WANT TO SUBSCRIBE TO MY CROSSWORD CONTEST?: MGWCC is available only to subscribers at my Patreon page. A subscription costs $3/month.
LAST WEEK’S RESULTS:
Title: “Contact Sport”
Prompt: This week’s contest answer is a feature of football games.
Answer: APPLAUSE
Correct entries: 561 overall, of which 525 were solo solves
Football season is upon us (well, preseason has started at least) so why not a meta about the greatest spectator sport in the world? On this subject there can be no debate! It’s chess in sport form.
Four long theme entries populated the grid:
17-A: [It was founded by Emperor Gaozu] = HAN DYNASTY. A number of solvers noted that this entry also parses amusingly to HANDY NASTY. Were I a neighboring tribal leader 2,000 years ago, I would certainly think twice before setting upon an empire that had named itself HANDY NASTY.
32-A: [Friends as well as relatives, in an old phrase] = KITH AND KIN
42-A: [Governor of Georgia, 2011-2019] = NATHAN DEAL
61-A: [Gets overwhelmed by] = CAN’T HANDLE
Each of these four contains the string HAND, and then there’s a reveal entry at the Omega-across:
68-A: [Two-___ touch (football variant you have to play to solve the meta)] = HAND
What now? Well, turns out that there are four more HAND entries in the grid, all Acrosses: SHANDY, W.C. HANDY, CHANDON, and that reveal of HAND at 68-A. Following that prompt at 68-A: take the pair of letters that “touch” two of the HANDs and they spell, in grid order, AP-PL-AU-SE. Making that APPLAUSE our contest answer — and note than applause is itself a form of “two-hand touch”. See above diagram by Gridmaster T.
Mikey G says:
I’ll give you a hand for this one!
HunterX asks:
What is the sound of one meta-solver clapping?
BenChen71 says:
Nice one. Initially I was worried I would need to know the minutiae of American football to solve. Glad to see an Aussie could make it to the end zone!
Burak writes:
My favorite kind of Week 1: Straightforward mechanism as should be but with multiple layers where you go “oh right huh nice.”
And finally, genefaba says:
Nice puzzle with a bit of complexity for a week 1. You had great guests this year but its good to have you back.
It’s nice to be back, but in my fanboying over the Nediger last week I forgot to thank all six guest constructors. It was indeed an impressive Guest Constructor Month, so my thanks once again to Richard Allen, Malaika Handa, Will Pfadenhauer, Yossi Fendel, Brooke Husic, and Will Nediger for an extremely impressive series of metas. We’ll do it again next year and see if the 2023 crew can meet the high bar set this time around!
ANDREW RIES’ TWISTS & TURNS PUZZLE PACK:
The ever-inventive Andrew Ries writes to announce a new compilation of his Twists & Turns puzzles. The pack consists of 16 puzzles of varied sizes and even includes a few themed puzzles. Check them out here:
https://www.ariespuzzles.com/p/twists-turns-puzzle-pack.html
THIS WEEK’S INSTRUCTIONS:
This week’s contest answer is a country where I’d like to spend four months.
Solve well, and be not led astray by words intended to deceive.