"Game Pieces" - February 21, 2020

A place to discuss the weekly Wall Street Journal Crossword Puzzle Contest, starting every Thursday around 4:00 p.m. Eastern time. Please do not post any answers or hints before the contest deadline which is midnight Sunday Eastern time.
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kfahey714
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Joined: Mon Feb 24, 2020 10:09 am

#241

Post by kfahey714 »

I got the correct answer, but in a totally different manner. From the start of the puzzle I thought the grid blocks were unusual and might be involved in the answer. When considering the "missing piece" clue in14 across was a "line," I started to consider the grid blocks were actually sort of tetris shaped and the "line" was actually missing. Whatever works!
Nlobb
Posts: 296
Joined: Sat Nov 16, 2019 6:46 pm

#242

Post by Nlobb »

I thought this puzzle was so much fun. I can't imagine how anyone puts together something so clever week after week! It brought back memories of my husband playing this for hours after our first two babies were in bed...quite a long time ago. Thanks for a fun solve Patrick.
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DBMiller
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#243

Post by DBMiller »

As far as the letters being out of order in this one, I'm not too upset. Tetris is a game where you can not only rotate the pieces, but slide them left or right to make them fit. The fact the we needed to move them into the correct order was yet another click for me.
If I'm around, I am willing to join the Muggle Zoom room at other times to lend a hand to those in need.
howardl
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Joined: Thu Oct 24, 2019 10:19 pm

#244

Post by howardl »

I recognize that this was an easy solve for a lot of people. That did not include me. I found solved the grid and noticed the patterns of letters, and wrote out TEISTR. I briefly looked for an anagram there. But (and here's where I am apparently alone in the crossword universe) I have never heard of a game called TETRIS. So the "line" hint didn't help much at all.
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Joe Ross
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#245

Post by Joe Ross »

Joe Ross wrote: โ†‘Thu Feb 20, 2020 5:17 pm Ashore & submitted.

o/~ I fall to pieces! o/~
Hoping that nobody felt this was a spoiler or too leading! I considered it fair game, since PIECES is in the puzzle title. I was poking at myself for posting under a different name, PastWSJCCSolutions - only used to post past puzzles. It was much later that I learned that there are online versions of TETRIS that have the pieces "fall" down the screen, allowing a player to rotate & move them side-to-side to fill empty squares in the game grid.

EDIT: Thought that I had played a board version with young nieces & nephews, then with my children, but TETRIS has always been a video game. The board game which I played was BLOKUS. Similar, but more shapes and non-video.

Blokus pieces.gif
Last edited by Joe Ross on Mon Feb 24, 2020 3:20 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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Geoduck
Posts: 156
Joined: Fri Jun 21, 2019 6:40 pm
Location: Somewhere Nawth of Bangaw, or on The Other Cape

#246

Post by Geoduck »

FrankieHeck wrote: โ†‘Mon Feb 24, 2020 10:09 am
If the answer is ever 'shore' or 'tiki bar' we are going to be in trouble.
Remember the time the answer was PINT? Everyone was leaning over backward avoiding using the word PINT in their "On shore!" announcements. But then someone asked for a pint of[insert favorite brewed beverage here] when they made it to shore.*

A few people said it was a spoiler.

But I think the spoiler was having the word PINT so conspicuously absent from the comments that week.

So, I agree with whoever said that most of these kinds of postings are seen as a spoiler only after you know the answer.

* I don't know the exact wording, and I ain't gonna search for it, either. This is the gist of the discussion, not a word-for-word transcript, although a certain someone has tried to redefine the word "transcript" in the past year or so.
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spotter
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Location: SLO, CA

#247

Post by spotter »

Never managed to post it, but I was on the beach all weekend as well!
MikeMillerwsj
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Joined: Tue Apr 09, 2019 2:46 pm

#248

Post by MikeMillerwsj »

A brilliant puzzle, right? With a blockbuster turnout--2113 entries, about 88% correct. Our favorite wrong guess was the near-anagram TWISTER (15). Also TIC-TAC-TOE (28), BATTLESHIP (16), SCRABBLE (16), CLUE (15), CONNECT FOUR (14), MONOPOLY (10) and various others.

Congrats to this week's winner: Margaret Woodhouse of Farmington Hills, Mich.
MaineMarge
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#249

Post by MaineMarge »

I was among those totally in the dark about this game- no room in my wheelhouse for video games. I had to anagram the nonsense clusters of letters ETRTSI. Tetris was the only word I was not familiar with, and research showed me how the shapes fit into the meta. And cleared up 14a as there was no line of 4 letters, just 3.
The other choice could be that the IRS has some new delight in store for us??
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ky-mike
Posts: 1941
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Location: Near Louisville Ky

#250

Post by ky-mike »

Limerick Savant wrote: โ†‘Sun Feb 23, 2020 1:05 am I finally finished the race
And I feel like I did it with grace
I may not break the tape
But I know Iโ€™m in shape
Cuz the answer just ____ ____ _____
Isn't it nice when things fall into place!

Great limerick
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TMart
Posts: 816
Joined: Thu Apr 11, 2019 7:13 am
Location: Malvern, PA

#251

Post by TMart »

For those who have never played Tetris, there's a free version here:

https://tetris.com/play-tetris

But beware - it's highly addicting!
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BrianMac
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#252

Post by BrianMac »

TMart wrote: โ†‘Mon Feb 24, 2020 1:31 pm For those who have never played Tetris, there's a free version here:

https://tetris.com/play-tetris

But beware - it's highly addicting!
Thanks. Rest of workday...shot.
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Bob cruise director
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Location: Any golf course within 500 miles of Littleton MA

#253

Post by Bob cruise director »

amheissan wrote: โ†‘Sun Feb 23, 2020 11:36 pm I got the meta!!
I'm new, so I'm not sure if that means I'm ashore or on the boat or drinking with Isaac, but I got it before the deadline! Woohoo!
Congratulations. If you go to the tab Come Aboard/ FAQ-Community, it explains the background of a lot of our comments, e.g ship vs shore, where Isaac came from and other.

Welcome to the group
Bob Stevens
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Bob cruise director
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Location: Any golf course within 500 miles of Littleton MA

#254

Post by Bob cruise director »

Good afternoon muggles

This was such a beautiful day in Massachusetts, I had to spend it chasing a little white ball around a golf course.

We had two last minute new muggles: amheissen and kfahey bringing the total of our merry little gang to 552.

And including those that posted this morning that they were on shore we had 150 on the beach breaking the old record of 146.

And as Bill Belichick says "we are on to Thursday" Have a good week
Bob Stevens
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KayW
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#255

Post by KayW »

MikeMillerwsj wrote: โ†‘Mon Feb 24, 2020 12:48 pm A brilliant puzzle, right? With a blockbuster turnout--2113 entries, about 88% correct. Our favorite wrong guess was the near-anagram TWISTER (15). Also TIC-TAC-TOE (28), BATTLESHIP (16), SCRABBLE (16), CLUE (15), CONNECT FOUR (14), MONOPOLY (10) and various others.

Congrats to this week's winner: Margaret Woodhouse of Farmington Hills, Mich.
My detour on the way to the correct answer was CONNECT FOUR. The TTT, SSS, and III in the grid jumped out at me and I quickly noticed the fourth letter tacked on there as well as a few other quadruples in the puzzle. So CONNECT FOUR came to mind with a missing LINE to link them and a COIN in the grid to use to play (tho I think the pieces are called discs, not coins). But I didn't like the fact that I couldn't make a word like GAME or CONNECT FOUR out of those letters. Lucky for me a friend encouraged me to keep looking for a better answer. And when I wrote down all the letters involved I soon saw TETRIS.
Contest Crosswords Combating Cancer (CCCC) is a bundle of 16 metapuzzles created to help raise money for cancer-related charities. It is available at CrosswordsForCancer.com.
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MajordomoTom
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#256

Post by MajordomoTom »

I initially had the TTT, III and SSS and struggled a bit to see if there was some game based on those letters.

Then went back and noticed lots of Rs, more Ts and quite a lot of Es. Realized it was TETRIS, but only about 30 minutes later, did I go back downstairs, saying "wait, are there block patterns in the grid of those letters?" Which made it 110%.

Wife wanted to know why we were done so quickly. :)
"Lots of planets have a North", the Ninth Doctor.
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DrTom
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#257

Post by DrTom »

BarbaraK wrote: โ†‘Sun Feb 23, 2020 7:25 pm
DrTom wrote: โ†‘Sun Feb 23, 2020 6:19 pm OK, a question to those of you who are regular MGWCCers. I have been ruminating over whether I should join, figuring that the Matt I usually see is in the WSJ world and his Metas may be easier there. So I tired the January 31st 2020 (How did you know..) and though initially a little stumped as to where to start I used the title and his clue to get me out of it rather easily. So. my question is; did I simply pick the simplest MGWCC in recent history or is that about usual (some harder, some easier). If that is the case then I'm going all in because I have not been able to abase myself nearly enough with one a week. :?:
In a typical month, MGWCC has one puzzle easier than that one, one about like that one, and two harder.

Matt put all his January puzzles up on his website, so if you want to see the hardest one, look at
https://xwordcontest.com/downloads/mgwcc608_puzzle.pdf
And another one comparable to the one you did is
https://xwordcontest.com/downloads/mgwcc607_puzzle.pdf

And you should definitely sign up! It's now a month-to-month subscription, so there's not much risk in trying it. If you don't like it, you can always quit.

(Yeah, right, I could quit anytime, it's not like I'm hooked on these:)
Well BarbaraK you are right the Initial Public Offering I got (after an AHA that seemingly came from nowhere), the Illegal Activity I am wracking my brain over and am about to go see what it is. I have seen more rabbits, and even came up with a 7 letter phrase that I think might be it, but I could not tell you how I got there except WAG.

I will say that the grids seem harder than the WSJ ones because they appear to have less "old timer" references (which I do better with) and more current affairs. Still there is always Mr. Google! So. I'm gonna beat myself up a bit more about the Illegal Activity and then look it up. We are about to go on vacation so I think I'll start MGWCC after because I'll get in ALL kinds of trouble if I am sitting on the Amalfi working a puzzle instead of touring.
NUDGES!I am always willing to give nudges where needed; metas should be about fun, not frustration. Send me what you have done so far because often you are closer than you think!
LesY
Posts: 678
Joined: Tue Apr 09, 2019 4:21 pm

#258

Post by LesY »

DrTom wrote: โ†‘Tue Feb 25, 2020 3:47 pm
BarbaraK wrote: โ†‘Sun Feb 23, 2020 7:25 pm
DrTom wrote: โ†‘Sun Feb 23, 2020 6:19 pm OK, a question to those of you who are regular MGWCCers. I have been ruminating over whether I should join, figuring that the Matt I usually see is in the WSJ world and his Metas may be easier there. So I tired the January 31st 2020 (How did you know..) and though initially a little stumped as to where to start I used the title and his clue to get me out of it rather easily. So. my question is; did I simply pick the simplest MGWCC in recent history or is that about usual (some harder, some easier). If that is the case then I'm going all in because I have not been able to abase myself nearly enough with one a week. :?:
In a typical month, MGWCC has one puzzle easier than that one, one about like that one, and two harder.

Matt put all his January puzzles up on his website, so if you want to see the hardest one, look at
https://xwordcontest.com/downloads/mgwcc608_puzzle.pdf
And another one comparable to the one you did is
https://xwordcontest.com/downloads/mgwcc607_puzzle.pdf

And you should definitely sign up! It's now a month-to-month subscription, so there's not much risk in trying it. If you don't like it, you can always quit.

(Yeah, right, I could quit anytime, it's not like I'm hooked on these:)
Well BarbaraK you are right the Initial Public Offering I got (after an AHA that seemingly came from nowhere), the Illegal Activity I am wracking my brain over and am about to go see what it is. I have seen more rabbits, and even came up with a 7 letter phrase that I think might be it, but I could not tell you how I got there except WAG.

I will say that the grids seem harder than the WSJ ones because they appear to have less "old timer" references (which I do better with) and more current affairs. Still there is always Mr. Google! So. I'm gonna beat myself up a bit more about the Illegal Activity and then look it up. We are about to go on vacation so I think I'll start MGWCC after because I'll get in ALL kinds of trouble if I am sitting on the Amalfi working a puzzle instead of touring.
Love the Amalfi - enjoy!
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DrTom
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Location: Jacksonville, FL

#259

Post by DrTom »

OK, finally could stand it no longer and looked at the answer for Illegal Activity. I can safely say that it was a KAS 1275 for me. Were I to be bitten by a vampire and ostensibly live forever, and spend 5 hours a day trying to solve the puzzle I believe I would eventually purposely walk out into bright sunlight and end it all. Still I'm gonna give it a go after Italy, maybe I'll be mellower?
NUDGES!I am always willing to give nudges where needed; metas should be about fun, not frustration. Send me what you have done so far because often you are closer than you think!
Nlobb
Posts: 296
Joined: Sat Nov 16, 2019 6:46 pm

#260

Post by Nlobb »

Happy Mardi gras to all the muggles!!
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