tell us a little about yourself
I’m Oliver Roeder and I’m a senior US data reporter for the Financial Times based in New York. I also write stuff for magazines – horse racing, chess matches, the tallest flagpole in the world. Kind of crazy, I realize. And – miraculously – I am now Reorder, our new setter (constructor, as we Americans say) American crossword puzzle.
How are American puzzles different from British mystery crosswords?
Well, British puzzles have as many as 40 clues, and their solutions are spread out on a 15 x 15 grid with lots of squares. American-style puzzles tend to have grids of the same size, but with about 80 clues, and their solutions are tightly packed with almost no squares. Speaking of trails, the English Setter sets up trails that are circuitous, mysterious, and challenging. The clues in the American puzzle are more straightforward.
What is your background in puzzles?
Gaming is my family’s love language. They are how we come together. Chess, backgammon, Scrabble, euchre, pinochle, train tickets — there’s no way to escape a visit to my parents’ house without at least one. I’ve also structured my career around games, whether intentionally or not. I did a PhD in game theory, covered games as a journalist, and wrote a book on the role games play in the development of artificial intelligence. Plus, the ever-present pile of crossword puzzles on the kitchen table while we were growing up. My mother and grandmother taught me the music and language of crossword puzzles.
I’m exhausted.I think you sleep and eat once in a while
Naturally, I ate and solved the puzzle. I sleep. . . Occasionally.
Some FT cryptic compilers can’t walk down the street without trying to pick up clues from passing road signs or storefronts. Are you a bit like that?
In a sense, yes. In American puzzles, the answers, not the clues, are the real stars, so I try to stay true to modern usage and coinage. Crosswords, like English, should be constantly evolving and kept fresh. I’ll jot down colorful words and phrases in my head that I want to someday stick them on the puzzle – and of course I’ll add them to my software’s word list, which is the modern setter real currency.
Which is how long?
My list has about 450,000 words and phrases. It’s about 6.3 megabytes of text. Each word is scored from 0 to 100, indicating how well it was included in the puzzle.
OK, so what’s the first entry under the letter Z?
Zabaglione — Italian dessert.
How do you know?
“Dessert is usually served in a champagne flute” – if I wanted to make it difficult. “An Italian dessert made with egg yolks, sugar, and liqueur” could be simpler. Honestly, I’m not sure it’s a good fill. Wait, adjust its score in my word list.
When you say, “I’m not sure that’s a good fill”, are you saying zabaglione doesn’t handle cross letters well?
Interactive crosswords on the FT app
Subscribers can now iOS and Android apps
That might be the case, but I’m also worried that it’s a bit obscure – for example it has another spelling, zabaione. Crossword puzzles should be made difficult and fun through the misleading and “aha” moments provided by the clues, not because of the obscurity of the answers.
My co-worker Cordu says she completes your first FT puzzle in about an hour and a half. Your colleagues in the US told her it was impossible. Her trick is to go through as many clues as quickly as possible to start filling the grid. Is this your recommended workaround?
This seems like a great technology. In fact, how else would you start? I guess there are as many solvers as there are solvers, and none of them are wrong. These things are inherently fun. Plus, in American-style puzzles, each letter appears in a cross and a down answer, so you at least have a chance to check your work.
How does the 90 minute solve time compare to your usual solve time?
My average time for a typical, difficult American puzzle is about 7 minutes.
You are joking?
No, but imagine how much time I wasted getting there. (I should mention that some people are much faster than me. I met a lot of people at last month’s American Crossword Championships.)
If you and others solved an 80-clue crossword so quickly, shouldn’t the clues be harder?
Crossword puzzles are fascinating because they solve problems — we do the exact same puzzle every day in the newspaper, for example. We are participating in a collective experience. This is important, so puzzles should be widely accessible. Tough, but accessible. It doesn’t matter if I do it in 10 minutes and you do it in an hour. Each of us achieved something, and in a sense, we did it together.
I disagree with your point about answers being more important than clues. Some of your clues are neat, clever, and annoyingly clever, suggesting that you’re trying to half-assed the cryptic nature of British crossword puzzles. Agree?
I’m going to take “terse and annoying” as a compliment. Of course, cues are important – after all, they’re the only thing the solver has at the beginning. But I think it’s a crucial, transatlantic, puzzling difference. In British Crossword Puzzles, you marvel at incredible clues. Marvel at your incredible answers in American Crossword Puzzle. “Wow, I can’t believe they put that word into the grid.”