A Thousand Times No

The most familiar part of the American Crossword Puzzle Tournament, at least to fans of the documentary “Wordplay,” are the tournament finals. (Yes, I finally watched the film for the first time this past week.) Played on larger-than-life grids in front of hundreds of live spectators, the finals build to a climax that delivers more fun and excitement than most smart cookies are allowed to have if they plan to keep their day jobs.

In fact, there are three final rounds held onstage, each representing different skill divisions within the contestant pool. (Additional divisions exist, but only three are represented in the live finals.) The “C” division prizes are open to any contestants who have not finished in the top 20% of competitors in their last three ACPTs. The “B” division prizes can be claimed by any contestant who has not received a “B” or “A” division prize during their last seven tournaments.

And then there’s the “A” division, the home of the preternaturally swift solvers who leave the rest of us to drown our sorrows in drink and unkind donuts. That would be all the folks you saw on the big screen — Ellen Ripstein, Jon Delfin, Al Sanders, Trip Payne, Tyler Hinman — as well as a host of other interesting characters.

I picked up the first solved puzzle in Round 7; if I’m not mistaken, it came from Kiran Kedlaya, a juggler and math professor at MIT. Francis Heaney’s puzzles were greeted with appreciative chuckles in the grading room as judges came across the quick sketches he had placed on the back of his sheets before the beginning of each round. “Shingle muffin,” read the caption on one I happened to grade, with a doodled foodstuff whose strangely planar top looked like a thesis project for one of Kedlaya’s students. Though many readers will immediately spot the origins of this phrase, Yours Truly was in the dark until Heaney kindly enlightened me about the anagrammatic nature of the first word. (Moral: Skip breakfast at your own peril.)

The equipment for the finals is decidedly, charmingly low-tech. In a finals round, the three competitors with the top point totals in a given division compete by filling out puzzle grids displayed on large dry-erase whiteboards. Each whiteboard contains a fixed, permanent grid of lines that remains invariant from year to year. The blacked-out portions in the puzzle are formed by affixing small squares of black construction paper to the grid, calling for dozens of small, sticky-side-out rings of masking tape. (Saturday evening, I was among the cluster of judges out getting loopy, even though I had no idea what I was doing at the time, nor did I have any inkling of the blackouts that would result from my actions. This is probably the closest I will ever get to being a celebrity in rehab.)

A special team of officials is designated to hand-number all nine of the oversize puzzle grids. Some of them print slightly larger than others, but they all have very neat, well-formed handwriting, dashing any hopes their parents may have harbored to raise a doctor in the family. Finalists must take care to avoid overzealousness in erasing, lest they also take out the actual numbering of the answer grid.

To create a distraction-free environment during the finals, each of the three contestants solving onstage is outfitted with a two-part sound masking system. First, each contestant dons a pair of earbuds attached to a Walkman-style portable cassette player. The contestant listens to a tape containing the sound of several non-English languages being spoken simultaneously in a United Nations-like environment, effectively creating a wall of white noise. Then a second layer of acoustic insulation is added by placing a set of large, noise-blocking headphones (like the type used by target shooters) over each contestant’s ears. Sound baffling? Yes, very effectively, it seems.

Three division finals, one solution. The solution to all three puzzles is the same — but the clues to any given word are different, growing progressively more difficult in each ascending division. For 6-Down, the clue in the “C” final was “Hot dog,” while the clue in the “B” final was “Frank,” and the clue in the “A” final was “Mozart or Haydn.” (You say WIENER, I play whiner: technically, wasn’t Mozart more of a salty burger kind of guy?)

Copies of all three versions of the puzzle are distributed to members of the audience shortly before the first of the three final rounds begins. During each final, starts are staggered, giving slight time bonuses to the first- and second-seeded finishers based on their point totals from the full seven rounds of solving during regular tournament play. Three officials stand onstage at the beginning of every final round, each gently touching a soundproofed contestant on the shoulder in turn, giving the silent signal to begin.

This year’s “A” final was packed with dramatic twists and turns, mostly swirling around three-time defending champion Tyler Hinman. I happened to be standing directly in front of Tyler when the names of the final contestants were announced. Being a tournament newbie who had not yet seen “Wordplay”, I didn’t know him by sight. “Will you be able to see?” I turned around and asked him, thinking I might block his view of the stage. “No problem,” he replied. Only then did I see his nametag, and feel like a dummkopf who had just asked Kid Amadeus if he could read music. “Uh, good luck,” I hastily added. “Thanks,” he said cheerfully.

As Will Shortz prepared to announce the names of the three finalists for the “A” division, Hinman’s energy level crept up from buzzed to fully wired. The running results of the first six rounds had been posted on Saturday night, so contestants were keenly aware of their standings going into the seventh and final standard puzzle. When Shortz announced Trip Payne’s name as the first of the three “A” division finalists, Hinman went off like a car alarm. “Heart attack! Heart attack!” he cried, beginning to pace and fret. “Someone screwed up,” he said repeatedly. “Heart attack.”

After Shortz named Howard Barkin as the second “A” division finalist, Hinman remained uncertain. “I think I might have blown it,” he said nervously. “I don’t know.” But, as we were all soon to learn, Tyler Hinman hadn’t blown it. A crew of friendly challengers donning copies of Hinman’s lucky black Trogdor t-shirt couldn’t stop him. Being temporarily stumped by the upper right corner of the final puzzle couldn’t stop him. Trip Payne’s rapid, methodical takedown of Bob “I put the ‘J’ in Evil Genius” Klahn’s diabolical clue set couldn’t stop him.

My heart went out to Trip Payne, a constructor whose puzzles I’ve enjoyed over the years, as we watched him pull off his headphones and do a double-take when the collective distress of the audience tipped him off about the two solving errors that would cost him the title. But like a true champ, Payne was smiling and jovial when his tournament roommate Hinman finished a flawless grid several minutes later. Howard Barkin also flashed a genial grin at the end of the final round, looking as though he had thoroughly enjoyed himself and was ready to go for 2009.

That would make two of us. See you next year!

Special thanks to Helene Hovanec, Doug Heller, Nancy Schuster, Paula Gamache and Matt Ginsberg for showing me the ropes, to Will Shortz for his unfailing inspiration, and to Lisa Flehinger Rubinow and Jason Feng for helping to make the weekend possible.