Solving Really Hard Puzzles: Archive

MIT Mystery Hunt 2012: Yo Dawg... (part 2)

Part two… where part D produces frustration, part E produces an answer, and the connecting theme between the answers is finally revealed… but no final answer is arrived at. Hopefully that will come in part 3. Log: 1:49:51 And I’m back, the next night, for part D. … printing is slow… 1:50:48 Oh god, just noticed it’s going to be puzzle pieces after I put it...

Feb 3rd

MIT Mystery Hunt 2012: Yo Dawg... (part 1)

On to part two of my 4-part series on solving the top 5 favorite 2012 Mystery Hunt puzzles…. and part two will have at least 3 parts. Because after two long sessions I’m not done. Below is my log for part one (parts A&B&C of the puzzle). The log for part two will come soon, and hopefully part three will include the conclusion… The puzzle is here and my first...

Feb 2nd

MIT Mystery Hunt 2012: JFK SHAGS A SAD SLIM LASS

This puzzle made the “top five” for the Mystery Hunt, and I didn’t see it during the hunt, so I thought I’d give it a shot. Actually, I didn’t see any of the top five during the hunt, though one of the five was explained during the wrapup. I may try the remaining three later…. The puzzle is here and my solving log for my 55 minute solve is after the...

Jan 19th

MIT Mystery Hunt 2012, A Solving Log

Last year I joined a new team, Luck (known then as Luck Luck Goose). It was and is a great team, with great people on it, and my puzzle buddy Jasters joined me… and I had a bad time. I mean, going to the hunt and seeing everyone was great. But I love puzzles and somehow my puzzle solving last year was a train wreck (as I blogged last year). This came as a surprise after two prior years at...

Jan 18th

MGWCC 185: Nine Down is like Five Across

Hi, back with more Gaffney. MGWCC 185 is here and my (21 minute) solve is after the cut. With Mystery Hunt coming up I will be solving some old Hunt (or at least Hunt-like) puzzles in the next couple weeks, and blogging them here. Hold me to that. Log: - 0:00:00 :: Solving in .puz .... - 0:00:45 :: MATT,MEH,TLA,TAR,EXLAX in NW - 0:01:04 :: 17a HEARTLIGHT, which is now going through my head....

Jan 2nd

MGWCC 181: Where's The Party?

This week’s MGWCC took me over 90 minutes, as I danced all around the right method in two attempts. I didn’t finish until early Tuesday morning. By the way, this Thanksgiving Weekend I will be solving the Thankstravaganza and will try to blog the solves of some of the puzzles here. The MGWCC puzzle is here and my solving log is after the cut. Log (strange format, tumblr is...

Nov 25th

MGWCC 176: KP Duty

Real life remains quite busy, with only time to solve (with detail logs) the weekly Gaffney puzzle. I was unsure about this one even when I sent it in (and apparently I got it the wrong(?) way, not sure.) But I did get the intended pointer to the solution before I sent in my answer, which gave me more confidence. The puzzle is here and my log is after the cut 0:00:00Solving in puz. ...

Oct 23rd

MGWCC 175: Fruitful Endeavors

First I should say that this weekend is an event I’m very excited about: Intercoastal Altercations 5, with daily puzzles running all week. Get on them now if you haven’t. The meat of the event is Saturday. I struggled with this Gaffney with life being a bit hectic lately. According to Matt’s comment at The Crossword Fiend Blog this one had 351 correct entries, but you...

Oct 14th

MGWCC 169: Moving Day

Tough one, both fill and meta. Took me about 1h47m over two days. The puzzle is here and my log is after the cut. Don’t forget, this weekend is a favorite puzzle set of mine: Mark Halpin’s Labor Day Extravaganza. I’ll race you, and I’ll probably get my buddy Jonathan to help me. And then I’ll blog our solving logs afterwards, unless I forget. Log: 0:00:00Okay,...

Sep 1st

MGWCC 168: Summer Break

Hi, I’m back. I’ve been solving some puzzles in the meantime, most notably the 2011 CiSRA puzzles which were quite good: http://puzzle.cisra.com.au/puzzles.php. Sadly (for me and for you) I didn’t blog them. I got the first solve in a puzzle for what may have been the first time, which was cool. We wound up in 5th place, 30 minutes out of third place, where we would have wound...

Aug 26th

MGWCC 156: Marginal Effort

Judging from the comments over at Crossword Fiend, this was a bit easier for me than other folks, relative to other MGWCC weeks. That’s both fill and meta. Maybe my crossword efforts are paying off. I can almost multiple roman numerals in my head at this point. Just 25 minutes or so, soup to nuts for this one. The puzzle as always is at Matt’s blog and my solving log is after the...

Jun 3rd

MGWCC 155: Popular Fiction

After a long Sunday, mostly at Maker Faire (which was fun), I finally got to MGWCC Sunday night. Fortunately it was an ok fill and straightforward meta, and I finished it all in about 31 minutes. The puzzle is here and my solving log is after the cut. Log: 0:00:00It’s late Sunday night, I have a migraine… let’s hope this goes well and I can sleep soon. Printing 0:00:442D: IROC! 3D...

May 24th

MGWCC 154: Meeting Place

After a week off with a gimme puzzle, Matt stumped me with a tough one (I think… I still don’t know the answer). The grid was a quick fill (12 minutes, and blogging definitely slows me down when it’s that fast) but the meta… I just had no real clue. The puzzle can be found here and my (not-)solving log is after the cut 0:00:00solving on paper… reading blog first. ...

May 17th

4 notes

MGWCC 152: Drinking Game

I got to play DASH last weekend, and the puzzles were quite good. Each DASH his improved in this area over its predecessors, and now at DASH3 it has become an excellent hunt. Well done, authors/reviewers/editors/playtesters! As far as paper puzzles, I’ve been doing mostly variety cryptics, including Mark Halpin’s latest Sondheim-themed cryptic which was fun. Matt this week gave us a...

May 5th

MGWCC 151: Size Matters

After a few months of MGWCC, this is the first time I had to leave more than 1 or 2 blank squares in the crossword. Having already gotten the meta was a small factor, but basically the hard parts of this one were too hard for me. I did jump on the meta aha pretty quickly. Since it was a pretty big percentage of each of the theme answers, I’m guessing most people did. 25 minutes til meta...

Apr 28th

MGWCC 150: Form Follows Function

Busy lately with non puzzles and then with MUMS, but here is last week’s MGWCC. The two weeks I skipped blogging had pretty trivial metas, so you didn’t miss much. I enjoyed the meta this week, and I did my normal mediocre job on the grid. Finishing both in about 27 minutes. The puzzle is...

Apr 23rd

MGWCC 147: What's in a phrase?

Working and doing lots of non-blogable puzzle solving lately, so not much posting here. I did have some time over the weekend to solve this tougher-than-usual MGWCC meta. The puzzle is here: http://crosswordcontest.blogspot.com/2011/03/mgwcc-147-friday-march-25th-2011-whats.html and my solve is after the cut. Log: 0:00:00 Printed out puzzle, heard it’s a tough meta…. 6 letter surname… ...

Mar 29th

MGWCC 145: You'd Better Shape Up

My weekend’s puzzling was mostly taken up by eight hours of Panda Magazine (I still need to go back and find the hidden contest and solve the non-meta-impacting portions of the issue.) I also solved Kevin Wald’s latest cryptic themed on his birthday, which was fun. This week’s MGWCC was about half an hour for puzzle and meta, which I was pretty happy with. The puzzle is...

Mar 15th

MGWCC 144: A Million Little Pieces

Matt gave us an easy one, which was perfect because I had a hectic weekend and this slotted in perfectly at about 17 minutes puzzle+meta (plus 4 more for google meta verification). I liked the main joke in the theme answers… oh! and I should say that while The Departed was a fine movie, it is based on Hong Kong movie that is better. I don’t love Hong Kong films, but “Infernal...

Mar 10th

MGWCC 143: Un-freakin-believable!

No new Dan Katz or Mystery Hunt solves this week… last weekend was all about Iron Puzzler, a great event where I got to help write two pretty good puzzles and solve some pretty great puzzles, all with am excellent team of people I really like. I did sneak in a MGWCC solve Friday night, since it was the last one I needed to complete my first theme month. The puzzle is here and the log of...

Mar 4th

MGWCC 142: Light Reading

Wow, my string of easy meta solves after crossword slogs is over. This was a really bad crossword slog (for me; the puzzle wasn’t to blame) followed by over two hours on the meta, and no real confidence in my final guessed answer. Luckily, I seem to have guessed right. Total time was over 4 hours (plus some thinking time overnight, two nights) including an incredibly lame 110+ minutes on...

Feb 23rd

MGWCC 141: HA-HA-HA-HA

A nice crossword puzzle, which took me 33 minutes of pretty casual solving. Then the meta took another ten minutes: nine minutes of staring and then the aha out of nowhere. The puzzle is here and the answer checker above will have the one word version of the answer. My solving log (with more meta dead ends than usual) is after the cut. Log: 0:00:00 Reading instructions carefully… 0:00:30...

Feb 19th

"Amazon" and "eBay", Dan Katz's 2011 Mini-Hunt

Hi puzzle people! I had a puzzling weekend, at home and (mostly) alone, which was great. I spent Friday evening and Saturday on Patrick Blindauer’s Summer Puzzlefest. It was tricky, and only had 14 solvers (of 180 purchasers) by its original deadline of Feb 1. Given that low number, I was quite happy to get it solved without the recently-added hint puzzle. It was fun to do more...

Feb 16th

MGWCC 140: There's More To This Tale

Another MGWCC entry. It was a pretty good solve and a straightforward meta (though paying attention to the title would have helped it seem less sort of arbitrary.) It took me about 19 minutes total. The puzzle is at http://crosswordcontest.blogspot.com/2011/02/mgwcc-140-friday-february-4th-2011.html and my solving log is after the cut. I’m getting back on to the pure “Aha”...

Feb 11th

MGWCC 139: Conjunction Junction

Looks like I missed two controversial weeks over at the MGWCC. I did do one of the puzzles in my spare time and I would have gotten it wrong. This week’s meta seemed completely straightforward…. was Matt tricky like he was last week? I hope not. I’m not really sure how it can take me an hour to do a crossword puzzle (and get essentially all the answers.) I must be doing...

Feb 4th

Squared Key, from MIT Mystery Hunt 2011

As I said in my previous entry, I mostly worked on puzzles we were stuck on during this year’s Mystery Hunt. Worse, it didn’t feel like I “cracked” any of them, meaning getting the key Ahas to lead us to a solution. To make myself feel better, and to get a more balanced perspective on this year’s hunt, I’m going try to find puzzles I haven’t yet had...

Jan 31st

2011 Mystery Hunt

I’m back from Boston, where I had a really good time joining Luck Luck Goose (formerly Beginner’s Luck) for the 2011 MIT Mystery Hunt. We finished fourth, within just a few minutes of third place (after about 51 hours of puzzles). A good, detailed log of our solving from his point of view by my teammate Joe DeVincentis is here: http://devjoe.livejournal.com/38419.html My experience...

Jan 24th

2 notes

Sekkrets: Legion

Hi, no Matt Gaffney crossword this week or next… it’s MIT Mystery Hunt week! I’m off to Boston for my third Hunt. I’m solving with Luck Luck Goose. If you’re there too (and not on my team), come find me and say hi. I will probably have a nametag with “Veep” on it, or get in touch electronically (email, comment here, twitter, etc) if you can’t find...

Jan 13th

MGWCC 135: This Doggone Crossword

Surprise, another slow crossword solve (40 minutes) and fast meta (2 minutes). Logging this kind of solve isn’t as interesting (I fear) as the more aha-heavy puzzles I normally do. Hopefully I’ll try some Mystery Hunt puzzles this week to prep for the upcoming Hunt. The original puzzle is here, and my solving log is after the cut. My answer checker should work (although there’s...

Jan 5th

MGWCC 134: A Chorus Line

An even tougher crossword solve this week (as expected from the monthly ramp up in difficulty). I wound up leaving 4 or 6 squares empty (I could have gone back and gotten them if needed for the meta.) Since the puzzle itself warned me that the meta was easy, I wasn’t too worried about them. I “finished” with the crossword in 35 minutes, and had the meta 2 minutes later. The...

Dec 30th

MGWCC 133: Edible Complex

For my second MGWCC, the crossword solve was definitely tougher than #132, though I finally managed. I like puns well enough, so I enjoyed the puzzle theme. Time-wise, I’m not an especially fast crossword solver, but I should really do the crossword for time instead of just pleasure. I think I could trim 10-20% off my times, at least. The non-crossword portion took about 13 minutes, for a...

Dec 23rd

MGWCC 132

Matt Gaffney posts a crossword-based puzzle every week at http://crosswordcontest.blogspot.com/ . Last week’s was #132, and my first solve attempt ever (I think). I didn’t solve the grid too quickly, but I aced the meta part. I did it quickly enough (total time about 15 minutes) that my solving log doesn’t provide much insight, but it’s included after the cut. The direct...

Dec 19th

The Floating Island, 2010 Mark Halpin Labor Day

Hi, my dozen of readers! The Floating Island did not seem to go very well, even though I finished in about one hour. By the end I apparently only had 6 out of 15 letters, which was enough. The House of the Three Ladies log is also included after the cut. It was mostly a paper puzzle, so the log is short and not too interesting, until the last 20 minutes when I have to extract the answer ( I...

Dec 8th

City of Magians & City of Winged Men

Two shorter puzzles here. Looks like I did some off the clock research on Magians, so I don’t know how long it really took. Winged Men was 54 minutes. In Winged Men I had that horrible feeling at the end of the puzzle when you have all the right data and just… can’t… extract… the answer. It was quite frustrating; the text log doesn’t do it justice. The...

Dec 7th

The Tent of Shahraman, 2010 Mark Halpin Labor Day

As with many of the other puzzles, I was forced to break this puzzle up into two sessions. Unlike the other puzzles, I don’t think I ever got stuck and stopped, I just got called to go to dinner in Vegas. My total recorded time is 2.5 hours, which may or may not be less time than it actually took. This was a big one. The puzzle is here:...

Dec 5th

The Old Man of the Sea, 2010 Mark Halpin Labor Day

Wow, the log for this one is kind of amazing. I don’t remember it well, but the log says my second go at it was at 5:15am…. so that may be why. I was in Vegas doing these puzzles, having met up with some nice NPL folks. We went out every night drinking, so this solving benefited from my post-alcohol solving surge I seem to get. I managed to win the solo category of the CISRA 2010...

Dec 4th

Island of the Cyclopes, 2010 Mark Halpin Labor Day

I’m not too hot at trigram puzzles, and it took me 15 minutes to get even one answer in this one. Things got a bit better after, and I finished in about 70 minutes, thanks to a bit of a guess at the end. The puzzle is here: http://www.markhalpin.com/puzzles/wisht/wtpuzzles/cyclops.pdf and Mark’s answer checker is here:...

Dec 3rd

Amjad and As'ad, 2010 Mark Halpin Labor Day

I think it took me a while to figure out exactly what was going on with this one. But there was enough to work on to keep me occupied until I figured out what the heck I was doing. My final time was about 80 minutes, which is possibly a bit slow. The puzzle is here: http://www.markhalpin.com/puzzles/wisht/wtpuzzles/princes.pdf and Mark’s answer checker is here:...

Dec 1st

The Burial Vault, 2010 Mark Halpin Labor Day

I bailed on the first puzzle i tried, The Valley of Diamonds, having not gotten very far at all. The puzzle I moved on to went much better, which was a relief. It took me just under an hour, which felt pretty fast. You can grab the puzzle here: http://www.markhalpin.com/puzzles/wisht/wtpuzzles/vault.pdf and check your answers (each puzzle in the hunt has two) here;...

Nov 26th

The Valley of Diamonds, 2010 Mark Halpin Labor Day

Mark Halpin put out another set of puzzles for Labor Day this year, and I solved (most of) them! Like my first post here, I started this year’s Labor Day puzzles with a Rows Garden variant. I definitely made one key strategic mistake, not trying to fit the snakes together earlier. The interplay between flowers and their crossing answers is the only way (for me at least) to get very far in...

Nov 23rd

CISRA 2010 2B: All That Jazz

Well, the puzzle here was filled with enough recognizable phrases in one of my (relatively) strong areas of knowledge that there wasn’t much of an Aha. It was just a matter of looking up what I didn’t know, and putting things together the obvious way. Solved in under 11 minutes. The puzzle, hints(!), and solution are available here: http://puzzle.cisra.com.au/puzzles.php and my...

Jul 13th

CISRA 2010 2A: Gift Box

I’m skipping puzzle 1D, but you shouldn’t. It is a very nice sudoku-like logic puzzle, with a clever final extraction. But the logic puzzle itself is the star, and I really enjoyed it. It doesn’t make for a good blog though… Perhaps I will figure out how to take time-stamped photos as I work on paper “fill in the grid” puzzles like crosswords and sudoku. 2A was...

Jul 11th

CISRA 2010 1B/1C: Casino & Calculated

Unfortunately, I did not get the Aha for Calculated in my initial rush. I probably gave up too early, looking back. Solve time of 18 minutes for Casino, and … well, it’s hard to say for Calculated. Puzzles are at http://puzzle.cisra.com.au/puzzles.php . Short logs for each are after the cut. I’ll put Casino into the answer checker here, but you can check any CISRA answer...

Jul 7th

CISRA 2010 1A: The Third Down Below

Well, joining the NPL has really cut into my random puzzle solving. In addition to the monthly copy of the Enigma full of great puzzles, I spent this July 4th long weekend at the Convention, which was insanely great. Back in May, however, CISRA was running. I spent part of the week in Las Vegas, solving at 2am after long days of gambling, gourmet dinners, and drinking. Those solves won’t...

Jul 5th

Recapitulation, MUMS 2010, puzzle 5.2

Jonathan, 37 seconds in: “I know how to do this puzzle”. And he was right. And he was better at finding each of the answers. I mostly contributed by wheel-of-fortune-ing / guessing the right answer. It took us about 53 minutes, our log is below, and the puzzle can be found here. Log: 0:00:00 Opening puzzle 0:00:26 Printing 0:00:37 J: I know how to do this puzzle 0:00:49 J:...

May 17th

Mass Migration, MUMS 2010, puzzle 5.1

I got the hang of this puzzle pretty quickly, modifying our insights as we went, and breezed through it in about 24 minutes. I think Jonathan was helping, but I must have had all the ahas, because he doesn’t appear in the log. Or maybe I ignored him. Our brief log is after the cut, and the puzzle is available here. Log: 0:00:00 Opening puzzle 0:01:51 Huh. [That’s our...

May 17th

Body Beautiful, MUMS 2010, puzzle 4.5

Puzzle 4.4 was a standard puzzle type, followed by a second step which required Australian knowledge and Jonathan solved on his own. So, nothing too interesting to blog about there. Puzzle 4.5 was a nice quick solve, at about 22 minutes the easy puzzle for round four. It was surprisingly similar to the easy puzzle in round two. The puzzle is available here and our solving log is after the...

May 14th

Cryptosaurus, MUMS 2010, puzzle 4.3

I’m not sure I should post this, and I’m pretty sure you shouldn’t bother reading it. We didn’t get remotely close to this puzzle until the 2nd hint (48 hours later). Jonathan worked on finishing it given the key thing we were missing (I was pretty frustrated by this point.) Unfortunately we wound up with a missing letter in our extraction of the final step, and we...

May 12th

Black and White, MUMS 2010, puzzle 4.2

This puzzle (available here) is pretty much a grind through it puzzle. We finished in about 1h27m. I usually hate logic puzzles that require guessing/branching instead of strictly logical steps. But I got very used to using those tactics with these. Our log is after the cut. Log: 0:00:00 Opening puzzle 0:00:40 Printing. definitely needs printing. 0:02:04 J: So there are 2 ways to make a 1x1,...

May 11th

Final Destination, MUMS 2010, puzzle 4.1

Yeah, so, we finished this puzzle in under two hours, which involved lots of stumbling around that we perhaps should not have needed to do. There was a key thing I discovered at 1h25m in that propelled us on our way to the solution. I wish we’d known it, well, 85 minutes earlier. You can find the puzzle at the MUMS site and the log of Jonathan and my efforts after the cut. Log: 0:00:00...

May 11th