The American Crossword Puzzle Tournament will take place Feb.29-March 2 at the Brooklyn Bridge Marriott Hotel in New York.
Contestants from all over the world will converge on the hotel to compete for prizes in more than 20 categories. The grand prize is $5,000. Points are awarded for both speed and accuracy.
The event, which is directed by Will Shortz, was started in 1978 at the Stamford Marriott in Stamford, Conn., as a way to fill up the hotel during the winter. That year 149 contestants participated, and the top prize was $250.
The contest has grown every year, but took a huge leap after the 2006 film "Wordplay" focused attention on it. It finally outgrew Stamford, "and we had to move to Brooklyn," Shortz says.
People not attending the tournament can still participate online. For a $20 registration fee, you can solve the puzzles that will be featured at the tournament and compare your scores with contestants. The online competition is for bragging rights and self-esteem only; no prizes will be awarded. Puzzles are posted about the time they are played at the tournament and remain online until December 2008.
For more information or to register go to www.crosswordtournament.com.
Tips for solvers
Mark Legasse of Dell Magazines and Will Shortz of the New York Times offer some tips on solving crossword puzzles:
• Answers are usually printed in all upper-case letters (although some people use all lower-case) so that proper nouns across can be used with non-proper nouns down and vice-versa.
• Clues and answers always agree in tense and number. If the clue is in past tense, so is the answer. If the clue is plural, so is the answer. Plurals generally, but not always, end in "S."
• A question mark at the end of the clue usually means the answer will be a pun or trick question. The answer to "back biter?" for example, is MOLAR. And for "exercise animal?" QUICK BROWN FOX.
• Learn to look beyond the obvious. "Nice summer" may be answered by ETE, French for summer. In this case Nice refers to the city not the adjective. The addition of words such as "perhaps" or "maybe" can also indicate a play on words.
• Many crossword puzzles now use "speech" clues. If the clue is a spoken phrase in quotes, the answer will be a word or phrase of dialogue. For example, the answer to "This is disastrous," could be OH, NO.
• An abbreviation in the clue will mean an abbreviation in the answer: SEN, for member of Cong. Other abbreviations are usually indicated, as are variant spellings: EMEER for EMIR, for example.
• Some puzzles will tell you if a foreign language is being used; others will have a hint in the clue: "full of cheese in Mexico," for example, could be RELLENO; "Italia's capital" would be ROMA, not ROME.
• Fill-in-the-blank clues are often a good place to start; they usually have only one or two possibilities.
• Look for words with lots of vowels to fill in awkward spots, and especially second rows.
• Many puzzles have themed clues. Solving one can help you with the others.
• The more you do the same line of puzzles, the more familiar you will be with how that group of puzzles works and how their constructors think. Words are often repeated; tricks, themes and puns are similar.
• Start with easy puzzles and move up as your skill increases. New York Times puzzles start with easier puzzles on Monday and get progressively harder as the week goes along. The Deseret Morning News also runs an easier puzzle each weekday and an option besides the New York Times puzzle on Sundays.
Books, published by Dell, New York Times and others, may be grouped by skill level or may include a variety.
• Start with the short answers first.
• Work on consonants rather than vowels; words with a K are not as numerous as words with an A.
• Don't be afraid to guess, but if it doesn't work out, don't be afraid to erase (or write over it, if you are working in ink). — Mark Legasse and Will Shortz
Crossword trivia
Some fun facts from the world of crossword puzzles:
• The most commonly found words in Penny Press puzzles are:
3-letter word: ERA
4-letter word: AREA
5-letter word: OPERA; EERIE is second
6-letter word: STEREO; SALAMI is second
Other common words with lots of vowels: ERIE, ARIA, AORTA, OTOE.
• As long as there has been language, there have been people playing around with it. One of the earliest puzzles, and a forerunner of the crossword, is the word square in which words of equal length read the same both horizontally and vertically. For example:
BET
ERA
TAP
A word square was found in the Roman ruins of Pompeii. Three-letter squares are fairly easy, but the more letters you add, the harder it gets. No one has yet created a good 10-letter word square.
• North American and British puzzle grids have a 180-degree rotational symmetry. That means the pattern of black-and-white will look the same if you hold it upside down.
• The official term for creating crosswords is cruciverbalism, which is derived from Latin words for cross and words. Most people, however, use the term crossword constructor.