Ryan and Brian do Crosswords

We did it! Lollapuzzoola 2008 was a great success. We had a perfect turnout of wonderful solvers, a marvelous array of puzzles, way too many snacks (which means we’ve still got enough Oreos to feed all of Queens for the rest of the summer).

The six puzzles used in the tournament are available here for download at the end of this post. They are all in .PUZ format, which means they can be loaded up with Across Lite. The answers should be in there too, with no scramble codes. The themes should be obvious for all the puzzles except Puzzle Four (”Compromising Positions,” designed by Mike Nothnagel). So as not to give anything away here on the blog, we invite you to email us at rbxblog@gmail.com if you want to know more about how that puzzle ended up playing out.

We invented a strange but workable scoring system, but no sensible system could do much to keep Howard Barkin from taking the title. He will forever be known as The Great Howard Barkin, Knower of All Things (Except “Ushpizin”), and First Ever Champion of Lollapuzzoola. The runners-up included Will Irving (2nd place), Patty Buethe (3rd), Mike Nothnagel (4th) and Janet Siefert (5th). The full scoreboard is below (click on it to see it in full-size):

The scores are listed in three columns per puzzle. The first column is the rank of finishing the puzzle. The second is the total points, which is partially based on the third column, which is the number of wrong squares. Email us if you want to know exactly what you got wrong on any given puzzle.

(A note to any of the participants: The five finalists each got a bonus of 1000 points for being a finalist. This was simply so that even if any of them did terribly on the final puzzle [they did not], they could not finish lower in the overall standings than anyone who finished 6th or higher. That 5th place and 6th place seem separated by a huge margin is simply a result of this 1000-point bonus.)

(Another note: in our scoring system, the lowest score [from the first five puzzles] was dropped from the final tally. That is the score indicated with white text on a black background.)

And some photos (here’s a link to the full Flickr set):

Brian, Lollapuzzoola 2008 Champion Howard Barkin, Ryan

Brian, 1st runner-up Will Irving (holding photo of Frank Stallone), Ryan

Some of the constructors: Ashish Vengsarkar, Amanda Yesnowitz, Mike Nothnagel, Ryan, Brian

Yes, Twister. Pictured are Will Irving, Janet Siefert and Howard Barkin. Patty Buethe was the fourth contestant in this mini-game.

A special guest stopped by for a visit! Here we are with Puzzlemaster Will Shortz. Thanks for joining us, Will!

As promised, here are the links to the puzzles of the day:

• Puzzle #1: A Simple Trio by Brian Cimmet
• Puzzle #2: Bite Me! by Doug Peterson
• Puzzle #3: Reverse, Look Up by Ashish Vengsarkar
• Puzzle #4: Compromising Positions by Mike Nothnagel
• Puzzle #5: Name That Tune by Dan Feyer
• Puzzle #6: Criss-Crosswords by Barry C. Silk [Click here for Criss-Crosswords with the harder clues we used for the championship.]
• Puzzle #7 (bonus puzzle): Fill Me In by Amanda Yesnowitz (answers are not given on this one; email us if you get stumped and want help)

Our thanks to the constructors, to Ellen Ripstein for her test-solving and puzzle-scoring, to Angela Halsted, Howard Barkin and Mike Nothnagel for their extensive scoring help, to Kathryn Hecht and Toni Carrington for their wonderful assistance in making everything run smoothly while Ryan and I were going a little batty. All in all, it was a lot of fun, and we may very well try and pull off another event sometime in early 2009. In the meantime, enjoy the blog, listen to our podcast (Episode 23 should air late Sunday night), and we’ll see you all soon!

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Hey all, it’s 2:45 on Saturday morning. Less than 10 hours till Lollapuzzoola. Brian and I have stayed up way too late making all the last minute adjustments. Hope to see you all there. It should be loads of fun.

I’ve barely looked at Saturday’s puzzle but I won’t really get to it until after our event. There will be a full write up at some point this weekend.

See you soon.

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Somehow, we never posted directions to Lollapuzzoola. For those who have come here to figure out how to travel, here’s the story.

The church (where Lollapuzzoola is happening) is located on the corner of 81st St. and 35th Ave. in Queens. The subways that handle this area are:

• 7 to 82nd St./Jackson Heights. This lets off at 82nd and Roosevelt, which is two blocks south of 35th Ave. Walk up 82nd St. those two blocks, turn left, and the church is on the next corner.

Or…

• E or F (express in Queens [usually]) to Roosevelt Ave./74th St.
• R, G or V (local in Queens) to Roosevelt Ave./74th St.

From Roosevelt and 74th, you can do one of these things:

• Walk two blocks north (to 35th Ave.), turn right, walk seven blocks (east) to 81st St.
• Q49 bus goes along 35th Avenue and there’s a stop just after 80th St.
• Q33 bus goes up 83rd St., and there’s a stop just after 35th Ave.
• transfer to the 7 train (upstairs from the terminal) and take it one stop Flushing-bound to 82nd St.

Any problems? You can email us or call Ryan at 917-805-3474. I’m sure he’ll love the fact that I just posted his number on the internet. (Hee hee.)

See you soon!

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Hello all. You may now register for Lollapuzzoola ‘08 by following this link or by clicking the button on the left side of the page. The registration fee is $10 and we are accepting payments through Paypal.

We’re going to have puzzles, games, food, drinks, tables, chairs, pencils and, at the end, some sort of a winner. Right now our puzzle constructors include Mike Nothnagel, PEACOTFP and Doug Peterson, CGAMAT. We will update this list as we get more confirmations.

Lollapuzzoola ‘08 will be held on August 23rd from 12pm-4pm at the Community Church in Jackson Heights, Queens, NYC. The address is 81-10 35th Avenue, 11372. We’ll have detailed directions and maps if you need them as the event nears.

At this point we have no idea how many people will be attending so registering early helps us out and we can certainly use all the help we can get. And, along those lines, we have no idea what we’re doing here so if something is unclear or your payment doesn’t go through just email us and we will clear it up as quickly as possible.

We will continue to provide details on this blog and on Fill Me In: A Crossword Podcast as they come in.  Thanks so much for your support.  We hope to see you there.

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