Part 3: Practice Time (#litres_trial_promo)ġ4 Practice Clues by Type (#litres_trial_promo)ġ5 Practice Puzzles (#litres_trial_promo)ġ6 Leaving the Best Till Last (#litres_trial_promo)ġ7 Which Crosswords Next? (#litres_trial_promo) Part 2: Mastering the Finer Points (#litres_trial_promo)ĩ Finer Points: General (#litres_trial_promo)ġ0 Ten Especially Troublesome Words (#litres_trial_promo)ġ1 A Solving Sequence (#litres_trial_promo)ġ2 Ten Ways to Raise Your Game (#litres_trial_promo) Part 1: Crossword Basics (#ulink_ffb105d5-6c5f-581c-8c6f-9cf48a5bccea)Ģ Overview of Clues and Indicators (#uae4c733a-476e-5fec-af7a-3d9b8b0b4746)ģ Clue Types and Indicators in Detail (#uad6b2df8-933b-5385-9c6c-eb49490558be)Ĥ Tips for Solving Clues (#litres_trial_promo)ĥ Tips for Solving the Whole Puzzle (#litres_trial_promo)ħ Ten Things to Consider When Stuck (#litres_trial_promo) Previously published as ‘HOW TO MASTER THE TIMES CROSSWORD: The Times Cryptic Crossword Demystified’Ĭover (#u65395be3-f010-5767-98dc-655abc72bebc).In-depth and clear explanations of every clue and puzzle answer.Up-to-date sections on the latest help available online eg smartphone and tablet apps.A completely new demonstration of how one solver tackles a typical daily cryptic.of those all-important abbreviations you should know Many new hints and tips to help every solver.Contains 15 new practice puzzles from 15 different newspaper and magazine sources.
In this new, easy guide, he demonstrates that anyone who enjoys words and word play can learn to solve a cryptic crossword clue.With clear pictorially presented explanations for many clues, you too can revel in the deep satisfaction that comes from finishing cryptic crossword puzzles.Designed to apply to the solving of any cryptic crossword, this book develops and expands Tim’s first book, How to Master The Times Crossword, and is designed to guide the cryptic crossword beginner to an enriched solving experience.
Today it was that the town of ASTI is in western Italy.The Times How to Crack Cryptic CrosswordsĮxpert crossword solver and setter, Tim Moorey, seeks to dispel the myth that cryptic crosswords are the preserve of the elite. I frequently learn something from solving a crossword. My Clue of the Day, though is the amusing and well-constructed 5d: “Small amount of saline fluid otologist put in a cap (8)”. And the rather neat clue for PATISSERIES made me smile (is it an &lit? I think so).
I did rather enjoy “user-generated” as a clever anagram-fodder-plus-anagram-indicator. STELLA required a bit of list-scouring, as well, and it didn’t help that I couldn’t unsee “Sheila” from the crossing letters, that having been my first guess. The setter acknowledges in the comments on the original Fifteensquared blog that it is perhaps not his best. I suspect that if I had not been blogging I would have given up. I got this only after a fair bit of list-trawling and dictionary-delving. The exception was PEARLER, my last one in. The cluing was splendid – with one exception – and this was just the sort of puzzle that I like chewy, but enjoyable (what I think of, topically, as a treacle-toffee crossword). Given the grid, I was expecting a nina or some other gimmick, but to my surprise there is nothing hidden away anywhere. This all adds to the challenge of the puzzle. More than half of the entries do not have crossing initial letters, and more than half (just) of the squares in total do not cross with other entries. The grid is a bit of a Brompton, with only two squares linking the left and the right hemispheres, and within those, only two connecting the tops and the bottoms.
Several factors combine to make this a challenging crossword, artful cluing being but one of them. Difficulty rating (out of five): ????