Capsule History

Year 44 • 2022 • 474 contestants

The first in-person ACPT in three years. Program highlights included remarks by Josh Wardle, inventor of the game craze Wordle, who conducted a live Wordle competition on players' smartphones; "Palindrome Fight," a 60-minute palindrome-writing competition, won by Lisa Bunker; "Fact or Fake?," a trivia contest by Stan Newman; and presentation of the annual MEmoRiaL award, by Marie Haley, to Emily Cox and Henry Rathvon. On Sunday, students from Yale staged a preview of their musical "Word Nerd." A virtual ACPT, with 350 participants, was conducted simultaneously with the in-person event. The tournament was livestreamed for the first time. It was filmed for HBO's "Real Sports" and a CBC documentary. In Sunday's "A" division playoffs, Tyler Hinman won for the seventh time.

Capsule history of all previous years.

Social Media

Wordplay - the crossword column of the New York Times - written by Deb Amlen

Facebook: Crossword Puzzle Tournaments

Twitter: #ACPT | #ACPT2022

Blogs

• Virtual Brush Box — Pondering The Rules Of Play, The 44th Annual American Crossword Puzzle Tournament

YouTube

Email the webmaster if you want a link to your blog, images, videos, etc. included

Solving Perfection

The following 32 contestants solved all 7 puzzles with no mistakes.

Justin Ames, Evan Birnholz, Kevan Choset, Frank Colangelo, Patrick Dicaprio, Alexandra Doumani, Steve Feldman, Dan Feyer, Adam Gale, Peter Gordon, Randy Guggenheimer, Tyler Hinman, Susan Hoffman, Jason Keller, Andy Kravis, Jesse Lansner, Andrew Lim, Robert Mackey, Phoebe McBee, Robin Morrissey, David Moulton, Jonathan Olsen, Greg Pliska, David Plotkin, Nancy Ross, Dan Sadoff, Dan Schwartz, Rocky Schwarz, Roberta Strauss, Marcus Tonti, Karen von Haam, Stella Zawistowski.

Explain Puzzle 5 like I'm 5

Spoiler alert! Don't click the link unless you have tried Puzzle 5 and want to understand the theme.

Click to reveal the Puzzle 5 theme

Constructors

In Alphabetical Order

• Gary Cee
• Joel Fagliano
• Tracy Gray
• Christina Iverson
• Wyna Liu
• Brendan Emmett Quigley
• Mike Shenk
• Robyn Weintraub

Click for photos of this year's constructors and officials

Officials — 2022

Scoring

Scoring is based on accuracy and speed. Score as follows:

1. 10 points for every correct word you entered across and down
2. A bonus of 25 points for each full minute you finished ahead of the suggested solution time — BUT reduced by 25 points for each missing or incorrect letter (but not beyond the point the bonus returns to zero)
3. A bonus of 150 points for each completely correct solution

For the purpose of scoring, a "word" consists of any series of letters written between black squares in the grid, or between a black square and the border of the grid, whether it is a single word, a phrase, or otherwise.

Complete rules will be explained prior to competition.

Who Competes?

Contestants simultaneously compete in all events for which they are eligible:

Prizes

Plus Every prizewinner receives a New York Times crossword collection from St. Martin's Press.