XWord Muggles Forum

Hi all! I'd like to train up a bit and do a tournament. Took a past Lollapuzzoola, and I have started tracking my weekly WSJ times and number wrong. What would be a good system/formula for scoring my progress accounting for wrong squares?

Also, does anyone else track times? What is beginner/normal/good?

Here are my first 7 weeks (darker dots are more recent; solid line shows average times and gold dots are my goal for average times):
Thanks!, hope to hear from you.

Across Lite has a scoring feature, based on time and correctness (for puz files that have solutions built in, unlike many contest crosswords).

Thanks Hector,

Is there a formula I can borrow from it? I like solving pen-and-paper. Not familiar with Across Lite, can check it out but hope for a good offline solution.

80664 wrote: ↑Sat Sep 12, 2020 2:57 pm Thanks Hector,

Is there a formula I can borrow from it? I like solving pen-and-paper. Not familiar with Across Lite, can check it out but hope for a good offline solution.

That's some damned fine graphing for pen-and-paper!

Thanks Joe Ross, glad you like the graph. "I like solving [puzzles] pen-and-paper", and I like graphing in many forms.

Many of the bloggers at https://crosswordfiend.com publish their solving times. That could give a reference point.

Ah that's really helpful, thanks BarbaraK

I haven't see that explained anywhere. Tournaments have formulas, but they're based on a time limit for a puzzle, which doesn't apply in your case or in Across Lite. But here's one approach. Identify some time that you are frequently but not always under. Suppose that's 20 minutes. Then award yourself a point for every 10 seconds faster than 20 minutes (or 6 points per minute). For correctness, award yourself 30 points minus 5 for each incorrect square, plus a bonus 10 for a perfect puzzle.

80664 wrote: ↑Sat Sep 12, 2020 2:57 pm Thanks Hector,

Is there a formula I can borrow from it? I like solving pen-and-paper. Not familiar with Across Lite, can check it out but hope for a good offline solution.

Thanks Hector, I made up an ad hoc formula like that but was curious if there were any kind of standard out there. I appreciate this suggestion.