Good afternoon, crossword fans — welcome to Week 206 of my contest. If you’re new to the contest and would like to enter, please see the site FAQ on the left sidebar for instructions.
LAST WEEK’S RESULTS:
496 solvers successfully gamed last week’s meta. The theme entries were:
17-a [Not quite strong enough, as a putt] = JUST SHORT
23-a [The Aleutian Islands are there] = NORTH PACIFIC
29-a [No-risk proposition] = FREE CHANCE
40-a [Get rid of your gas guzzler, maybe] = GO ELECTRIC
45-a [Latvia, Lithuania and Estonia, with “The”] = BALTIC STATES
56-a [Wave pool’s location] = WATER PARK
What “well-known board game” do these point to? There are six theme entries and six chess pieces, so CHESS is obviously our contest answ — oh, wait. Each of the twelve words in these six theme entries is the first word of a space on a certain game’s board:
JUST Visiting
SHORT Line
NORTH Carolina Avenue
PACIFIC Avenue
FREE Parking
CHANCE
GO
ELECTRIC Company
BALTIC Avenue
STATES Avenue
WATER Works
PARK Place
Which makes MONOPOLY last week’s contest answer.
Jason Juang quips:
I think this one is solvable without “Reading” the instructions.
Peter Gwinn writes:
Hope I got this right. I’m a little nervous because States and Pacific and North Carolina are secondary-color properties.
Amanda Yesnowitz points out:
Huh. I just realized that MONOPOLY is comprised of MONO and POLY. Whaddyaknow.
And finally, Giovanni Pagano says:
Hmm, that entry at 21-Across seems a bit familiar…maybe it’s just me.
This week’s winner, whose name was chosen at random from the 496 correct entries received, is Andy Garman of Summit, N.J. Andy has selected as his prize an autographed copy of 20 Minute On-the-Road Crossword Puzzles.
STRETCH THOSE QUADS!
Mind-blowing freestyle from Matt Jones this week (click on May 10th). The puzzle was written in reaction to Tyler Hinman’s recent piece where he (rightly) laments the quality of fill in most quad stacks. Definite Orca-bait for Themeless of the Year.
SPECIAL PRIZE THIS WEEK:
In addition to a MGWCC pen, pencil and notepad set, this week’s contest winner will receive an autographed copy of Natan Last‘s new book “Word.” Natan also wrote today’s New York Times puzzle.
THIS WEEK’S INSTRUCTIONS:
This week’s contest answer is a well-known actress. E-mail her to me at crosswordcontest@gmail.com by Tuesday at noon ET. Please put the contest answer in the subject line of your e-mail.
To print the puzzle out, click on the image below and hit “print” on your browser. To solve using Across Lite either solve on the applet below or download the free software here, then join the Google Group (1,720 members now!) here.
Solve well, and be not led astray by words intended to deceive.