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U.S. Open (crosswords)
The United States Open was a crossword puzzle-solving tournament that lasted from to . Sponsored by Games Magazine and directed by Will Shortz, it attracted thousands of potential competitors and was, along with the American Crossword Puzzle Tournament, one of the two largest crossword tournaments in recent decades. A qualifying puzzle ran in Games Magazine. Solvers of the puzzle could decide whether they wanted to be Nonparticipants or Participants. Nonparticipants with correct solutions were eligible for a random drawing, the winner of which would receive a cash prize. Participants with correct solutions were mailed four very difficult tiebreaker crosswords, many of which had deliberately tricky crossings and unannounced gimmicks (for example, the long entries in a puzzle might reveal that all of the across clues were in reverse order). The 250 solvers with the best scores on the tiebreak puzzles were invited to New York City to participate in the tournament. First prize at ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Crossword Puzzle
A crossword is a word puzzle that usually takes the form of a square or a rectangular grid of white- and black-shaded squares. The goal is to fill the white squares with letters, forming words or phrases, by solving clues which lead to the answers. In languages that are written left-to-right, the answer words and phrases are placed in the grid from left to right ("across") and from top to bottom ("down"). The shaded squares are used to separate the words or phrases. Types Crossword grids such as those appearing in most North American newspapers and magazines feature solid areas of white squares. Every letter is checked (i.e. is part of both an "across" word and a "down" word) and usually each answer must contain at least three letters. In such puzzles shaded squares are typically limited to about one-sixth of the total. Crossword grids elsewhere, such as in Britain, South Africa, India and Australia, have a lattice-like structure, with a higher percentage of shaded squares ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Tournament
A tournament is a competition involving at least three competitors, all participating in a sport or game. More specifically, the term may be used in either of two overlapping senses: # One or more competitions held at a single venue and concentrated into a relatively short time interval. # A competition involving a number of matches, each involving a subset of the competitors, with the overall tournament winner determined based on the combined results of these individual matches. These are common in those sports and games where each match must involve a small number of competitors: often precisely two, as in most team sports, racket sports and combat sports, many card games and board games, and many forms of competitive debating. Such tournaments allow large numbers to compete against each other in spite of the restriction on numbers in a single match. These two senses are distinct. All golf tournaments meet the first definition, but while match play tournaments meet the second, ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Games Magazine
''GAMES World of Puzzles'' is a puzzle magazine formed from the merger of Games and World of Puzzles in October 2014. The entire magazine interior is now newsprint (as opposed to the part-glossy/part-newsprint format of the original ''Games'') and the puzzles and articles that originally sandwiched the "Pencilwise" section are now themselves sandwiched ''by'' the main puzzle pages, replacing the "feature puzzle" section. (They are still full-color, unlike the two-color "Pencilwise" sections.) Like the original ''World of Puzzles'' (which is now discontinued), the answer key is now at the rear of the magazine. The new combined title remained on the same 9-issue-per-year publication schedule as the original ''Games''. Games ''Games'' magazine (ISSN 0199-9788) was a magazine devoted to games and puzzles, and it was published by Games Publications, a division of Kappa Publishing Group. History Games was originally published by ''Playboy'' (debuting with the September/October 1977 i ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Will Shortz
William F. Shortz (born August 26, 1952) is an American puzzle creator and editor and crossword puzzle editor for ''The New York Times''. Early life and education Will Shortz was born and raised on an Arabian horse farm in Crawfordsville, Indiana. He was drawn to puzzles at an early age; in eighth grade he wrote a paper titled “Puzzles as a Profession.” (The paper earned him a B+.) At age 13, Shortz wrote to ''Language on Vacation'' author Dmitri Borgmann for advice on how to pursue a career in puzzles. At age 16, Shortz began regularly contributing crossword puzzles to Dell publications. He eventually graduated from Indiana University in 1974, and is the only person known to hold a college degree in enigmatology, the study of puzzles. Shortz wrote his thesis about the history of American word puzzles. Shortz achieved this by designing his own curriculum through Indiana University's Individualized Major Program. He also earned a Juris Doctor degree from the University of Vi ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
American Crossword Puzzle Tournament
The American Crossword Puzzle Tournament is a crossword-solving tournament held annually in February, March, or April. Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, the 2020 tournament was canceled. In April 2021, the 43rd tournament was held virtually. Founded in 1978 by Will Shortz, who still directs the tournament, it is the oldest and largest crossword tournament held in the United States; the 2019 event set an attendance record with 741 competitors, including over 200 rookies. For its first 30 years the contest was held at the Marriott in Stamford, Connecticut, but owing to increasing popularity, in 2008 it moved to the larger Marriott Brooklyn Bridge in Brooklyn, New York. In 2015, the tournament returned to Stamford. The tournament traditionally begins Friday evening with social games and a wine-and-cheese reception. More games are played on Saturday evening, many of them adaptations of television game shows. Participants and divisions Anyone can participate, although registration is l ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Random
In common usage, randomness is the apparent or actual lack of pattern or predictability in events. A random sequence of events, symbols or steps often has no :wikt:order, order and does not follow an intelligible pattern or combination. Individual random events are, by definition, unpredictable, but if the probability distribution is known, the frequency of different outcomes over repeated events (or "trials") is predictable.Strictly speaking, the frequency of an outcome will converge almost surely to a predictable value as the number of trials becomes arbitrarily large. Non-convergence or convergence to a different value is possible, but has probability zero. For example, when throwing two dice, the outcome of any particular roll is unpredictable, but a sum of 7 will tend to occur twice as often as 4. In this view, randomness is not haphazardness; it is a measure of uncertainty of an outcome. Randomness applies to concepts of chance, probability, and information entropy. T ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Tiebreaker
In games and sports, a tiebreaker or tiebreak is used to determine a winner from among players or teams that are tied at the end of a contest, or a set of contests. General operation In matches In some situations, the tiebreaker may consist of another round of play. For example, if contestants are tied at the end of a Quiz, quiz game, they each might be asked one or more extra questions, and whoever correctly answers the most from that extra set is the winner. In many sports, teams that are tied at the end of a match compete in an additional period of play called "overtime (sports), overtime" or "extra time". The extra round may also not follow the regular format, e.g. a tiebreak in tennis or a penalty shootout (football), penalty shootout in association football. In the ''Super Smash Bros.'' series of fighting games published by Nintendo, if at least two fighters have an equal amount of points or stocks at the end of the match, then a tiebreaker will occur as "Sudden Death ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Gimmicks
A gimmick is a novel device or idea designed primarily to attract attention or increase appeal, often with little intrinsic value. When applied to retail marketing, it is a unique or quirky feature designed to make a product or service "stand out" from its competitors. Product gimmicks are sometimes considered mere novelties, and tangential to the product's functioning. Gimmicks are occasionally viewed negatively, but some seemingly trivial gimmicks of the past have evolved into useful, permanent features. The term is also sometimes used to describe unusual features or playstyles in video games, usually if they are unnecessary or obnoxious. Etymology The origin of the term "gimmick" is uncertain. Etymologists suggest that the term emerged in the United States in the early 20th century. The ''Oxford Dictionary'' suggests that it may have originally been a slang term for something that a con artist or magician manipulated to make appearances different from reality and gradually ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
New York City
New York, often called New York City or NYC, is the List of United States cities by population, most populous city in the United States. With a 2020 population of 8,804,190 distributed over , New York City is also the List of United States cities by population density, most densely populated major city in the United States, and is more than twice as populous as second-place Los Angeles. New York City lies at the southern tip of New York (state), New York State, and constitutes the geographical and demographic center of both the Northeast megalopolis and the New York metropolitan area, the largest metropolitan area in the world by urban area, urban landmass. With over 20.1 million people in its metropolitan statistical area and 23.5 million in its combined statistical area as of 2020, New York is one of the world's most populous Megacity, megacities, and over 58 million people live within of the city. New York City is a global city, global Culture of New ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Pencil
A pencil () is a writing or drawing implement with a solid pigment core in a protective casing that reduces the risk of core breakage, and keeps it from marking the user's hand. Pencils create marks by physical abrasion, leaving a trail of solid core material that adheres to a sheet of paper or other surface. They are distinct from pens, which dispense liquid or gel ink onto the marked surface. Most pencil cores are made of graphite powder mixed with a clay binder. Graphite pencils (traditionally known as "lead pencils") produce grey or black marks that are easily erased, but otherwise resistant to moisture, most chemicals, ultraviolet radiation and natural aging. Other types of pencil cores, such as those of charcoal, are mainly used for drawing and sketching. Coloured pencils are sometimes used by teachers or editors to correct submitted texts, but are typically regarded as art supplies, especially those with cores made from wax-based binders that tend to smear when ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Stanley Newman (puzzle Creator)
Stanley Newman (born July 19, 1952) is an American puzzle creator, editor, and publisher. Newman has been the editor of the ''Newsday'' Sunday crossword puzzle since 1988 and the editor of the ''Newsday'' daily crossword puzzle since 1992. He is also a trivia buff and the co-author of a trivia encyclopedia, ''15,003 Answers''. Newman is a native of Brooklyn, New York, and is a Phi Beta Kappa graduate of Brooklyn College, where he majored in mathematics. He went on to earn a master’s degree in statistics from Rutgers University. Newman's puzzle career started after he won the inaugural U.S. Open Crossword Championship in 1982. He also won the American Crossword Puzzle Tournament that year. Newman started a crossword newsletter in 1983 and began creating his own crosswords soon thereafter. He is the author or editor of over 100 books and is the current world record holder for the fastest solving of a New York Times crossword In 1990, Newman appeared as a contestant on '' T ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
