"Under the Table" - July 9, 2021

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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zach
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Joined: Tue May 25, 2021 1:55 pm

#441

Post by zach »

Bob cruise director wrote: Tue Jul 13, 2021 4:28 pm
zach wrote: Tue Jul 13, 2021 3:22 pm
Bob cruise director wrote: Tue Jul 13, 2021 11:38 am

In case anyone was wondering, from the beginning of written records (April 29, 2016), the solve percentages by constructor are:

Matt Gaffney - 72.4% for 132 metas
Mike Shenk - 78.0% for 109 metas
Peter Gordon - 82.1% for 6 metas
Patrick Berry - 85.6% for 16 metas

Overall average of metas is 74.8%
Weighted average (total solves/total entries) is 79.7% - A lot more submissions on the easier contests
Interesting data! Thanks for sharing.

I’d love to see the Gaffney puzzle success rate by “with parentheses in the clues” vs. “sans parentheses.” I bet those parentheses puzzles are what make his puzzles the most difficult.
If you go back through the puzzles the Joe Ross has posted and tell me which ones had parentheses vs sans parentheses, I can give you those statistics.
Sent you a PM.

For my fellow dataheads out there:
- 19 of 136 Gaffney puzzles (14%) since 4/29/2016 have had parentheses in the clues as a step in the mechanism
- Of the 19, 13 puzzles (68%) had what I am calling “cryptic numbers only.” For example: “(4,7)”
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whimsy
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#442

Post by whimsy »

Bunnies are not all bad --
Why, this one is completely above board, not under the table, when it comes to cash transactions --

https://www.google.com/search?client=fi ... ing+change
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mntlblok
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#443

Post by mntlblok »

zach wrote: Wed Jul 14, 2021 12:49 pm
Bob cruise director wrote: Tue Jul 13, 2021 4:28 pm
zach wrote: Tue Jul 13, 2021 3:22 pm

I
Sent you a PM.

For my fellow dataheads out there:
- 19 of 136 Gaffney puzzles (14%) since 4/29/2016 have had parentheses in the clues as a step in the mechanism
- Of the 19, 13 puzzles (68%) had what I am calling “cryptic numbers only.” For example: “(4,7)”
By "cryptic" you mean? Sorry for my density.
zach
Posts: 98
Joined: Tue May 25, 2021 1:55 pm

#444

Post by zach »

mntlblok wrote: Wed Jul 14, 2021 4:23 pm
zach wrote: Wed Jul 14, 2021 12:49 pm
Bob cruise director wrote: Tue Jul 13, 2021 4:28 pm

Sent you a PM.

For my fellow dataheads out there:
- 19 of 136 Gaffney puzzles (14%) since 4/29/2016 have had parentheses in the clues as a step in the mechanism
- Of the 19, 13 puzzles (68%) had what I am calling “cryptic numbers only.” For example: “(4,7)”
By "cryptic" you mean? Sorry for my density.
Numbers that have no designated meaning. Some of his puzzles have years in parentheses, and one recent one, for example, had number of miles. Others are just things like “(4,7)” and the solver must determine what the numbers represent.
JetStream
Posts: 86
Joined: Mon Mar 08, 2021 3:56 pm

#445

Post by JetStream »

Dang! I think I might have been able to get this one - I was looking for periodic table clues - but I only printed out the finished grid and didn't keep the clues. Oh well......
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Bob cruise director
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Location: Any golf course within 500 miles of Littleton MA

#446

Post by Bob cruise director »

Hello all - Zach asked an interesting question this week about the dreaded parentheses. Are Matt Gaffney's metas with parentheses more difficult than ones without parentheses. The second part of the question is that there are two kinds of parentheses - those where he tells you what they mean and those which are just there.

So Zach went through Matt's metas and sorted out which ones had parentheses and which ones did not. He also separated the two kinds of parentheses but I have not gotten to them yet. I merged Zach's work with the data I had and concluded the following:

Matt has done 133 metas of which 18 had the dreaded parentheses and 115 did not have any parentheses

The average of the 18 metas with parentheses is the WSJ submissions were 68% correct
The average of the 115 metas without parentheses is the WSJ submissions were 73% correct.

More analysis to follow but there is good reason to dread the parentheses

LOL
Bob Stevens
Cruise Director
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Meg
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#447

Post by Meg »

I wonder, if Matt reads these comments, what he thinks about Muggles and our relationship with parentheses. Aren’t they like asterisks? Helpful pointers toward the meta? Isn't it the numbers inside the parentheses that are really the problem? Yeah, that’s the ticket! Blame it on the numbers!!
Check out and support http://CrosswordsForCancer.com.
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RPardoe
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#448

Post by RPardoe »

Bob cruise director wrote: Wed Jul 14, 2021 9:50 pm
The average of the 18 metas with parentheses is the WSJ submissions were 68% correct
The average of the 115 metas without parentheses is the WSJ submissions were 73% correct.
My conclusion: Parentheses = better odds for getting the MUG!
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mntlblok
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#449

Post by mntlblok »

Parenthetical numerals showing up around 4 today would be a near certainty, then? :-)
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mntlblok
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#450

Post by mntlblok »

mntlblok wrote: Thu Jul 15, 2021 2:32 pm Parenthetical numerals showing up around 4 today would be a near certainty, then? :-)
Never mind. :-)
P1h3r1e3d13
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Joined: Thu Jun 03, 2021 5:53 pm

#451

Post by P1h3r1e3d13 »

Joe Ross wrote: Tue Jul 13, 2021 11:26 am Not to mention B, Ba, C, *H, *I, N, O, P, Pr, Re, U, & *W!
Dang! You've pulled my chemist card. Nice spreadsheet.
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