Spell It Out

This article is reprinted from The American Prospect.

The tournament hasn't even started, and already I've made a mistake. I'm one of 25 judges who've fanned out across the hotel ballroom, placing copies of Puzzle #1 in front of all 467 tournament entrants. But I'm the only one of the 25 placing the puzzles face-up, instead of face-down, as tournament rules dictate.

It doesn't last long. "Face-down!" a small chorus of 60-something entrants scolds me. "Face-down!"

It's an inauspicious start to my first year officiating at the 2005 American Crossword Puzzle Tournament, held every March in Stamford, Conn. I'd competed in years past and seen the judges in action, but I didn't quite know how it would feel on the other side of the tournament fence.

This first round, it feels nerve-racking. The petty sense of importance I feel wearing my judge's nametag isn't enough to calm my jitters. And being chastised by contestants for handing out the puzzles wrong doesn't help.

Tournament director Will Shortz, who is also crossword editor at The New York Times, takes the mike and briefly explains the rules: no talking; no reference tools of any kind allowed; turn off your cell phones before each round. Puzzles will be scored, he explains, on both accuracy and speed. All participants will solve seven puzzles over the weekend, and the three top finishers will play a final round for the championship. There's a huge digital clock on the side of the ballroom; it reads 15:00, the time allotted for Puzzle #1. Finally Shortz announces, "On your marks, get set, go!" The clock starts counting down, and the tournament has begun.

My next duty as a judge is to spot contestants who've finished their puzzle (a raised hand is the signal, sometimes accompanied by impatient snapping); dart over to collect their puzzle; and mark down the number of minutes left on the clock. I stake out a position in the far right corner of the room, a nice little circumscribed area where I can keep my entire section in view at all times – unlike the judges in the center of the room, whose territories span 360 degrees.

A few tense minutes elapse; then, far across the room from me, a hand goes up. It's Trip Payne, a three-time champion here, and no one's surprised to see him finish Puzzle #1 first. A judge scurries over to him, takes his paper, and notes the time left: 12 minutes. It's taken Payne under three minutes to finish the first round.

My corner strategy works. The outer edges of the ballroom are easier to patrol than the narrow, chair-clogged aisles between tables. As a couple of minutes pass in silence, with no raised hands in my vicinity, my mind starts to wander. But the main thing keeping me focused is fear of shame. I see a judge in the center of the room let his attention slip for a moment and fail to notice a raised hand just a few feet away. His punishment is silent and immediate: a half-dozen judges around the room jab the air with their hands to get his attention, pointing at the ignored contestant, who's now waving her solved puzzle in frustration. Castigated, the judge hurries over to her and retrieves the puzzle. That'll never happen to me, I promise myself.

The Judges' Room is a nondescript little hideaway on the second floor, tucked back behind a small maze of mirrors and hallways and doors. I get lost the first couple of times I go there. Just four round tables fit inside, but it's in this small space that tournament fates are decided. After judges working the floor collect the puzzles in the tournament hall, they're rushed up here, where judges on scoring duty mark them for accuracy. We slash red, green, and orange pens across each incorrect letter; the final tally is posted in the upper right-hand corner of the puzzle; and each participant's score for the round is entered into a computer.