On Friday, February 19, 2010, in Brooklyn, New York, the registration desk for the 33rd annual American Crossword Puzzle Tournament (ACPT) will open for business, marking the commencement of one of the single largest gatherings of puzzleheads from across the country.
This article will be the first in a four-part series that will be published here in the run-up to the tournament.
Click here to discuss the ACPT in the Puzzlehead forums.
Part 1 – Discovery
When I was in college, I grew tired of the local rock station and the student-run station, and I started surfing the dial for something new to listen to while driving home from work. I stumbled across Fresh Air on the college’s public radio station and became a life-long NPR listener.
When the soon-to-be Mrs. eP and I graduated and moved to South Florida in 1990, we developed a new weekend tradition: every Saturday, we’d grab lunch, take the car to a nearby park, and listen to Car Talk on our local NPR station – our favorite segment was the Car Talk Puzzler. I had loved games and pencil puzzles for as long as I can remember, so the idea of on-air puzzles had me hooked.
As we began to listen to other news programs, we also discovered Weekend Edition Sunday, featuring the weekly Puzzle on the Air segment, led by NPR’s Puzzlemaster Will Shortz. Since 1987, Shortz has challenged a new listener each week to a series of word puzzles as well as posted a new challenge for the following week – the on-air player for the following week is selected at random from all correct responses. One day – real soon now! – I’m sure it’ll be my turn to be chosen to play Puzzle on the Air.
Shortz is one of the world’s leading puzzle gurus. He is the only person in the world to ever receive a college degree in enigmatology – the study of puzzles – a degree program he designed for himself. He founded the ACPT in 1978 and has been its director ever since. He worked for Games Magazine for 15 years and held the position of Editor from 1989 to 1993. In 1993, Shortz left Games Magazine to become the Crossword Puzzle Editor for the New York Times – the most prestigious and widely-circulated crossword puzzle in America.
In the summer of 2006, an announcement was made on an NPR Puzzle on the Air episode that Will Shortz would be featured in a new movie about the American Crossword Puzzle Tournament called Wordplay. I was intrigued … I knew of the NYT crossword but always assumed it was far too difficult for mere mortals like myself. The movie was scheduled to open on the weekend that Mrs. eP and I planned to celebrate our 15th anniversary, so what better way to celebrate?
Since that weekend, I’ve become an avid fan of the NYT puzzle in particular and in crossword puzzles in general. Cruciverbalists (look it up) make up a large segment of the puzzlehead community – it seems that more people solve crosswords than any other kind of puzzle, possibly more than all other types of puzzles combined.
If you aren’t already a crossword puzzle fan, give it a try – you’ll be solving Saturday puzzles in pen in no time!
