THURSDAY PUZZLE – I don’t normally give out stars or special accolades for puzzles because I think each one should be considered on its own merit, but I will freely admit that I have a special weakness for constructors who can make their grids do incredible things. And today’s puzzle by Kacey Walker and David Quarfoot does incredible things.
There will be people who don’t like this grid, because they feel that the only fair puzzle is one in which each entry has only one possible answer. To them I say, whatever floats your boat. This one floats mine. I don’t personally know anyone besides Mr. Quarfoot (and his collaborator Ms. Walker, whom we meet for the first time today) who could pull something like this off.
The granddaddy of New York Times crossword multiple-possible-answers-in-a-single-slot -that-also-work-in-the-crossings is, of course, this puzzle from 1996, which took no chances when running the name of the victor in that year’s presidential election. There have been a few others since then, but today’s puzzle blows them all out of the water, and we have some lovely SCRABBLE racks to thank for that.
Speaking of which: A far less disciplined writer could make a well-worn joke about that, but frankly I’m tired of getting smacked with a rolled-up copy of the morning edition, so disciplined I shall remain. I hope those of you who are tempted will follow suit. One further note: I have no idea what will be marked correct in any of the electronic versions of today’s puzzle. Due to the multiple possibilities of the theme answers, I would imagine it would be very difficult to code.
Ms. Walker and Mr. Quarfoot are both SCRABBLE enthusiasts, and they offer three possible racks (I’m watching you guys in the comments!) at 26-, 36- and 44 Across. Now here’s the incredible part: Not only can you ANAGRAM the words in each slot to make three possible SCRABBLE-legal entries (at least as of today; see Mr. Quarfoot’s notes below), but there are four letters in each entry that can be switched around, and those “switchings” work in all of the crossings as well. Is that clear? It’s tough to describe, so I highly recommend just solving and enjoying it. The grid will be a mess, but who really cares? You don’t run across fun ideas like this every day, and at least in this SCRABBLE game you don’t have to worry about your pets eating your tiles.
As a public service, I’m going to post the possibilities going across for each of the three theme entries:
26A: WORRIED, WORDIER and ROWDIER
36A: DESIRED, RESIDED and DERIDES
44A: GARDENS, GANDERS and DANGERS
Now check out all the possibilities that gives you in the Down entries. That’s a total of … {counts on fingers and toes} … 81 possible solutions to this puzzle! I can hear heads exploding and pencils breaking.
Not to worry, there’s another puzzle tomorrow. Perhaps it will have only one solution.
Constructors’ Notes:
Creating this puzzle was a Herculean effort. It began back in 2013 when I approached Kacey Walker with the question, “Want to write a puzzle together?” We met through her husband shortly after I moved to San Diego, and I knew she would be game for trying something difficult. Given her interest in programming and Scrabble, we quickly settled on the theme:Ppresent solvers with a Scrabble rack and have them anagram the letters for the theme answers. The twist was that each rack would anagram in multiple ways – exactly three, in fact – and so the puzzle would be a step up from the famous BOBDOLE/CLINTON puzzle of 1996, where the clue “Lead story in tomorrow’s newspaper (!)” had not one, but two answers. We both loved the idea of taking these “Schrödinger puzzles” to the next level.
The challenges in this were immense: finding racks that had exactly three anagrams, making sure all three anagrams were well-known words, avoiding triplets that had three different letters in the same spot (creating a triplet in the crossing that would get but a single clue), figuring out a black-square arrangement that would accommodate all this insanity, filling the crosses and writing clues that didn’t feel forced, making sure the grid was clean, and on and on. Our initial effort had four of these Scrabble racks built around a center black square. Can you see the three words in each septet?
This grid was ultimately rejected – words like RSA were too obscure, and a few of the clues were too forced and couldn’t be fixed. Getting that rejection was hard. The two of us put in a tremendous amount of time on this version: Kacey wrote a program that searched for the well-known triplets; we argued over which to select; I went through endless drafts of the black-square placement; and we spent months trying to fill, clean up, clue, edit and re-clue the beast. For me, the neatest aspect of the final grid was that it had 81 different possible solutions (how would Will even print the solution?) [Don't even go there. --D.A.], depending on what anagram choice a person made for each of the four Scrabble racks.
After the rejection, we decided that using four theme answers was simply too much. It hamstrung the grid in powerful ways, and led to substandard fill. When we moved down to three we had more freedom, and this allowed us to include SCRABBLE and ANAGRAMS as theme answers. It also resulted in a non-standard black-square placement, which I think is fun, especially for long-time solvers who constantly see the same old grids.
In the final version shown [Spoiler alert: The answer grid is shown here. --D.A.], Kacey was responsible for all the words starting at the central I, moving northeast, then around the corner and to the western edge. I did the other half: from the I to the southwest and then east. The clues were also split – Kacey did the Downs, I did the Acrosses – and we talked about all the clues that had to represent multiple words – like W/RAIL and N/ROTARY.
The rejection of the original version was also fortuitous. Between the creation of the first and second versions, a new version of the Scrabble dictionary was announced. Any new words would be legal in tournament play starting on Dec. 1, 2014. Could we get the new grid constructed in time to celebrate this changing of the lexical guard (yes!)? Were any of our anagram triplets really quadruplets because of the new words (No!)? Would Will be interested in celebrating the new dictionary with a Scrabble-themed puzzle (Yes!)?
Kacey and I hope you enjoy this labor of love. It is her first puzzle, and sets a high bar for any future constructions. As for me, I think this is my favorite puzzle of any I have constructed.
I think it’s one of mine as well. Welcome, Ms. Walker, and congratulations to the both of you. Please do this again soon.
And remember, both SCRABBLE and crosswords are games you should enjoy. So have fun with them. But do everything you can to win. Here are some tips from Buzzfeed on how to beat your friends:
Your thoughts?