MGWCC #734 - “Three-on-Three Matchup"

[Laura M]

Oh man, I thought the 12 3-space blank areas and (possibly) the 12 3-letter words were significant but I never figured out the right thing to do with them. Farewell, streak of 27 (?), it was a good run.

Most convoluted rabbit hole that almost looked promising: If you take all of the clues that contain exactly 3 "I"s (riffing off the Lil Wayne clue, which looked thematic), they correspond to exactly three across and three down grid entries that cross each other! And the crossing letters are S, B, N. Hmm. No grid entry contains all three of those letters, and there's no 3-word clue with those as the first letters. But wait! Adding the I makes it ISBN? And there are a lot of unnecessary numbers and dates in the clues? I knew I was seriously reaching by that point though :-)

(Also, I want my weekend back! I do try not to let metas eat up all my time these days, but I made an exception and it didn't pay off...)

Many kudos to Matt and those who solved!!

[Joe Ross]

Rabbit Hole & Near Miss (was 90% committed to submitting, Saturday):

• The fifteen-letter entry was ruled out by addendum.

• Using all letters from the twelve three-letter entries, the only twelve-letter entry that can be speeled is MENTAL ERRORS

[ky-mike]

I anagrammed the 3-letter words to "The One Entry in Column One that's Near a Trap" before I saw the elegance of the meta. Same result (if you think of golf).

[BrennerTJ]

[DrTom]

@Al Sisti

This was the "White Whale" meta that I couldn't get to work for last year's Zoom talk. Note AHAB and THAR in the grid...

You know I was wondering that! I remember you saying that there was one you were working on that you could "almost" make work. Well I sit here astonished, almost afraid to ever set pen to paper again knowing that essentially I would be trying to draw stick figures while Leonardo was doing a mural.

Matt:

Tom:

[DrTom]

Rabbit Hole & Near Miss (was 90% committed to submitting, Saturday):

• The fifteen-letter entry was ruled out by addendum.

• Using all letters from the twelve three-letter entries, the only twelve-letter entry that can be speeled is MENTAL ERRORS

That was to be my Hail Mary had I not been nudged further along.

I had the twelve words in the twelve slots but I did it; 1st three, next one, next two, etc. (i.e. incorrectly) and of course got some glimpses of what it MIGHT be. I could tell it was trying to make words but I could not see it until I finally was kicked in the butt by @HoldThatThought (who shall now be @HoldMyHand) and told to do it the simplest way possible. Simple is good!

[HunterX]

Rabbit Hole & Near Miss (was 90% committed to submitting, Saturday):

• The fifteen-letter entry was ruled out by addendum.

• Using all letters from the twelve three-letter entries, the only twelve-letter entry that can be speeled is MENTAL ERRORS

That was to be my Hail Mary had I not been nudged further along.

I had the twelve words in the twelve slots but I did it; 1st three, next one, next two, etc. (i.e. incorrectly) and of course got some glimpses of what it MIGHT be. I could tell it was trying to make words but I could not see it until I finally was kicked in the butt by @HoldThatThought (who shall now be @HoldMyHand) and told to do it the simplest way possible. Simple is good!

Ditto.

And ditto!

[HunterX]

One minute before the hour and I asked for beam up. Hope I materialize in one piece aboard the Enterprise....

And I never would have gotten it without help.

Edit: Beamed up at exactly 12:00 according to Matt's website. Phew!

Now there's your buzzer beater!

It wasn't intentional either! But it saves me the anxiety of waiting with the clock ticking to get that medal.

[Small Wave Dave]

479,001,600 ways of putting the 12 3-letter entries into the 12 strings of black squares.
If only Matt had extended the deadline a couple hours!

[boharr]

479,001,600 ways of putting the 12 3-letter entries into the 12 strings of black squares.
If only Matt had extended the deadline a couple hours!

I think I tried all these.

[MattGaffney]

479,001,600 ways of putting the 12 3-letter entries into the 12 strings of black squares.
If only Matt had extended the deadline a couple hours!

Is there one more logical than the way I did it?

[boharr]

479,001,600 ways of putting the 12 3-letter entries into the 12 strings of black squares.
If only Matt had extended the deadline a couple hours!

Is there one more logical than the way I did it?

Nope. But you expect us to be logical?

[Bird Lives]

734 complete.png

This seemed like a meta that cries out for gif animation. Even after picking up on the 3-letter entries and the 3-squares blanks, you still have to figure out which squares to move the entries to. I was hoping for something that would show them in motion and where necessary twisting from Across orientation to Down.

[Bird Lives]

Thus endeth my 50-badge, and I'm not all that sorry to see it go. I was feeling kind of ambivalent about it anyway.

[Joe Ross]

734 complete.png

This seemed like a meta that cries out for gif animation. Even after picking up on the 3-letter entries and the 3-squares blanks, you still have to figure out which squares to move the entries to. I was hoping for something that would show them in motion and where necessary twisting from Across orientation to Down.

The stated logic is solid & Tamara's reveal is clear.

A moving reveal isn't necessary & would take way too long to create. One might also induce seizures.

[MMe]

The stated logic is solid & Tamara's reveal is clear.

A moving reveal isn't necessary & would take way too long to create. One might also induce seizures.

Whew, also kind of worried that the TJBrenner reveals are on the verge of achieving sentience...

[oggy]

@Al Sisti

This was the "White Whale" meta that I couldn't get to work for last year's Zoom talk. Note AHAB and THAR in the grid...

I'd love to hear more about the construction of this one. The constraints you'd need to navigate to make this work blow my mind.

[LesY]

This has been covered over at Crossword Fiend, and the estimable DrTom alludes to it above, but I don’t see it mentioned here directly — they were placed using grid number order.

When I posted that I saw the elegance but still forced it - I meant I saw the grid structure and knew we needed to use the 12 three-letter words. But then I grokked the placement starting from a random ordering of the 12 three-letter words.

I was pretty proud of myself. I even crowed a little to Matt about it. Only later did I realize the true logic and elegance.

[TeamDoubleTow]

This was a perfect place for us to end our streak! Very impressive!

[hcbirker]

479,001,600 ways of putting the 12 3-letter entries into the 12 strings of black squares.
If only Matt had extended the deadline a couple hours!

Is there one more logical than the way I did it?

You did it the most logical way. We just over think it like most muggles do. It was brilliant!