had left a couple squares blank, so he got third place, and Josh took first place. Remember the names Andrew Miller and Josh Himmelsbach - I hope I see them both in Stamford next year, because they have chops.
One of the guys at my table, Eric Maddy, took third in the Inside Track, while crossword blogger extraordinaire Amy Reynaldo got second, and Joon Pahk took the championship. Incidentally, the Inside Track finalists solve the exact same grid as the Outside Track finalists (this is true at the other tournaments I know as well), only the Outside Track clues are only wicked hard, while the Inside Track clues are impossible. Joon managed to finish perfectly in 12 minutes and change. The crossword elite are on a whole other plane of being.
Thanks to all the Indie 500 team - Andy Kravis, Erick Agard, Evan Birnholz, Neville Fogarty, and Peter Broda - their special guest constructor Finn Vigeland, and the volunteers for doing a fantastic job getting all of this together. Do this again, guys!
I took a little time on Sunday to see DC before boarding the bus for home. fauxklore recommended the US Postal Museum, and given my connection to USPS via my father the postal inspector, it was a great choice. I didn't get to see everything and had to head to the bus just as I found the room devoted to the Postal Inspection Service, but that gives me a reason to come back. Next time I'll give myself an extra day in DC so I can get in more touristy things.
I guess this whole crossword thing is working out okay.