Crossword tournament alert: The Westwords tournament in Berkeley, Calif., is coming up on June 23. Even if you’re not able to attend in person, you can compete in it virtually, or purchase the set of puzzles for solving at home after the tournament is over. Just head on over to that link above for more information.
You’ll notice something odd immediately upon opening the puzzle: Seven theme clues are represented by playing cards rather than words. How do we interpret that? You might start by trying to work out as many of the crossing answers as possible before one of the theme answers comes into view, but the real key to unlocking the theme is to simply state the value and suit of each card. Those represent the theme clues, and their answers are punny descriptions of the cards. In addition, each theme answer contains a circled letter.
- The nine of diamonds is at 23A and its answer is BASEBALL TEAM. A baseball team is made up of nine players on a baseball field, or a diamond. Technically the diamond is just the infield with the four bases, but there are nine batters in a batting order, and those players run on the diamond. Anyhow, there’s a circled A in this answer.
- The two of hearts is at 28A and its answer is VENTRICLES. The human heart has four chambers made up of two ventricles and two atria. The answer has a circled C.
- The king of clubs is at 50A and its answer is ARNOLD PALMER. Palmer wielded plenty of golf clubs during his life and he was nicknamed “The King,” so this seemed like an especially apt card to describe him. The answer has a circled E.
- The 10 of diamonds is at 63A, and its answer is MOHS NUMBER. This card is based on the Mohs scale of mineral hardness, and diamonds have a hardness value of 10. The answer has a circled H.
- The three of hearts is at 79A and its answer is MÉNAGE À TROIS. Three lovers in a sexual or romantic relationship means they have three romantic hearts for each other … and now I’m only just realizing that LOVE TRIANGLE could have fit this same card, too. I’ll come back to this. The answer has a circled I.
- The queen of clubs is at 94A and its answer is DRAG ARTIST. That would be a drag queen performing at nightclubs. This could have also applied to the king of clubs for drag kings, but ARNOLD PALMER has that job for now. The answer has a circled G.
- The ace of spades is at 103A, and its answer is HEAD GARDENER. A head gardener is an employee who manages a staff of gardeners, like on an estate or at a park. Presumably this would be an expert (or an ace) wielder of a spade used for digging up soil. The answer has a circled H.
So our seven cards are the nine of diamonds, the two of hearts, the king of clubs, the 10 of diamonds, the three of hearts, the queen of clubs and the ace of spades. There are also two other bonus theme answers. 22A: [Places where people hold hands] is CASINOS, but the more direct revealer is at 106A: [Seven-card stud player, e.g., who’s holding this puzzle’s cards (their best hand is spelled out in the circled squares)] which is GAMBLER. If you imagine this card player is playing seven-card stud poker, they weren’t exactly dealt the most powerful hand. But the circled letters spell out their best five-card hand from these cards: ACE-HIGH. The gambler didn’t have the luck to draw even one pair, so they’ll either have to bluff their way to winning this round or just fold their cards and try again on the next hand.
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I’ve had a few card-based theme ideas sitting in my notepad for a while, though I felt they would probably work better in a smaller puzzle. In most of these half-baked themes, the answers would be the playing cards themselves, and it’s just easier to avoid repeating one of the four suits in a 15×15 grid than in a 21×21 when you need more theme material. Back in August 2022 I used the answer SHORTSTOP in a themeless puzzle with the clue [6 of diamonds?] since a shortstop is represented numerically on the field by the number 6, but for some reason I didn’t pursue this idea for its own theme until now. Once I came up with a couple of different cards that could apply to other phrases, that’s when I got the idea to use the actual cards in the clues rather than words like [Nine of diamonds] or [King of clubs]. That may have given you an extra step to figuring out the theme, but I thought it gave the puzzle a neat visual effect, and the cards make it a bit easier to see what the gambler’s final poker hand was as well.
It was only after I had maybe five or six cards picked out that I started considering whether I could fit an extra meta answer into the puzzle as well. Thankfully, ACE-HIGH had fairly convenient letters to work with … so convenient that an apt alternate answer like LOVE TRIANGLE completely slipped my mind. That’s the same length as MÉNAGE À TROIS, it could have fit the [Three of hearts] description, and it could fit the meta with its helpful I. Oh well, it’s not the first time that I’ve missed a good theme answer and had some mild regret over it. Then again, how often am I gonna get the chance to use MÉNAGE À TROIS in a puzzle?
Last thing: Credit goes to Slate’s new crossword editor Quiara Vasquez, who suggested DRAG ARTIST as the [Queen of clubs]. My original thought for that card was going to be LPGA GOLFER where the [King of clubs] was going to be MALE STRIPPER, but I liked DRAG ARTIST more, and ARNOLD PALMER being nicknamed “The King” was too good to pass up for that card. You can solve Slate crosswords here, where Quiara constructs puzzles and edits others written by Chandi Deitmer, Hemant Mehta, Nancy Serrano-Wu, Sid Sivakumar and Ben Zimmer.
I hope you played your cards right this weekend. What did you think?
