"Dirty Pool" - May 27, 2022

[mheberlingx100]

For me, I saw the L and the U first. It took a little while to consider the H/S and the T/E together as opposed to individually. When I expanded my mind to that, HUSTLE came quickly. But I continued to look for further justification (in vain).

[MikeMillerwsj]

The contest answer is HUSTLE. Suggested by the central Down answer POCKETS (“There are six on the sides in pool”), the six black corner and center squares on the left and right sides of the grid can be replaced by letters to make new words reading across and down (like TUT and SURER becoming TUTU and USURER). Those six letters spell the contest answer.

One solver accompanied his entry this week with a guess: "I predict a low response this week." He got the entry right but the guess wrong--we had 1306 submissions, with an above-average 90% correct. A handful of repeat incorrect entries including HECKLE (close, 6), GREENS (4), CLEANS (3), SLUDGE (2) and a few others.

Congrats to this week's winner: Tim Walsh of Pottstown, Penn.!

[DBMiller]

Not sure this will work, but I'll try...

An example of a partial massé shot is attached. I don't do full massé shots as they run a risk of damaging the cloth. It takes a lot of practice to do a full massé and I'm not willing to do that on my table.

The shot is usually used to get around another ball which for whatever reasons, you need to directly hit your object ball without hitting another ball.



You can find examples of people doing trick shots that often include full massés. A full massé shots causes the curve to be very severe, and can even cause the cue ball to reverse direction, as it the next video...



The key to the meta puzzle being that the cue ball moves in more than one direction (Not straight), and the letters of HUSTLE that go in the pockets created valid words also in more than one direction.

[boharr]

Thank you!

[C=64]

So I'm expecting 6^4 = 1296 submissions this week.

we had 1306 submissions

< 1% error, not bad.