I know I couldn't do a Monday NYT in a decent amount of time when I started, and I'm kinda in that place with the cryptics right now. I think I just looked at a bunch of those and even a few cryptics with explained solutions before I even ventured into attempting them myself.Īs with US crosswords, if you remember, there's going to be a learning curve. Seeing the worked examples in those guides (I've probably run into 2 or 3 different ones besides that one I linked to between books and online stuff) definitely help give you an idea of how they're getting from the clue to the answer on a lot of them. I'll admit I was a little bit intimidated when I first encountered them. (There's tons of them in the world, for example if the answer is DIVA they might use the word "Virginia" in the clue to get the VA of the cryptic part).Īs for lineage of puzzle you get, you can always go "across the pond" (Guardian, London Times), but you might run into British culture proper nouns, which will be problems much like all the American proper nouns that show up in the regular NYT crossword. (FWIW, I gather most of the US made puzzles are on the easy side) The only other thing I can think of is to be aware of words that can be abbreviations. But try to work through the words, which will be useful for harder things - as the straight definitions will scale up like they do in the crosswords you're used to. Sometimes you can even look at a section of the words and peg the answer, which is okay. Look for words that indicate action or position which will likely indicate a cryptic action. Note the word lengths are given in parens afterwards, multiple words are separated by commas, any other punctuation mark is in the answer.Īs a guide for determining the two, don't take the sentence as a literal, as a division break might occur in the most unnatural places. You might also get the twist that both parts are definitions to the answers. For all clues, there's a straight part and a cryptic part (if there's a ! at the end, that means the whole clue serves as both, called a &lit). They'll have several literal worked examples.īut I'll advise to not get too stuck on that and focus on breaking up the clue. Often it'll be good for any questions.Īs for generic advices, I'd point out there's a lot of little guides about you'll find at certain sources, most notably ones that publish cryptics in the US ( For example, they also have a classroom series). Since cryptics don't necessarily require grids, they post them as exercises. Tips: Have a look at /r/crosswords/ (note the S). Crossword Discord - Online chat for solving, construction, and all things crossword. NYT Submission Guidelines – How to submit and what not to submit to Will Shortz.Rex Parker (SPOILER ALERT) – Solution to and a review of the latest NYT puzzle.Crossword Fiend – Links to and discussion of a number of good crosswords.Wordplay – Official NYT crossword blog, aimed to help people improve their solving skills.XWordInfo – Information about the NYT puzzle, plus a search function that is incredibly useful for constructing.CrossFire – An excellent crossword creating program with a good free demo version.Puzzle Solver – Crossword-solving program for Mac or PC (for Ubuntu, sudo apt-get install xword).Puzzle Guide – Guide to and links to some good puzzles.How To Solve The NYT Crossword - Interactive tutorial covering common patterns in crossword puzzles.For cryptic crosswords, check out r/crosswords. A place for crossword solvers and constructors to share, create, and discuss American (NYT-style) crossword puzzles.
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