"Tie Game" August 18, 2023

[Plymouthrock]

I looked up rules for Connect Four, found four diagonally arranged Es. Found four Es in the word represented which lined up nicely as
Rep
Re
Sen
Ted
All this after exhausting possibilities available to my way of thinking
Good work to 126 who made it.

[otlaolap]

Dagnabbit. Having got nowhere with any conventional rational approach, I finally said to myself that look, you've got three well-known games mentioned with "game" in the clue, and Othello is also a well-known game (with discs like connect four), so maybe Moor is the answer. But I hate turning to wild futile guesses, so . . . .

[Wendy Walker]

Wow, so many red herrings in this one, Mike!
Like so many others, I went the GAME route -- I mean, really: GAME showing up four times in the clues HAD to be significant, right? I extrapolated from the oddly superfluous "red and yellow disks" information in the 34A clue to research the colors of OTHELLO (black, white, green) and WORDLE (green, yellow, gray). Alas, no commonalities.
Then I noticed the four four-digit numbers in the clues -- again, how could that be a coincidence? Nope, nothing.
Finally, as I mentioned earlier, I printed a clean grid and the metanism jumped out at me.

[RobM]

Am I the only one who got hung up on the two 4-letter sequences that intersected themselves: HARL (Harlem and Charline) and TENT (Tent and Patent). I kept looking for two more and the closest I got was ESTE in Untested crossing with a NW-SE diagonal (because in Connect Four, diagonals count).

[Gman]

Right away I noticed that 3 of the game references were tied together by the center clue. Putting together CUTOUT, WORDLE and CONNECTFOUR, I assumed this was an instruction to find words with LE in them and cut them out to connect either the 4 remaining letters (HARLEM became HARM) or 4 such words together (e.g. APPLE). I spent hours on that rabbit.

[femullen]

Easily solved if you simply follow instructions:

Note first that there are four clues that include the title word "game:" 34A, 59A, 23D, and 30D. Highlight the corresponding answers in the grid.

Note that 34A, CONNECT FOUR, is clearly an instruction. CONNECT FOUR is intersected by two of the other grid answers whose clues include the word "game." These are 23D, CUTOUT, and 30D, WORDLE.

Note that 23D, CUTOUT, is also obviously an instruction. Accordingly, we "cut out" the letters of "CONNECT FOUR" that come between where CUTOUT and WORDLE intersect CONNECT FOUR. This leaves the first two and last two letters of 34A, CO and UR, four letters that, following instructions ("connect four") we need to connect.

Here comes the only tricky part. Note that the final grid answer whose clue contains the word "game," 59A, OLE, differs by only one letter from 31D, ECO, which bisects 34A, CONNECT FOUR. Coincidence? Nay!

Final step, then: insert the L and O from 59A, OLE, between the four letters of 34A that remain to be connected. This gives you CO..LO..UR, COLOUR, which is "a word found in one of the clues," namely 36A. Final instruction, then, is to type COLOUR into the subject line of your e-mail to crosswordcontest@wsj.com and press SEND.

Now, skeptics and others of little faith may object that we made no use of the E in OLE. Come on, now! We've all assembled enough IKEA furniture that having extra parts laying around at the end should bother us not at all. Besides, note the word in that tell-all lower-right position, 61A: PORTS. This differs by only one letter from PARTS, just as OLE differed by only one letter from ECO. Coincidence? Nay again! This is a Shenk hint that you needn't use all the letters and that you will finish with extra parts.

Looking forward to enjoying a BEvERage in my mug.

[Ergcat]

I went down all the same rabbit holes mentioned ( game in clues, games on grid, etc) and then some others like:
(1) even linking the 4-letter words but I eliminated the common letters and was left with FNECKS. Was I looking for a Neck tie? ( ascot, bolo, bow, etc). But nothing like that in the clues.
(2) how about looking at the Title “Tie Game”…. Let’s try the grid numbers that could be like “tie scores” like 1-1, 2-2, etc.
taking those letters gave me PAMHL.

Finally got a nudge that made me look again at the 4-letter words.
Kudos to all who saw it from the start!

[Ergcat]

Am I the only one who got hung up on the two 4-letter sequences that intersected themselves: HARL (Harlem and Charline) and TENT (Tent and Patent). I kept looking for two more and the closest I got was ESTE in Untested crossing with a NW-SE diagonal (because in Connect Four, diagonals count).

Yessssss! Chased that bunny too. In addition to the 2 you found There was AST in upper left in FAST and TASTE. And DOC in lower right in DOCK and DOCENT!

[MMac]

"THEORY TOILET" is my all-time favorite non-winning answer. Sounds like a physics grad students' punk band.

I spent a lot of time chasing this rabbit / toilet hole as well. Clearly we were supposed to play Connect Four. if you extend the theory to skip black spaces, you get either SHORT DOT or ATHLETES, the latter of which seemed too coincidental to pass up. But it wasn't.

Here's my entry for the XWord Rabbit!

Based on the central entry, we are playing CONNECT FOUR! But the title tells us that it is a TIE GAME, so no one is winning. As such, we need to look for connect four attempts that have been stopped (so 3 letters with 1 letter either inside or at one end).

There are five of these all on diagonals running from the top right to bottom left:

• HTTT (the H is the last letter of 17A)

• EEEO (the leading E is the last letter of 22A)

• TTRT (the leading T is the last letter of 29A)

• ETEE (the leading E is the 4th letter of 47A)

• LLOL (the leading L is the 4th letter of 44A)

Putting these letters in order spells THEORTOLET. By judiciously adding a Y and a I this becomes THEORY TOILET which is where this theory ends up because neither word appears in the puzzle clues.


Tie Game (alt).jpg


To add insult to injury, there is a winning EEEE (the leading E is the 3rd letter of 18A), which ruins the whole TIE GAME shtick.

[Joepickett]

Ashore -- late submission after a weekend of moving my daughter back to college. I think I earned a gift from Isaac more than once this weekend.

Yes I know the feeling. I moved my son in on Sat and a daughter in on Sunday.

[RobM]

Am I the only one who got hung up on the two 4-letter sequences that intersected themselves: HARL (Harlem and Charline) and TENT (Tent and Patent). I kept looking for two more and the closest I got was ESTE in Untested crossing with a NW-SE diagonal (because in Connect Four, diagonals count).

Yessssss! Chased that bunny too. In addition to the 2 you found There was AST in upper left in FAST and TASTE. And DOC in lower right in DOCK and DOCENT!

I saw those too, but dismissed them because of Connect Four, so I was looking for more 4-letter sequences, to no avail.

[Inca]

Wow, all the deep thinking that muggles go through to come up with an answer...any answer. It pays to remember that the metanism has to be fully explain-able in two or three short sentences for print on Monday

[boharr]

Wow, all the deep thinking that muggles go through to come up with an answer...any answer. It pays to remember that the metanism has to be fully explain-able in two or three short sentences for print on Monday

So I guess those WSJ dudes will never win the Golden Rabbit Hole Award.

[Richard]

Well I had many distractions to get it. Congrats to those who solved.

LIving in LA we got warnings last week of a hurricane with LA on one of possible paths. My wife and I had a landscaping project that we wanted to finish and that took care of my Thursday and much of Friday. I did find time to do the grid and start down the game route. Saturday was some volunteer work and moving lawn furniture etc. getting ready for the storm. Between watching the TV for storm reports on Sunday I did decide drop the game route and start on on the four letter words. Then got a noice on my cell phone that there was an earthquake in an area where my daughter has a home. So back to the TV for now tropical storm and earthquake reports. Decided it was just not too be.

Fortunately no damage at my home or at my daughters. We discovered a very very small leak that will need some attention.

Richard

[MatthewL]

Had the correct answer. Got up this morning and checked my email eagerly to see if I received my well-deserved notice from WSJ puzzle HQ, but nothing. Checked my spam folder, but again, no notice. Then I saw I had one new email in my drafts folder. Checked that and whoops -- looks like I never hit send. Doh! So to everyone who submitted the correct answer, I increased your odds just a little bit. You're welcome.

[Merry Potter]

Wow, so many red herrings in this one, Mike!
Like so many others, I went the GAME route -- I mean, really: GAME showing up four times in the clues HAD to be significant, right? I extrapolated from the oddly superfluous "red and yellow disks" information in the 34A clue to research the colors of OTHELLO (black, white, green) and WORDLE (green, yellow, gray). Alas, no commonalities.
Then I noticed the four four-digit numbers in the clues -- again, how could that be a coincidence? Nope, nothing.
Finally, as I mentioned earlier, I printed a clean grid and the metanism jumped out at me.

I went down this route initially too- I had CONNECTFOUR, WORDLE, CUTOUT, and OLE. So I "cutout" OLE from WORDLE and got WRD. Well then I had to look for WRD in the clues - especially the CONNECTFOUR clue: "game With Red and yellow Disks" there is the WRD!

I discounted GAME since it's in the theme and the word "and" an insignificant word. therefore the word had to be YELLOW. the confirmation was the nearby word "OCHRE" which I take as a brownish YELLOW color. wait that doesn't really tie into the "theme", does it?

so then I said eliminating WRD left me with Game And Yellow = "GAY" I have to search for any "happiness" - no luck.. ok move on to the next rabbit hole...

[MMe]

Oh, it's Tie (Moor) Game (Othello)! Did not catch that part, duh

[HunterX]

Went down many of the same rabbit holes as others. And that was after noticing both that there were only four 4-letter words and that they connected by their last-first letters. Didn't see a word in the clues connecting them back from K to F, though.

Daughter noticed an interesting element to the clues to the 4-letter grid answers. Where do they connect?

Saw the four clues with "game" in them, and that three connected. But that connection was on CONNECTFOUR, so it couldn't be right.

Saw the four EEEE's and various 3-letter diagonals as well.

Finally, on Sunday, after struggling with both this and the MGWCC, I decided to check every single diagonal connection of letters in the upward direction. And what do I find? HOHO, starting at square 44. Then AERO, starting at 53, going left. Then DEAR at 51 going left. Of course! It's Rudolph in the clue to 46A in.... the MGWCC.

Note to self: Be careful when working on two meta-puzzles at once.

[Cindy N]

There were so many rabbit holes, I fell down most of them - first and foremost was the four GAME clues, three of which overlapped CONNECT FOUR. But there wasn't any fourth. I kept going back to the four, 4-letter words fortunately!

I can guarantee the mug winner this week will be a muggle.

[mikeB]

A striking feature of this meta, as many have noted, is the opportunities for self-misdirection due to expectations.

Entry 34A offers firm guidance in the solving, but in a slightly unconventional role. Most of the time, theme entries, usually a group of similar entries, provide raw materials for the solve. We might be looking at several long entries, and we’re trying to harvest letters from those entries to get to the solution. Unexpectedly (for me), Entry 34A stands alone, and we’re actually interested in its meaning, not its letters. There is no handful of similarly configured theme entries, but just four entries of four letters each. My rookie error, based again on expectation, was an initial quest to discern which of the other entries are the theme entries. The title offers another opportunity for a little self-misdirection. It really tells us nothing until the end. That is often the case, but more than that, it gratuitously plants GAME in our thinking. Uh-oh. There are FOUR occurrences of the word “game” in the clues. If that’s not rabbity (in light of CONNECT FOUR), then nothing is. In defense of the title, however, it does also give us “TIE”, which is the final click that finishes the job. (To tie a vessel up is to moor it, so we know we’re done.) So the title teases us with GAME but later closes the deal for us with TIE. The prompt does ostensibly give us a nudge, by bluntly limiting the solution space to the finite set of words we see in the clues. However, this is a temptation to back-solve, which is a trap if we’re still figuring out how to connect those four key entries.

Yes, the title, entries, clues and prompt work together to guide – and maybe misguide – the solver. They play roles that may not exactly match what we’re used to seeing in a meta. That is the great gift of this puzzle: Beyond the challenge and great fun it provides, it also reminds us that there are very few constraints on the design of these mechanisms. Indeed, our own experience-induced expectations can sometimes be the very box that we need to think outside of. Kudos to Mr. Shenk for helping us reinforce this lesson learned, and in such an entertaining way.