ACPT 2021 Recap

The crossword community was so disappointed that ACPT 2020 was cancelled due to the pandemic, but a number of crossword leagues went online and even added additional competitions and events, which was a great silver lining! I think everyone was really looking forward to ACPT 2021 being an in-person event -- but it just wasn't meant to be. As a virtual event, though, it worked out pretty well -- both the puzzles themselves and the events surrounding the competition. It's definitely harder to really have that sense of community and "puzzle focus" when you're competing from home with all of those distractions, though. I am also substantially faster at solving puzzles on paper (and I enjoy it more), so I fervently hope that we'll all be able to be together in person in Stamford in Spring 2022!

Given the circumstances (and given that my performance in some of the other competitions like Boswords Winter and Spring Leagues was pretty meh), I was extremely happy with my final result -- 25th overall (out of 1033 individual contestants), 3rd place in the Fifties age group (topped by Doug Peterson and Scott Weiss), and 3rd place in Other New England (topped by Joon Pahk and Al Sanders).

• Puzzle 1 - Out of the gate strong, finished in 2:40, putting me in a 29-way tie for 8th place.
• Puzzle 2 - Finished in 4:22, a 15-way tie for 14th fastest on that puzzle, still in the top 30 or so.
• Puzzle 3 - This did not go especially well. I just got very hung up and spent a fair amount of time going in circles and doing nothing. Total time 10:28, but at least I didn't have any mistakes. After P3, I was in an 8-way tie for 51st, and spent the whole rest of the tournament clawing my way back up. To put it into perspective, I was the 132nd fastest solver on this puzzle.
• Puzzle 4 - 3:58, a very respectable time (tied for 18th) but a LOT of people had an under-4-minute time, so this only helped me a little bit, putting me in a 12-way tie for 43rd.
• Puzzle 5 - 12:49, which sounds like a long time but since this is the "dreaded puzzle 5," it actually pulled up my overall standing just a skosh, to 38th (5-way tie).
• Puzzle 6 - Decent time of 5:43, leaving me in a 2-way tie for 31st.
• Puzzle 7 - I was very fast on this "Sunday-sized puzzle," finishing in 8:52 -- that was a tie for the 12th fastest time on P7, and only 2 minutes behind the fastest solvers.

I really should have been able to finish P3 in under 8 minutes, and on a really good day, could have been under 6 minutes (that was a typical time on that puzzle for other puzzles who ranked around the same level that I did on the other six puzzles). If I had an under-8 solve on P3, I would have ended the tournament in 21st place, and if I had an under-6 solve, I would have ended in 18th place. (The bell curve of the tournament is very long, though -- to end up in the top 10 solvers, I would have had to shave off another eight minutes across the seven puzzles, and that is so unlikely that I think "astronomical odds" probably apply to that outcome.)

Looking back over the history of the tournament, these are my finishes:

• 
  
  2019 - 39th place
• 2018 - 14th place
• 2017 - 23rd
• 2016 - 26th
• 2015 - did not compete (Heather had her final senior-year Pitches concert that weekend,  and motherhood is one of the very few priorities that outweigh a crossword puzzle tournament)
• 2014 - 47th
• 2013 - 24th
• 2012 - 44th
• 2011 - 95th
• 2010 - 148th
• 2009 - did not compete (Caroline was competing in a national cheerleading competition the same weekend; see above note re: motherhood)
• 2008 - 136th
• 2007 - 145th, pretty respectable showing for a rookie