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

[Jeremy Smith]

Beamed! Tough grid--tough meta. Perhaps an early week 5?

[benchen71]

Haven’t started this one yet, but benchen’s forum sig reminds me.. I’m pretty lonely on the crosshare results for his new meta pack. Maybe give yourself a present this weekend? (I’m not getting any remuneration for this, but I can be paid in crosswords. Ahem.)

I’m about halfway through the pack. Fun! Doing them on paper. Should I be entering meta answers on Crosshare??

You don't have to, but if you do you get to read the comments. I've usually made an opening comment, which may include something about the origin of the puzzle. And then of course there will hopefully be comments from successful solvers, too!

[SJMcK]

Beamed. Waiting for the leaderboard update but super-confident in my answer. Needed the hint. Without it, I was scrabbling at several potential starting points but not deep enough to figure out which one was right. Even with the hint, it was tough to see what I needed to do. Tricky one for sure.

(I really wish the leaderboard were updated more frequently. It’s been hours)

(#52)

[MikeyG]

The first hint was a good one. With it I've made a lot of progress, but haven't solved yet.

We're almost twins! I also haven't solved yet, but have made no progress.

[Katiedid]

The first hint was a good one. With it I've made a lot of progress, but haven't solved yet.

We're almost twins! I also haven't solved yet, but have made no progress.

Well, at this point I can't say if the progress is real or not

[markhr]

Thanks to the hint, I have all but the final piece. I have a possible answer, but it doesn't really click.
Maybe I'll sit on this until Christmas Day. Quite the week 4 here.

[SamKat9]

Awaiting the beam. Not a solo solve but it allowed me to see how elegant the meta is. Even with the hint, I was stumped...Thanks to those who pointed me in the right direction. Merry Christmas!

[AaronT]

Solved yesterday with a small group, submitted this morning for my Christmas badge.

Incredible work!

[woozy]

Well, doesn't look like I'll be getting a Christmas Badge

EDIT: bit too amorphous for overly literal me. I mean I did know exactly what I had to do and it still took over 27 hours....

[MikeyG]

Beamed up at right angle (#90) after about 16 hours of work, about 7 of each on Saturday and Sunday with 2 more today (at least 12 hours were staring aimlessly at a grid; such is meta life). Solo other than the two hints, which seemed too nebulous at first but did get me to narrow my thinking.

I am still in awe on how @schmidzy did this in 90 minutes. Even with "Three-on-Three Matchup" and Nediger's brilliant "My Cup Runneth Over," I would vote this one of the toughest MGWCC metas I've seen since August '20, when I started this endeavor.

My top ten, in no particular order (see if any of the titles ring bells!); correct in parentheses.

Admixture (157)
CIRCLE Dances (149)
Corner the Market (???)
Couples Only (155)
Easy as A-B-C (133)
Fifth-Fifth Friday (127)
Leading by Example (133)
My Cup Runneth Over (155)
Three-on-Three Matchup (115)
Word for Word (147 - also what I was doing last Christmas!)

One litmus test is how much of the grid is stored in my brain; I just opened the blank grid and, without any clues, could complete it verbatim. I'll be seeing it in my sleep, no doubt!

Best of luck to those still in pursuit! I'm still recovering, haha. (Eggnog helps.)

[HoldThatThought]

Speaking of "I Think We're A Loan" now, I've always felt that the singers of "Papa Was A Rolling Stone" demonstrated a remarkably restrained contempt for a self-absorbed, cheating, unemployed, lazy, hat laying alcoholic thief of a father, who, when he died, all he left them was a loan.

[mattythewsjpuzzler]

Awaiting beam but 99.99 percenter.

[BarbaraK]

Last night, I was starting to think I'd spent enough time staring at this and should just go ahead and submit my first guess so I could let it go. Shortly after that, I realized something that got me on the right track. And I'm so glad I didn't submit the guess, because it turned out to be right. And according to the rule (which is totally made up by me, for me:) if I submit a correct guess, I'm then obligated to actually figure out the reason it's right, so I'd have had to spend more time on it anyway.

If that's the week 4, don't even want to think about what week 5 will bring.

Congrats to @schmidzy and the other super speedy solvers.

[MMe]

He'll probably follow up with a week 4 or less, no?

This was an awesome puzzle, one that threaded the week 4 or 5 needle of being difficult and never a guaranteed solve, but with a reasonable chance of yielding to stubborn effort -- for experienced solvers, anyway.

BTW, submissions are now closed on the website, but I'm sure Matt means for the deadline to be 12pm Eastern tomorrow, and will accept email submissions or requests to re-open the form.

[ReB]

After substantial help from Benchen (who was celebrating Boxing Day), I managed to eke* out a partial solution. With midnight approaching for my last chance for a Holly Jolly badge until 2026, I threw a Hail Mary and completed it for a touchdown. Definitely near the bottom of my meta enjoyment scale,though.

*One of those favorite crossword grid entries

[Andrew Bradburn]

Got it with a nudging from ajk, had to send it to Matt's email address.

[ricky]

Got it last night with a nudge. I had been tapdancing in the very general vicinity for 2 days. Hard.

[Katiedid]

Well, it was nice having a 50 badge for a while. My streak will reset to 0. I felt like I saw a step or two, but I can't get to the answer even with all 3 hints. What with Christmas, sick (adult) kids and an active healthy 14 month-old grandson, I've been busy!

[gpj73]

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!

[Beth Tyrpin]

gpj73. Yes, I submitted to the same email and did not appear on the latest update.