LAST WEEK’S RESULTS:
What did those eight countries in the grid last week have in common? They were SWITZERLAND, MONGOLIA, BOTSWANA, AFGHANISTAN, BHUTAN, LAOS, MALI and MALAWI, all clued only by the countries they border. And there’s the rub: they border only other countries, not oceans or seas, so all you needed to do solve the meta was send in another of the world’s 40-odd landlocked countries. 470 solvers figured it out.
And note that the countries themselves were “landlocked” in the grid, which is to say that none of the eight touches the edge of the grid. This was much tougher to pull off than I’d anticipated, especially since using the famously landlocked SWITZERLAND and AFGHANISTAN was non-negotiable.
I stupidly left another country in the grid — my own country, ironically — which I failed to pick up on a scan of the grid whose entire purpose was to make sure there were no stray countries hiding out. I spotted IRAN AIR at 9-d, which was luckily easy to change to THIN AIR, but missed USA at 59-d. D’oh! But it wasn’t clued as the eight theme entries were, so no real harm done.
Pete Mitchell writes:
We’ll forgive the slightly inelegant non-symmetry of MALAWI and BHUTAN.
Figures a fellow constructor would point this out! I agonized, and I mean agonized, over the asymmetry there. Spent more time than I’d care to say trying to realign MALAWI and BHUTAN, or change one of them to Serbia or Rwanda or Uganda or Zambia, but to no avail. Finally my wife and a couple of constructors I’d sent “How bad is this?” e-mails to told me to just let it go! But man — looking at the eight countries highlighted in the grid above, it rankles.
Why did you pick the landlocked land you did? Solvers explain:
Katiedid (Austria):
Since I’m practicing Mozart…
Squonk (Nepal):
Because it’s got a cool-looking flag 
Yes it does; there it is on the right.
mrbreen (Vatican City):
I’m going with the only one on the list I’ve been to.
weepster (Armenia):
I didn’t want to just randomly pick a landlocked country, so I picked the one that can be spelled out in the grid Boggle-style.
Cool! I found it; can you?
VU-Prof (Paraguay):
On the only continent you don’t already have an example from — but that has one!
Delft (Paraguay):
Because it amuses me that its name ironically contains the word “agua.”
But “Uruguay” doesn’t, and it is on the water. Double-landlocked irony! Speaking of which…
Anne E (Uzbekistan):
Let’s go for the double!
She means this.
Mutman (Chad):
Trying for the shortest answer this week.
Abide (South Sudan):
Newest landlocked country
And finally, Maggie W. (Lesotho):
It borders…South Africa. I imagine it will be a popular choice. I hope, as with the favorite Greek deities, you list the most popular answers! I’m predicting lots of love for Paraguay.
Bingo, Maggie — here’s the full list of correct answers:
PARAGUAY – 61
CHAD – 49
BOLIVIA – 48
NEPAL – 35
HUNGARY – 28
AUSTRIA – 27
LESOTHO – 21
ANDORRA – 19
LIECHTENSTEIN – 17
UZBEKISTAN – 14
KYRGYZSTAN – 14
CZECH REPUBLIC – 11
VATICAN CITY – 11
LUXEMBOURG – 10
BURKINA FASO – 10
NIGER – 9
ARMENIA – 8
BELARUS – 8
SERBIA – 7
ETHIOPIA – 7
UGANDA – 6
KAZAKHSTAN – 5
ZIMBABWE – 4
CENTRAL AFRICAN REPUBLIC – 4
MOLDOVA – 3
RWANDA – 3
BURUNDI – 3
TAJIKISTAN – 3
THE FORMER YUGOSLAV REPUBLIC OF MACEDONIA – 2
ZAMBIA – 2
SOUTH SUDAN – 1
AZERBAIJAN – 1
BURKINA FASO – 1
KOSOVO – 1
SLOVAKIA – 1
TRANSNISTRIA – 1
SWAZILAND – 1
SAN MARINO – 1
This week’s winner, whose name was chosen randomly from the 470 correct entries received, is John Davenport of Richmond, R.I. In addition to a MGWCC pen, pencil and notepad set, John will also receive a copy of Doug Peterson’s new book Easy as ABC Crosswords.
TYLER’S STYLIN’:
Awesome AVCX puzzle from Tyler Hinman this week. I can’t link because it’s subscription only, but you can buy it for $1 here, or just subscribe to the AVCX here ($15 for one year, $25 for two).
You may think I’m crazy, but I predict that in 10 years the AVCX will have more subscribers than the NYT crossword’s electronic version; it’s that good. 50k to 1.5k right now, but 2023 will look radically different.
THIS WEEK’S INSTRUCTIONS:
This week’s contest answer is one of the 13 scoring rolls in Yahtzee (ignore the two bonuses). Submit your answer in the form on the left sidebar by Tuesday at noon ET. Note: the submissions form disappears from the site promptly at noon on Tuesday.
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 (2,085 members now!) here.
Solve well, and be not led astray by words intended to deceive.