USA Today Daily Hard Crossword

A place to discuss regular (non-meta) crossword puzzles.
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Hector
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USA Today Daily Hard Crossword

#1

Post by Hector »

When did these daily, Stan Newman edited Stumpers become a thing (and why didn't I know about it)?!

https://games.usatoday.com/games/hard-crossword/
Laura M
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#2

Post by Laura M »

Hector wrote: Wed Aug 12, 2020 8:15 pm When did these daily, Stan Newman edited Stumpers become a thing (and why didn't I know about it)?!

https://games.usatoday.com/games/hard-crossword/
I think these are archived Saturday Stumpers. Links have been up for at least a few months at the top of the Newsday crosswords page with the text: "WANT MORE OF STAN'S CROSSWORDS? Play a new one FREE each day from Stan's archives, Easy or Hard." So USA Today probably is now using the same underlying link for "Hard." Still, since I only found the Stumper a year or so ago, the archives are new to me! (Realistically, if I did a puzzle more than like 6 months ago, that would be new to me too...)
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Hector
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#3

Post by Hector »

Ah, thanks, Laura. I'm also new enough to the Stumpers that I'll keep taking advantage of this. And LOL to the tag comment.
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Hector
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#4

Post by Hector »

Actually, I don't think the Hard puzzles have been nearly as hard as Stumpers. I have been completing them in about a third of the time of a typical Stumper. They may be old Stumpers somewhat re-clued, though.
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Abide
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#5

Post by Abide »

I looked up today's (9/10/20) "Hard" Newsday - Negative Endings by Bruce R. Sutphin, edited by Stan.

It is identical to Creators Syndicate puzzle edited by Stan on 3/22/13. (Friday)
http://matchbin-assets.s3.amazonaws.com ... 006631.pdf Page 12

Seven year old Saturday Stumper would be new to most anyone.
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ky-mike
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#6

Post by ky-mike »

Nice puzzle, but not on the “hard” end of the spectrum compared to WSJ or MG.
GlennG
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#7

Post by GlennG »

Hector wrote: Mon Sep 07, 2020 6:33 pm Actually, I don't think the Hard puzzles have been nearly as hard as Stumpers. I have been completing them in about a third of the time of a typical Stumper. They may be old Stumpers somewhat re-clued, though.
They aren't anything Saturday Stumper. Seeing this finally prompted me to figure out why they wouldn't load when I first saw the links on the Newsday site in getting puzzles and try them. Like was posted elsewhere on this thread, they're Friday Newsday level at worst. Doesn't take anything away from them as puzzles as they're all high-quality, but for most people they will be a non-event as far as difficulty (probably Wed+ level NYT). Unfortunately, a lot of people see "hard" and how they are pitched (a good example, read the reviews) and immediately think "Saturday Stumper", and it really doesn't flesh out into reality. The puzzles off that "Hard" link are quite obviously no such thing, for most of us.

Editing can be weird on these things too. I found a book with crosswords in it edited by Newman once (all obviously sourced from Newsday) and found a number of what were referred to as "Themeless Toughies" and those were still much different than the Saturday Stumpers. Mostly, I didn't have a lot of trouble with those either compared to what usually goes live on the Newsday site every Saturday.

I also made a couple of other mistakes in the course of searching it out that I won't reiterate here, but I was definitely willing to pay for a book of old Saturday Stumpers. Thankfully, I saved them from the day I found the Newsday site and was starting out (if I didn't do them), so I got a decent supply to start on, especially since I've gotten somewhat better to even entertain doing them.

Note: There's also a Newman "Daily Easy Crossword" off of the same site. They're pretty similar to the Monday/Tuesday Newsdays which are more or less track meets (think Monday- level NYT) and probably the easiest puzzles out there.
Laura M
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#8

Post by Laura M »

I first found these I think late last year; they were linked from Newsday site before they were on the USA Today site, and the bookmark I saved is just after a pumpkin pie recipe :-) I was pretty sure they were Saturday Stumpers then since they took me about 1.5 hours to do. I did a few a week for a while, but then life got busier and weirder and I didn't do them for months, although I kept meaning to get back to it. Anyway I just did today's, and it took 15 minutes, so yeah, something's changed (and sadly I'm sure it's not my solving speed). Maybe they ran out of Saturdays, and decided to run Thursdays and Fridays? Apologies for my misleading post earlier in this thread.
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