One Second.

Drawing a blank at the 2023 ACPT.

One second. That’s all that separated Dan Feyer (left) and Paolo Pasco (right) on Sunday as they vied for the American Crossword Puzzle Tournament championship. Pasco had led the race for most of the championship’s running time, but stopped to ponder one letter before committing—and he guessed right, but within the span of his brief hesitation, speed demon Feyer caught up and passed. It was Feyer’s ninth win in the tournament, and nearly Pasco’s first: Pasco only graduated from Harvard last year. The always entertaining Tyler Hinman (center), himself a seven-time winner, did a little solving dance as he finished third.

There are no heels in crossword tournaments. There’s really no one who even gets close to the win whom you wouldn’t want to win—so any actual victory is a thrill, leavened with a bit of sympathy for those who didn’t quite take the top spot. Dan was one of the first to support my crazy Ubercross ideas, and he wasn’t sure he’d make it this year—professional obligations looked like they might keep him from appearing—so it’s nice to see him take the gold. But it would’ve also been nice for Paolo, who authored one of the most devilish puzzle challenges that Janice and I did last year. And Tyler is an inspiration whose ambition and self-effacing wit have seen him through many triumphs and frustrations as a competitor. He’s fun to root for.

But they all are, and my greatest privilege this weekend was getting to spend some time with them, as well as other crossword people. I don’t want to be presumptuous, but I think of them as friends. Janice and I talked with Dan a bit about his work with Hamilton. We did an escape room in a group with Tyler and showed Paolo the notes we’d made to solve his “Remedial Chaos Theory” puzzle. I also got to meet Ada Nicolle, Quiara Vasquez, Stella Zawistowski, and lots of other cool folks. Cool guy Evan Birnholz organized this group shot through Discord.

My second-greatest privilege was getting to sell paper versions of the Ubercrosses directly to solvers. This includes a couple of the names mentioned above, a couple of other people who follow this Substack, and a fair number of people I’d never met before. It was one of the best experiences I’ve had behind a table…even if one of my early releases, the Ubercross Stan Lee, tended to confuse people until Janice improvised some signage:

That’s about all I can think to talk about now…I’m still a little tired from the drive back. Tomorrow: more about the Journal, and a new feature I’ve stumbled upon the need for!