MGWCC #812 — “Corner the Market” by Nam Jin Yoon

[Joe]

It took a VERY firm nudge, without which I would never have solved. But I sent Matt what has to be the answer.

[HunterX]

I definitely needed a strong shove, though I did work through much of it. And the nudge was essentially the third hint. The answer is not only a 100%-er, but also exactly what I guessed from the start. No real possibility of backsolving this one though.

Submitted by email, but I'm not on the latest update. Oh well.

[Andrew Bradburn]

Anyone else missing from Matt’s latest update? We emailed our answer to the address on his website (crosswordcontest at gmail) yesterday and I’m certain we are correct … but we’re not on the board. Then again, only one person has been added in the last 18 hours or so. Just want to be sure we did it right!

Matt emailed me that there was a 'leaderboard issue', and everyone who had sent him the right answer before the deadline will get credit. Eventually. I was worried, as my name appeared in the Overall tab and not the This Week tab, leading me to believe my answer was wrong, but it wasn't. A bit of end-of-year glitching to add to Matt's workload.

[HoldThatThought]

Further to this, in Matt's comment to Joon's Crossword Fiend write-up, he acknowledged that many late arriving email entries are not yet showing on the leaderboard. He promises this will be addressed, soon as.

[MMe]

Incorrect WAG!

What was your guess?

[HoldThatThought]

My WAG is always " María Rosario Pilar Martínez Molina Baeza", and one day, I know it's going to be right!

[benchen71]

There was a lot more to this meta than I realised. I never saw STREET or AVENUE. And while I had the "cut" worked out, and saw what to do with one of the resulting clue parts, I didn't understand what to do with the other part, which was the part of the mechanism I had thought was a bit clunky. So, yes, it turns out this was a very impressive meta construction indeed!

[Joe Ross]

Incorrect WAG!

What was your guess?

I chose BAZAAR as my WAG over CARTEL & MONOPOLY. Had I thought of BODEGA, I might have chosen it.

[oggy]

I’m in awe of those who soloed it.

This was a really fun group solve too, though. One of us found AVENUE, another found STREET, a third figured out that they intersect, and all our brains exploded in unison.

And after all that I never even noticed that the STREET words all ran across, and the AVENUEs down. So many levels of brilliant.

[SamKat9]

When I first saw the puzzle, my first thought was BODEGA, but I was afraid to WAG and convinced myself it wouldn't be that simple. And it definitely wasn't simple or easy, and I needed help, but it was BODEGA in the end after all. I'm glad I didn't WAG though; I never would have understood the mechanism.

One of us found AVENUE, another found STREET, a third figured out that they intersect, and all our brains exploded in unison.

This was my favorite part of the puzzle.

[Laura M]

Feeling stupid... I actually had STREET and AVENUE, but stopped there without taking the logical step to get BODEGA. I resolve to be smarter next year, we'll see how that works :-)