"Horseplay" - October 18, 2019

[PeterLeea1a]

Argh. I knew the mechanism, tried the correct starting and finishing letters, got KING, but did not see enough of the rest of the right path to know that I was headed in the right direction. Maddening to be so close.

[Richard]

Congrats to those that got it.
Brilliant puzzle.

Could not get anything from S to T so I saw the black squares, nothing. Never got out of those two rabbit holes.

[BarbaraK]

My first interpretation of 65A was indeed the right one. So I knew the first letter was K, and the second had to be I (because S made no sense).

Then the third could be T, N or another N. But probably not I, other I, or K because those would be moving backward and we should go around the grid.

Now after T could be A or G, after N could be S, G, another S, O, D; or A, another A, H, or M.

And about then, I decided that this was ridiculous. There are up to 8 possible directions to go after every letter. After 23 moves, there'd be way way too many possibilities to sift through looking for one that makes sense.

So there must be some system! Like always go up then right til you hit an edge or alternate up/right with right/up or something. Maybe those knight-move shaped groups of black squares are pointing the way? No, no way to make that work. Reread all the clues looking for a hint? Nope. Maybe knowing there are 23 moves total I can find a logical system to move around and end up back at the T? No, nothing worked. But it can't just be arbitrary, right.

My next insight was that with two characters, there was probably an AND somewhere along the way, so I went looking for that and thought maybe I could infer the pattern from it. Found 5 of them - all in the upper right corner, which seemed promising since using the whole grid, that's where the middle should be. But extrapolating either direction from any of the 5 didn't help spell anything either.

A day or so later, reading the comments here, I saw several mentions of guessing the answer and then finding how to make it work and also noted that no one questioned the well-knownness of the characters (so Equus or the musical Chess were probably out.) So I went back to the various possibilities for those early letters and around K-I-N-G-A I thought about King Arthur, found that could take me right to one of my ANDs, and then SIR and then L/B/U---T must be Lancelot, yup that works. But it doesn't feel like a very elegant way to solve a meta.

[MikeMillerwsj]

This was a tough puzzle! Tough to solve--and it must have been diabolically challenging to construct. We had 838 entrants, about 83% correct. A large showing for Scarlett O'Hara and Rhett Butler (24, no doubt inspired by 4A, "TARA"), plus Tweedledee & Tweedledum (4, because they're also chess pieces?), Lone Ranger and Tonto (7, why?) Don Quixote & Sancho Panza (2), and "$ and %" which I suppose are also "well-known characters."

Congrats to this week's winner, Kate Williams of Chicago, Ill.!

[Bird Lives]

Maybe Mike S could let us know whether it was "diabolically challenging to construct." It's a knight's tour of only 24 required letters with some flexibility as to where they are placed. And none of them are together in a single word. I also wonder whether the knight-move shape of four of the black-square clusters was deliberate.

[FrankieHeck]

My solve was similar to most of y'all's. From the weird clue, the title, and the arrangement of black squares, I was certain of the moves I was supposed to make. Started trying to go from top left to bottom right, but eventually tried going from KNIGHT. I sort of alternated forward and backward steps, got hung up a bit in the middle but strung it together without too much difficulty.

[Commodore]

Congratulations, Kate!

And to the other Sancho & Don guesser!
(Goal to be listed on the Mike Miller report -- achieved!)

[sharkicicles]

Congrats to this week's winner, Kate Williams of Chicago, Ill.!

The mugs are getting closer to me... a couple weeks ago someone in the burbs won, and now someone here in the city...

[Geoduck]

I had no issue with the knight crossing the black squares. In fact, I had the opposite thought on the matter. I think it would have been more elegant if the spaces between the words were indicated by the knight landing ON a black square. I looked for quite a while with that constraint in mind.

I found KING and am embarrassed that I didn't see "ARTHUR", which would have led me quickly to a solution.

[KayW]

Congrats to this week's winner, Kate Williams of Chicago, Ill.!

The mugs are getting closer to me... a couple weeks ago someone in the burbs won, and now someone here in the city...

Yes and in my case even the initials match! This is the closest I've come to that elusive mug Congratulations to Kate!

[Bob cruise director]

Like others, I got the chess knight moves right away on Thursday
Like others, I thought that the reference in 65A meant start in the upper left corner and end in the lower right corner. I have pages of flow options both from the beginning and backwards from the end that went absolutely no where and got very complex very quickly.

Friday at noon, the starting and ending at Knight dawned on me and I got KIN but could go no further because I put on the artificial constraint of not crossing a black square. So I started with the T and worked backwards to get Lancelot and then got the R in Sir but the only way I could proceed is to ditch my self imposed assumption, jump the black letters and then everything flowed quickly.

lessons learned
1) read the clues more exactly and stop interpreting them as you think they should be
2) stop putting self imposed limits on solving these things

and I am still in awe at how fast Leslie and Al solved the meta

And with a clean conscience knowing I had the right answer it enabled me to have a good round and settle in for a Pats win on MNF.

p.s. I did check my phone with the hope that I got an email from WSJ that I had won the mug but alas I had the same disappointment once again.

Congratulation to Kate who won the mug.

[Julie O]

While I was stuck trying to get from the top left to bottom right, was hung up for awhile thinking the letters to use were the turns in each of the knight moves, which yielded FOUR at the beginning, & I new couldn't be right, but couldn't get away from it until I started with the K in 65A. Once I started with the K, everything fell together pretty quickly as Lancelot had been simmering as a guess for awhile.

[RDaleHall]

Well my hesitancy in my response needs to move me back to the "not solved" category --- Responded to WSJ "KING ARTHUR LANCELOT" since those pieces came quickly; but didn't include the "AND SIR" portion. There was something about the unconnected characters that bothered me... and obviously for good reason upon now seeing the full and complete answer.

[gamera13]

Congratulations to all of you who solved this meta! I'm glad I didn't spend too much time on it because I would NEVER have solved it. I would never have known to start on the K and even if I knew chess better, I don't think I would have come up with that as a possible option.

[Tony S]

My first interpretation of 65A was indeed the right one. So I knew the first letter was K, and the second had to be I (because S made no sense).

Then the third could be T, N or another N. But probably not I, other I, or K because those would be moving backward and we should go around the grid.

Now after T could be A or G, after N could be S, G, another S, O, D; or A, another A, H, or M.

And about then, I decided that this was ridiculous. There are up to 8 possible directions to go after every letter. After 23 moves, there'd be way way too many possibilities to sift through looking for one that makes sense.

So there must be some system! Like always go up then right til you hit an edge or alternate up/right with right/up or something. Maybe those knight-move shaped groups of black squares are pointing the way? No, no way to make that work. Reread all the clues looking for a hint? Nope. Maybe knowing there are 23 moves total I can find a logical system to move around and end up back at the T? No, nothing worked. But it can't just be arbitrary, right.

My next insight was that with two characters, there was probably an AND somewhere along the way, so I went looking for that and thought maybe I could infer the pattern from it. Found 5 of them - all in the upper right corner, which seemed promising since using the whole grid, that's where the middle should be. But extrapolating either direction from any of the 5 didn't help spell anything either.

A day or so later, reading the comments here, I saw several mentions of guessing the answer and then finding how to make it work and also noted that no one questioned the well-knownness of the characters (so Equus or the musical Chess were probably out.) So I went back to the various possibilities for those early letters and around K-I-N-G-A I thought about King Arthur, found that could take me right to one of my ANDs, and then SIR and then L/B/U---T must be Lancelot, yup that works. But it doesn't feel like a very elegant way to solve a meta.

Yes, 8 possible moves x 23 times does seem ridiculous which is why I didn't bother to solve the meta. This must be the 1st time I knew how to get an answer but had better things to do.

[pookie]

Well, I was one of the seven who guessed Lone Ranger and Tonto.
It seemed as good an answer as any for "Horseplay".
This was sooo out of my league. Congratulations to all who got the right answer. You're all geniuses!

[kwilliams]

Thanks everyone for the heartfelt congratulations! I am honored (and shocked!) to have won the highly-coveted mug. Wishing you all the best!

[Bob cruise director]

Thanks everyone for the heartfelt congratulations! I am honored (and shocked!) to have won the highly-coveted mug. Wishing you all the best!

And welcome to the land of the muggles.

[Eric Porter]

I'm a chess player, so skipping over something unreachable with a knight came naturally to me. There is precedent for including blanks in the counting.

In the puzzle from March 15, Fast forward, you had to tab forward while including blanks.

In the puzzle from June 28, The Fourth Man, you of course excluded blank squares or the puzzle would have been too easy.

[BarbaraK]

Maybe Mike S could let us know whether it was "diabolically challenging to construct." It's a knight's tour of only 24 required letters with some flexibility as to where they are placed. And none of them are together in a single word. I also wonder whether the knight-move shape of four of the black-square clusters was deliberate.

I'm curious about this too. I'm not a constructor, so I really have no idea what I'm talking about. Some things that seem almost magic to me are apparently all in a days work, and others that seem like they should be no problem are really almost impossible.

But for this puzzle, coming up with the idea, I can see that that would take some doing, but the actual implementation I wouldn't think would be too challenging.

I believe there are several muggles who have written crosswords. Any of you care to comment?