"Group Outings" - September 18, 2020
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Finished grid on Thursday evening but was so distracted by other “stuff” going on (including attending an actual in person wedding!) that I only posted my meta answer a few minutes ago. Hope it’s right. I’ve been on a dry spell lately.
Good luck to all who submit.
Good luck to all who submit.
“I cannot and will not cut my conscience to fit this year’s fashions”. Lillian Hellman
- Kris Zacharias
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On shore with 28 minutes to spare. I finally learned to think in the terms required for this meta. Hats off to those who got the answer quickly.
- Jeremy Smith
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Onshore! These last minute solves are really getting old! This is a 100%-er.
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- Joe Ross
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Last edited by Joe Ross on Mon Sep 21, 2020 12:04 am, edited 1 time in total.
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𝗧𝗵𝗲 𝗻𝗲𝗲𝗱 𝗶𝘀 ENORMOUS 𝗳𝗼𝗿 𝗰𝗮𝗿𝗲:
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𝗳𝗼𝗿 𝗰𝗮𝗻𝗰𝗲𝗿 & 𝘁𝗿𝗮𝘂𝗺𝗮. 𝗣𝗟𝗘𝗔𝗦𝗘 𝗦𝗛𝗔𝗥𝗘!
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𝗧𝗵𝗲 𝗻𝗲𝗲𝗱 𝗶𝘀 ENORMOUS 𝗳𝗼𝗿 𝗰𝗮𝗿𝗲:
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𝗳𝗼𝗿 𝗰𝗮𝗻𝗰𝗲𝗿 & 𝘁𝗿𝗮𝘂𝗺𝗮. 𝗣𝗟𝗘𝗔𝗦𝗘 𝗦𝗛𝗔𝗥𝗘!
- TPS
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So, I said after last week’s puzzle “Where’s the Rest”/DOZE – I said I would definitely not use it to teach someone how to solve a meta puzzle. To be fair, I thought the puzzles Mike and Matt chose to go over in last week’s video weren’t great “teaching” puzzles either – elegant and amazingly creative – absolutely – but good for instruction – not so much.
I bring this up because I think this puzzle would be a good second step puzzle.
I would probably use “One False Note”/KT OLSIN as the first step in theme answer focused puzzles. (I’d use “Line of Work” /APP DEVELOPER, “Between Meals”/GRILLED HAM AND CHEESE, and/or “City Blocks”/MIAMI to teach gird hidden metas.)
After KT OLSIN – I think this puzzle or “At Odds”/BICKER is a good next step. Both of those puzzles involve 2-3 steps. First, you have to identify the theme clues. Then you have to use the title as a direction to do something – in this case it was to recognize that the title “Group Outings” translated to exclude a triplet of letters (3’s a crowd, right?) from the theme answers - while in BICKER it was recognizing that the title “At Odds” translated to excluding all the odd letters in the theme answers. Lastly, the final step in both cases involved recognizing what was left of the theme answers after excluding the letters were also Clues in the puzzle.
I think those are three very reasonable and somewhat simple steps. And like Matt mentioned in last week’s video each step validated itself so you knew you were going in the right direction. And there were no misdirects in this puzzle.
Personally, I consider these two types of puzzles: obvious theme answer driven puzzles and the meta hidden in the grid puzzles the easiest types of metas. I figure if you can successfully solve these two types you can solve 40-50% of puzzles. Hopefully, getting 50% of the puzzle correct keeps someone invested on continuing to do the puzzles as you continue to do them you will see new puzzle types and methods that hopefully allows them to develop additional tools that help them with the really killer puzzles.
I bring this up because I think this puzzle would be a good second step puzzle.
I would probably use “One False Note”/KT OLSIN as the first step in theme answer focused puzzles. (I’d use “Line of Work” /APP DEVELOPER, “Between Meals”/GRILLED HAM AND CHEESE, and/or “City Blocks”/MIAMI to teach gird hidden metas.)
After KT OLSIN – I think this puzzle or “At Odds”/BICKER is a good next step. Both of those puzzles involve 2-3 steps. First, you have to identify the theme clues. Then you have to use the title as a direction to do something – in this case it was to recognize that the title “Group Outings” translated to exclude a triplet of letters (3’s a crowd, right?) from the theme answers - while in BICKER it was recognizing that the title “At Odds” translated to excluding all the odd letters in the theme answers. Lastly, the final step in both cases involved recognizing what was left of the theme answers after excluding the letters were also Clues in the puzzle.
I think those are three very reasonable and somewhat simple steps. And like Matt mentioned in last week’s video each step validated itself so you knew you were going in the right direction. And there were no misdirects in this puzzle.
Personally, I consider these two types of puzzles: obvious theme answer driven puzzles and the meta hidden in the grid puzzles the easiest types of metas. I figure if you can successfully solve these two types you can solve 40-50% of puzzles. Hopefully, getting 50% of the puzzle correct keeps someone invested on continuing to do the puzzles as you continue to do them you will see new puzzle types and methods that hopefully allows them to develop additional tools that help them with the really killer puzzles.
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I was very puzzled by the comments about an easy way to solve the meta and a hard way.
This seems very straightforward with 3 steps to the solution and no room for alternate methods.
This seems very straightforward with 3 steps to the solution and no room for alternate methods.
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Initially I did not understand what some posters were referring to as the short and long way to get the answer, but then I realized that “trips” were what was removed from the theme answers. Very clever way to tie it all together! Have to first remove the trips to get back to the “trips” answer!
- TPS
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I know at least a few people stopped mid-solve because they got DARES - which while not the right answer was certainly a Hail Mary worthy answer and my guess is that because we do far far less of Patrick's puzzles people might have thought he had just constructed an easy but somewhat inelegant puzzle.
- Joe Ross
- Moderator
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I was very much into watching the US Open Championship (golf), this weekend, so was using my phone to solve the grid, then to analyze & highlight for the meta. Due to being distracted (& whatever other excuse you'll accept, except my utter stupidity), I knew the Theme Entries & that the triple-letters played, but the meta wasn't revealing itself to me.
Instead of HIGHLIGHTING the triple-letters in each Theme Entry, at one point on Saturday, I selected the incorrect drawing tool on the editing function on my phone (it was probably the screen capture software, but I also discovered that editing PDFs with Adobe Acrobat on phones is very easy to do, especially with a stylus). I selected the MARKER function, instead, and blotted out the three letters (black blobs in the screen capture, below, but originally a darker hue of each Theme Entries' highlights). As soon as I did this to the first Theme Entry (TOePIeCeS -> TOPICS), the scales fell from my eyes. An accidental but very fun A-HA! moment.
The edits, above, are rudimentary. Using a stylus & with practice, I've become much better at marking-up grids. I'll reveal more with this week's MGWCC.
Instead of HIGHLIGHTING the triple-letters in each Theme Entry, at one point on Saturday, I selected the incorrect drawing tool on the editing function on my phone (it was probably the screen capture software, but I also discovered that editing PDFs with Adobe Acrobat on phones is very easy to do, especially with a stylus). I selected the MARKER function, instead, and blotted out the three letters (black blobs in the screen capture, below, but originally a darker hue of each Theme Entries' highlights). As soon as I did this to the first Theme Entry (TOePIeCeS -> TOPICS), the scales fell from my eyes. An accidental but very fun A-HA! moment.
The edits, above, are rudimentary. Using a stylus & with practice, I've become much better at marking-up grids. I'll reveal more with this week's MGWCC.
Whole blood, platelets, or plasma: Donate 4 in 2024
PLATELET 𝗱𝗼𝗻𝗼𝗿𝘀 𝗮𝗿𝗲 𝗿𝗮𝗿𝗲.
𝗧𝗵𝗲 𝗻𝗲𝗲𝗱 𝗶𝘀 ENORMOUS 𝗳𝗼𝗿 𝗰𝗮𝗿𝗲:
𝟰𝟬% 𝗽𝗲𝗱𝗶𝗮𝘁𝗿𝗶𝗰,
𝟯𝟬% 𝗲𝗮𝗰𝗵, 𝘁𝗵𝗲 𝘁𝗮𝗰𝘁𝗶𝗰,
𝗳𝗼𝗿 𝗰𝗮𝗻𝗰𝗲𝗿 & 𝘁𝗿𝗮𝘂𝗺𝗮. 𝗣𝗟𝗘𝗔𝗦𝗘 𝗦𝗛𝗔𝗥𝗘!
PLATELET 𝗱𝗼𝗻𝗼𝗿𝘀 𝗮𝗿𝗲 𝗿𝗮𝗿𝗲.
𝗧𝗵𝗲 𝗻𝗲𝗲𝗱 𝗶𝘀 ENORMOUS 𝗳𝗼𝗿 𝗰𝗮𝗿𝗲:
𝟰𝟬% 𝗽𝗲𝗱𝗶𝗮𝘁𝗿𝗶𝗰,
𝟯𝟬% 𝗲𝗮𝗰𝗵, 𝘁𝗵𝗲 𝘁𝗮𝗰𝘁𝗶𝗰,
𝗳𝗼𝗿 𝗰𝗮𝗻𝗰𝗲𝗿 & 𝘁𝗿𝗮𝘂𝗺𝗮. 𝗣𝗟𝗘𝗔𝗦𝗘 𝗦𝗛𝗔𝗥𝗘!
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Sorry but I don't see the connection. The letters in TRIPS aren’t the “groups” that were removed.Jace54 wrote: ↑Mon Sep 21, 2020 12:12 am Initially I did not understand what some posters were referring to as the short and long way to get the answer, but then I realized that “trips” were what was removed from the theme answers. Very clever way to tie it all together! Have to first remove the trips to get back to the “trips” answer!
- FrankH
- Posts: 242
- Joined: Sat Apr 13, 2019 4:15 am
You have to anagram to get DARES (and anagram is extremely rare for the last step), but if you do that, there are other words you can anagram to, so that pretty much says DARES is not the right answer, not even for Hail Mary.TPS wrote: ↑Mon Sep 21, 2020 12:13 am
I know at least a few people stopped mid-solve because they got DARES - which while not the right answer was certainly a Hail Mary worthy answer and my guess is that because we do far far less of Patrick's puzzles people might have thought he had just constructed an easy but somewhat inelegant puzzle.
Last edited by FrankH on Mon Sep 21, 2020 12:23 am, edited 1 time in total.
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What were the Easy and Hard way to solve ?
- TPS
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TRIPS is also short for Triples. In poker you frequently call 3 of a kind - TRIPS. So you removed the Triple letters or you removed the TRIPS.JRS51 wrote: ↑Mon Sep 21, 2020 12:19 amSorry but I don't see the connection. The letters in TRIPS aren’t the “groups” that were removed.Jace54 wrote: ↑Mon Sep 21, 2020 12:12 am Initially I did not understand what some posters were referring to as the short and long way to get the answer, but then I realized that “trips” were what was removed from the theme answers. Very clever way to tie it all together! Have to first remove the trips to get back to the “trips” answer!
- TPS
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- Location: Florida
I didn't use DARES and told the people who did it was incorrect but if you don't think it was a reasonable Hail Mary - I'm not sure you fully understand what a Hail Mary is.
Last edited by TPS on Mon Sep 21, 2020 12:33 am, edited 2 times in total.
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“Trips” is shorthand for “triples”, which is three of a kind in poker. Each theme answer had three of the same letter, or trips, removed.JRS51 wrote: ↑Mon Sep 21, 2020 12:19 amSorry but I don't see the connection. The letters in TRIPS aren’t the “groups” that were removed.Jace54 wrote: ↑Mon Sep 21, 2020 12:12 am Initially I did not understand what some posters were referring to as the short and long way to get the answer, but then I realized that “trips” were what was removed from the theme answers. Very clever way to tie it all together! Have to first remove the trips to get back to the “trips” answer!
- FrankH
- Posts: 242
- Joined: Sat Apr 13, 2019 4:15 am
I have done Hail Mary, sometimes even with a lot less to go on. It's just that for this case you may want to pick some other 5-letter word out of thin air.
- sanmilton
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- Location: New York, New York
This is an example of how I can find the correct solution and then still be amazed by some additional cleverness on the part of the constructor. Another was with the WSJ+ special meta puzzle, "Variations on a Theme," last week. Until I watched Part II of "Across & Down," I didn't realize that the letters above the anagrammed METAs unscrambled in the same order! I just blithely unscrambled them as I went along to come up with the solution without regard to that further connection. Here, I didn't even think of the pun on TRIPS that Patrick had obviously thought of when he had us removing three letters of a kind in each theme entry, until I read your post, TPS. These guys truly are geniuses! Hats off, kudos, and huzzah!TPS wrote: ↑Mon Sep 21, 2020 12:23 amTRIPS is also short for Triples. In poker you frequently call 3 of a kind - TRIPS. So you removed the Triple letters or you removed the TRIPS.JRS51 wrote: ↑Mon Sep 21, 2020 12:19 amSorry but I don't see the connection. The letters in TRIPS aren’t the “groups” that were removed.Jace54 wrote: ↑Mon Sep 21, 2020 12:12 am Initially I did not understand what some posters were referring to as the short and long way to get the answer, but then I realized that “trips” were what was removed from the theme answers. Very clever way to tie it all together! Have to first remove the trips to get back to the “trips” answer!
Last edited by sanmilton on Tue Sep 22, 2020 12:06 am, edited 1 time in total.