Capsule History

Dr. Fill, Matt Ginsberg's crossword-solving program, was the talk of the tournament. It was the subject of a front-page article in the New York Times. On Saturday night Matt gave a demonstration of Dr. Fill's performance on Puzzles #1-#6. Everyone who outscored Dr. Fill on Puzzles #1-#7 won an "I Beat Dr. Fill" button. In the end Dr. Fill was slammed by Puzzles #2 and #5, but still finished impressively in 141st place. Other highlights of the weekend were the 1st World Palindrome Championship (won by Mark Saltveit) and a PuzzleNation team puzzle-solving extravaganza by Eric Berlin and Jeffrey Harris. Liane Hansen, former host of NPR's "Weekend Edition Sunday," and composer/puzzlemaker Greg Pliska provided the playoff commentary.

Will Shortz

Capsule history of all previous years.

Pictures and Videos

• Don Christensen: Friday Night Judges Dinner | Friday Night | Saturday | Sunday Talent Show and Awards | Playoffs
• YouTube videos

Miscellaneous

• On Saturday night, we played "PuzzleNation" by Eric Berlin and Jeffrey Harris — a team puzzle-solving extravaganza: PUZZLES [pdf] | ANSWERS [pdf] | Website
• Welcome Letter from Will Shortz
• Letter from Mangesh Ghogre

Blogosphere

• Eric Berlin: The Puzzle Nation Hunt! | ACPT Finals
• Bananagrammer: Results on the Palindrome competition
• Jeff Hyson: I am just an ordinary citizen who relies on the Times crossword for stimulation
• Patrick Merrell: ACPT Vignettes 1 | ACPT Vignettes 2
• Dan Feyer: ACPT 2012: Wrapping It Up
• Deb Amlen [NYT]: A.C.P.T. 2012: And the Winner is ...
• Ben Zimmer's Word Routes: Preview | Saturday (by BEQ) | Wrap-up (by BEQ)

In the News

• Dr. desJardins competes in American Crossword Puzzle Tournament unsigned, MyUMBC [March 22, 2012]
• Man vs. Machine at the American Crossword Puzzle Tournament Marc Maximov, Independent Weekly [March 22, 2012]
• Man versus Machine: Crossword playing AI Dr. Fill falls in tournament Anthony John Agnello, Digital Trends [March 21, 2012]
• Crossword Lovers Battle in Brooklyn Cristabelle Tumola, The Brookyn Ink [March 20, 2012]
• Computers are still not the best at crossword puzzles George Wong, Ubergizmo [March 20, 2012]
• Computer Competes in Crossword Tournament Alex Armstrong , I Programmer [March 19, 2012]
• Humans best crossword-puzzling computer Timothy Prickett Morgan, The Register (High Performance Computing) [March 19, 2012]
• The Marriott at Brooklyn Bridge Was the Geekiest Geek Hotel This Weekend  , Hotel Chatter [March 19, 2012]
• Dr. Fill coverage on BBC Radio Tara Gadomski, BBC World Today [March 19, 2012]
• Computer program places 141st in national tournament Raven Lovecraft, TG Daily [March 19, 2012]
• In Crosswords, It’s Man Over Machine, for Now Steve Lohr, The New York Times [March 18, 2012]
• Annual Crossword Puzzle Tournament Underway In Brooklyn NY1 News, NY1.com [March 18, 2012]
• The Computer’s Next Conquest: Crosswords Steve Lohr, The New York Times [March 17, 2012]
• “It’s a beautiful day for a crossword puzzle tournament” in New York Yuan-Kwan Chan, Meniscus Magazine [March 17, 2012]
• Computer Contestant Invades Crossword Tourney Jennifer Metz, ABC News [March 16, 2012]
• Portland's Mark Saltveit to battle for title of world's best palindromist Kelly House, The Oregonian [March 14, 2012]
• Local Crossword Champ: "I Have the Speed to Be in the Top Ten" - Prospect Heights, NY Patch Peter Saalfield and Joanna Prisco, Prospect Heights Patch [March 12, 2012]
• Rise of the crossword robots Ben Zimmer, The Boston Globe [March 11, 2012]
• Congress Street Crossword Champ: "I Aim To Stay in Top 20" Joanna Prisco, Carroll Gardens, NY Patch [March 9, 2012]
• Dr. Fill, Crossword Solving Software to Compete with Human Solvers shuchi, Crossword Unclued [March 8, 2012]
• Artificial intelligence: A match for angry words G.F., The Economist [March 3, 2012]
• It's Almost Crossword Tournament Time in Brooklyn unsigned, Brooklyn Daily Eagle [February 29, 2012]
• Crossword artist Will Shortz shares his love of words Allison Shultes, The Phoenix [February 16, 2012]
• Crossword contest new challenge for computer James Temple, San Francisco Chronicle [February 15, 2012]
• Q&A: Will Shortz, crossword editor and puzzlemaster Molly Petrilla, SmartPlanet [February 10, 2012]
• Author Rosenfelt as Witty as His Novel’s Characters Vic Fleming, Memphis Daily News [February 1, 2012]
• The Shortz Factor Matt Gaffney, Slate [January 27, 2012]

Solving Perfection

The following 37 contestants solved all 7 puzzles with no mistakes.

Erik Agard, Benjamin Aisen, John Beck, Jonathan Berman, Peter Braxton, Catherine Cevoli, Kathie Conarck, Vicki Eastus, Steve Feldberg, Adam Gale, Amy Goldstein, Peter Gordon, Peter Gwinn, Rolf Hamburger, Randy Harris, Francis Heaney, Tyler Hinman, Doug Hoylman, Stephen Kawalek, Louis Lana, Phoebe McBee, Laetitia Morgan, David Plotkin, Arnold Reich, John Reid, Ellen Ripstein, Al Sanders, Andrew Silikovitz, Jeff Stacey, Ken Stern, Andrew Sullivan, Guy Tabachnick, Melissa Tsai, Lawrence Wasser, Thomas Weisswange, John Wilson, Stella Zawistowski.

Officials — 2012