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1 week ago | 
nytimes.com | Sam Corbin
wordplay, the crossword columnAri Halpern keeps a close watch. Jump to: Today's Theme | Tricky CluesMONDAY PUZZLE - Today is a federal holiday in the United States, so I hope that at least some of you had the luxury of tackling the New York Times Crossword without feeling harried by work tasks.
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1 month ago | 
nytimes.com | Sam Corbin
Jump to: Today's Theme | Tricky CluesTUESDAY PUZZLE - Some puns roll right off the tongue, light as air and witty as anything. Others feel so heavy-handed and strained that you almost resent yourself for understanding them. Today's carnival-themed crossword, constructed by Enrique Henestroza Anguiano, walks the tightrope between these two extremes. The wordplay that solves the puzzle is certainly silly - I might even call it pure fluff - but the grid is well worth the groan.
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1 month ago | 
nytimes.com | Sam Corbin
wordplay, the crossword columnDon't let Adam Vincent's challenging crossword tick you off. Jump to: Today's Theme | Tricky CluesWEDNESDAY PUZZLE - When struggling to understand a crossword theme, I find that the answer often comes to me if I just start typing a message to the puzzle editors. I get about as far as "Can someone explain --" before it hits me, at which point I quietly delete my message and slink back to my column.
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1 month ago | 
nytimes.com | Sam Corbin
wordplay, the crossword columnSue Fracker dashes off a delightful puzzle. Jump to: Today's Theme | Tricky CluesMONDAY PUZZLE - Sue Fracker made her New York Times Crossword debut in the summer of 2022 with a puzzle all about "elbow room," that featured types of rooms spelled out in elbow-shaped sets of circled letters. Judging by today's crossword, Ms. Fracker no longer needs to elbow her way into a clever theme - her talent for constructing is plain.
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2 months ago | 
nytimes.com | Sam Corbin
wordplay, the crossword columnBarbara Lin helps us out in more ways than one. Jump to: Today's Theme | Tricky CluesTUESDAY PUZZLE - My first experience with Barbara Lin's crosswords was in 2023, when I wrote the column for her Fourth of July puzzle. It was a breezy Tuesday grid with a timely wink, its themed entries stacked so as to create a tottering pile of burger toppings. It made me smile.
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2 months ago | 
nytimes.com | Sam Corbin
Our suspicions of sabotage are confirmed at 49-Across: There's a [Person who may have ruined your puzzle experience]. In order to identify the vandal, though, we'll need answers to 18-, 29- and 61-Across. These clues are "partners," so to speak, because each one relies on another's solution. In general, the best way to break into such clue sets is to use crossing entries to figure out one answer, and then use that solution to crack the other clues.
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2 months ago | 
nytimes.com | Sam Corbin
wordplay, the crossword columnRyan Mathiason makes his New York Times Crossword debut. Jump to: Today's Theme | Tricky CluesMONDAY PUZZLE - This is Ryan Mathiason's first puzzle for The New York Times and, in keeping with today's theme, I'm already starting to like what I see. Today's crossword has some wonderfully original fill, but it all jells. Or gels, you might say. In any case, I hope we'll see more of Mr. Mathiason soon. Shall we comb-over the puzzle together?
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2 months ago | 
nytimes.com | Elie Levine |Sam Corbin
The game's most devoted solvers have unlocked creativity and complexity in the classic logic game. Sudoku is like any other logic puzzle, in that it relies on deductive reasoning for its solution. There are numbers in the game, but no arithmetic is required to figure out where they go. Its simplicity notwithstanding, sudoku's popularity far outpaces that of similar logic puzzles, such as KenKen.
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2 months ago | 
nytimes.com | Sam Corbin
MONDAY PUZZLE - I can't help but notice that, for all the thrill of science fiction stories about evil twins, violent clones and spooky parallel dimensions, most real-world examples of duplication are fairly benign. What's so scary about identical twins (not counting the Grady sisters from "The Shining")? Today's crossword, constructed by Patti Varol, plays on one such instance of lighthearted repetition in language itself.
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Feb 25, 2025 | 
nytimes.com | Sam Corbin
WEDNESDAY PUZZLE - Solving crosswords sometimes makes me feel as though I'm connecting to some communal store of knowledge, a place where idioms, bits of sports jargon, celebrity names and lesser-known abbreviations are held and can be drawn on as needed. There was certainly something instinctive about the way I solved today's crossword, constructed by Dan Caprera, which hinges on a series of terms and phrases that are both familiar and entirely arbitrary.
