Boswords

[seekingferret]

I finished the Boswords fall crossword league in 219th place, out of 310 competitors in the hardest division. That sounds more impressive than it actually is: Many of the lowest scoring competitors on the chart missed a bunch of weeks so weren't really in the full league. And in fact there are people ahead of me on the table who skipped a week and still outscored me. My fastest time on a weekly puzzle was 13:23; my best ranking on a weekly puzzle was 151st. But the reality is that I was one of the slowest competitors in the division. I was quite extremely outclassed. Nonetheless it has been a lot of fun, and I don't regret doing it.

The championship puzzle will be tomorrow night at 9PM Eastern, and after giving everyone a shot to solve the championship puzzle on their own, they'll stream video of the top three solvers, Dan Feyer, Paolo Pasco, and Tyler Hinman, somewhere after 9:30. If you want to see brilliant people solve a brutally difficult crossword puzzle in an absurdly fast time (The worst time any of those three solvers have recorded in this whole league was 5:29, which is, you know, better than twice as fast as my fastest time, and four or five times faster than my typical times), it's worth tuning in for. Feyer has won the American Crossword Puzzle Tournament 8 times, Hinman was won it five, and finished as runner up to Feyer multiple times. These are the best of the best in our little hobby.

Boswords' Twitch Page

Comments

[lirazel]

I know nothing about competitive crossword puzzles, so this is fascinating!

[seekingferret]

There was a documentary about fifteen years ago called Wordplay that looked at the American Crossword Puzzle Tournament, as well as crossword fandom generally. If you'd like to learn more that'd be a great place to start.

[lirazel]

That sounds very much like something I would enjoy watching, and I will have to seek it out. Thank you!