Category — Events

Lollapuzzoola 3: The Great Pickle Giveaway is happening this weekend. It’s a crossword puzzle tournament held each year in Queens, New York. Its only $20 – a bahgain! – so if you’re in the area, there’s no excuse not to be there. It’s hosted by the world’s leading crossword podcasters Ryan Hecht and Brian Cimmet, so you know you’re in for a good time.

Before I begin, let me first apologize for the delay in updates here at Puzzlehead Industries. Apparently, my employer believes that this site deals with entertainment and games instead of software and work, and it is therefore blockable. *sigh*

The Boston Crossword Puzzle Tournament was held this past April 11 (which was a Sunday in April), hosted by Joon Pakh. The contest included 150 registered participants as well as 500 Oreo cookies. Contestants solved four soon-to-be-published puzzles from the New York Times using American Crossword Puzzle Tournament scoring rules.

The winner was Eric Maddy, who not only won the Boston tournament but (as I am led to believe) also won the Brown University tournament the day before. And he’s not even from New England, but hails from California. Impressive!

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.

Click here to discuss the ACPT in the Puzzlehead forums.

Part 2 – Creation

(Reprinted from the American Crossword Puzzle Tournament web site)

Crossword puzzles are said to be the most popular and widespread word game in the world, yet have a short history. The first crosswords appeared in England during the 19th century. They were of an elementary kind, apparently derived from the word square, a group of words arranged so the letters read alike vertically and horizontally, and printed in children’s puzzle books and various periodicals. In the United States, however, the puzzle developed into a serious adult pastime.

The first known published crossword puzzle was created by a journalist named Arthur Wynne from Liverpool, and he is usually credited as the inventor of the popular word game. December 21, 1913 was the date and it appeared in a Sunday newspaper, the New York World. Wynne’s puzzle differed from today’s crosswords in that it was diamond shaped and contained no internal black squares. During the early 1920′s other newspapers picked up the newly discovered pastime and within a decade crossword puzzles were featured in almost all American newspapers. It was in this period crosswords began to assume their familiar form. Ten years after its rebirth in the States it crossed the Atlantic and re-conquered Europe.

The first appearance of a crossword in a British publication was in Pearson’s Magazine in February 1922, and the first Times crossword appeared on February 1 1930. British puzzles quickly developed their own style, being considerably more difficult than the American variety. In particular the cryptic crossword became established and rapidly gained popularity. The generally considered governing rules for cryptic puzzles were laid down by A. F. Ritchie and D. S. Macnutt.

These people, gifted with the ability to see words puzzled together in given geometrical patterns and capable of twisting and turning words into word plays dancing on the wit of human minds, have since constructed millions of puzzles by hand and each of these puzzlers has developed personal styles known and loved by his fans. These people have set the standard of what to expect from a quality crossword puzzle.

Next time – a history of the New York Times crossword puzzle

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.

[Read more →]

National Puzzle Day is Friday, January 29. Celebrate by solving or creating a puzzle!

What puzzles would you recommend solving in honor of National Puzzle Day? Let us know in the Puzzlehead forums.

The web site for the 2010 MIT Mystery Hunt has finally been created. It includes a link to all of the puzzles as they were presented to the Hunt participants. No solutions have been posted yet, tho …

I can’t believe I missed the memo on such an important event happening in my own backyard! Here’s the link from which I stole the following letter:

Stan Newman’s Crossword University ^tm
P.O. Box 69
Massapequa Park, NY 11762
(516) 795-8823 – StanXwords@aol.com – Fax 516-795-6788

Dear Puzzle Friend:You’re invited to join me on our Ninth Annual Crossword-theme event: a relaxing 10-day cruise from Ft Lauderdale, on Holland America Line’s beautiful ms Noordam. The itinerary includes 5 terrific Caribbean Ports plus a visit to Holland America’s private island, Half Moon Cay. [Read more →]

Next week (on Friday, January 15), one of the most famous puzzle hunts of all time begins anew – the MIT Mystery Hunt! I would try to do justice to this story, but an article in Games Magazine sums it up far better than I could …

[Read more →]

In October each year, the Miami Herald hosts an all day “Herald Hunt” (formerly the Tropic Hunt) made up of various brain teasers. The hunt is usually held in Miami, but has been hosted in other local cities (such as Coral Gables, Coconut Grove and Hollywood). It was originally designed and is hosted by Miami Herald columnist Dave Barry.

The hunt begins with an easy opening question. After that, you have to find and solve the five hunt puzzles. The answers will give you clues to the final puzzle (or endgame). At 3PM, the final (and most difficult) puzzle is revealed. Using the clues you have obtained throughout the day, you must solve the puzzle and accomplish a task. This can be a telephone number or a certain place you must go to do something.

You can look at last year’s results here:
http://www.miamiherald.com/heraldhunt/story/742724.html

There is an archive of past hunts here:
http://www.vwtech.com/tropichunt/

There is also a geocache (GCCA54) set up as a tribute to the hunt.

If anyone is interested in setting up a team for this year’s hunt, I think it would be fun!!

Most of you are probably familiar with edgy street magician and endurance stunt perpetrator David Blaine. But did you know that he hid one of the most difficult puzzle caches ever?

On October 29, 2002, David Blaine published the book Mysterious Stranger which contained a $100,000 challenge: solve the puzzles in the book to reveal the location of a treasure hidden somewhere in America. The puzzle had been created by Cliff Johnson, noted puzzle constructor and author of the legendary computer game The Fool’s Errand.

On November 4, 2003, the treasure still had not been found. That evening, David was interviewed on Larry King Live and offered this cryptic hint: If my tattoo is fearless, then climb ten weeks to find the route, and “route” is spelled “r-o-u-t-e”.

On March 24, 2004, retired schoolteacher Sherri Skanes solved the puzzle and found the treasure after working on it for only six weeks.

The tale of the puzzle’s construction and solution is amazing reading. There are two parts to the solution: deciphering and interpreting the hidden clues. This puzzle was so complex that its solution managed to elude the entire collective intelligence of every puzzlehead on the internet for nearly 18 months.

Fortunately for us, Sherri Skanes kept a diary of her adventure to recover the treasure. It’s the best “Found It” log I’ve ever read. It’s got all of the important elements: hard work, research, analysis, trespassing, giving up and going home, encounters with homeless people, “ah-hah!” moments, vomiting, spectacular views, injuries, deer sightings, Frank Zappa, weird coincidences, night caching, ticks, begging your family and ex-spouse to be involved in your nerdy hobby, and – most importantly – “coyote crap”, and all of that in a single day.

The solution to the challenge was an homage to one of my favorite movies of all time and probably the greatest treasure hunt film ever made: It’s a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World.

What’s almost as good as Sherri’s story are the folks who developed highly elaborate and completely incorrect theories about the solution. Cliff Johnson refers to these crackpot theories as Just Blaine Crazy. I doubt anyone has ever been as far off in the weeds as those folks were.

The puzzle published in the book wasn’t Cliff’s first attempt to create a puzzle for David. The Harry Green Shuffle and the San Dimas Prototype provide an interesting insight into how puzzles are constructed and evolve.

Some people just responded in outright silly ways. One woman played a lovely April Fool’s Day prank, and others … well, it’s kinda hard to describe.