My Crossword setup — iPad Pro with pen on Adobe Reader in the comment mode

Crosswords: How do answers match clues

I am new to crosswords.

My daughter loves solving puzzles. So about a couple of years ago, she decided to try crosswords as a source of regular puzzles. And she really took to it. So much so, that the frequency of 2 daily crosswords was not sufficient for her. We got her some crossword books and she mastered them.

She moved to college last fall. Then every day, I would see the paper and realize that there was no point in saving the crossword page for her. She wasn’t there to claim it and spend some time that day to solve it. It felt a waste and I missed her. So, I decided to try them myself and this started a journey.

I have been solving crosswords now for about 3 months. I try to do them daily and some of them can be quite frustrating. But then, I discovered some patterns.

But before that, let me tell you about the crosswords that I try to solve.

I live in the Seattle Area and the Seattle Times is the newspaper of choice for me. There are two crosswords that the paper carries every day: New York Times Crossword and the LA Times crossword.

The pattern that I found is the following (these may already be well known facts, but this is what I discovered):

New York Times

1. Monday is the easiest. After a few months, I got better at it and can complete it with little to no help most of the time.
2. Saturday is the toughest. The answers are often longer and clues harder. Longer answers mean that they are harder to guess and even knowing a couple of letters may not be sufficient for you to figure out the answer. Many clues are cryptic and I could often not understand how the answers related to the clue even when I saw the final solution. There are many tricks involved as well.
3. The crosswords typically have a theme and understanding the theme could help solve the crossword (sometimes). I found that understanding the theme later in the week is more important than earlier in the week. I could often solve the crosswords earlier in the week without caring about the theme, but found it very valuable later in the week. Additionally, when the theme is something that I am not familiar with (ex: latest musicians and songs), then the crosswords become super hard for me as I lack context. It is ok — don’t let them frustrate you!

LA Times

I generally find LA times crosswords easier to solve. They are similar to New York Times earlier in the week but do not get as hard as NYT later in the week.

And yes, they do have themes as well but they just seem easier to me.

Oh, I also found that sometimes the two papers riff off each other and may have related clues or answers on the same day — this could be a coincidence but I have seen this happen more often that not; so I suspect that they coordinate.

So, why am I here?

Let me start with what I am not. I am not here to tell you the answers to your daily crosswords — there are plenty of sites that will do that; I won’t add much value there.

However, I am here to help you understand the crossword and share why I think the answer matches the clue. I will also take a stab at the theme of the crossword.

My hope is that this will help you learn and enjoy solving crosswords but I don’t expect to help you solve it for a particular day.

I am also going to attempt to do this every day, but I may have to skip if I get busy or lazy. I may sometimes also be behind but will try to share it for every day.

With that, Happy X-wording!