LAST WEEK’S RESULTS:

Title: “What’s the Password!” by Ben Chenoweth
Prompt: This puzzle’s contest answer is a six-letter word.
Answer: ACCESS, found by 170 solvers, 31 of which were solo solves

Highly unusual idea from veteran meta-constructor Ben Chenoweth. First insight: that’s an exclamation point in the title, not the question mark you’d expect from that sentence. So Ben is making a declaration that there is a password to this puzzle, and it is WHAT. But now WHAT?

Answer: six different WHAT-related clue/answer mechanisms each reveal one letter of the passcode. A few are easier to find than the others, so let’s work from least-hidden to most-hidden:

16-A: [Be on the lookout for an anagram, for example] = WATCH. That’s an anagram of WHAT + C. Could be nothing, but let’s keep looking for other WHAT appearances.

Next most suspicious are is the upper-left corner, which is a simple-to-fill 3×4 rectangle but for some reason includes the bizarre entry WAAA. A closer look reveals that WHAT surrounds the letter A in a diamond pattern there, so let’s mark that surrounded A for future reference.

Next up: There’s WHEAT at 42-A, where the WH?AT pattern pops up again, this time with the derived letter in the center. Odds are building against all this being coincidence. So let’s take that E.

Looking for more weirdness: How about the clue at 52-A: [Result of adding four numbers in a simple alphabet cipher, say (B=2, C= 3, etc.)]. What four numbers should we add together? Let me-phrase that: WHAT four numbers should we add together? Answer: the alphabetical values of W (23), H (8), A (1), and T (20). Those add up to 52, which is in fact the clue number! So that’s gotta be right; so add the first letter of the answer SUM, which is an S.

Gotta be two more since we need a six-letter word. How about 72-A: [World Hockey Association team], a league I have never heard of. But its clue’s initials are WHAT, so we have yet another mechanism using our secret passcode key. We take the S from SPURS.

One more, which many solvers backsolved from ACESS, knowing there had to be another C lurking. It was at COLNE at 39-A, clued as [Watford’s river]. Depending on your accent, that first syllable may sound like our WHAT keyword, so let’s take that C, finally spelling contest answer ACCESS.

Tricky one, with only 31 solos! So pat yourself on the back if you got it.And big thanks to Ben for filling in!

THIS WEEK’S INSTRUCTIONS:

No instructions given here since there are no-instructions options available this week.

Good luck!

–Matt