Schedule and Format
Schedule and Format
Westwords will consist of seven crossword puzzles of varying sizes, formats and difficulty levels. All competitors will solve the same puzzles with the exception of Puzzle 7, which will be available in two difficulty levels—Mountain 🗻 (hard) and Beach 🏖️ (less hard). There will be no championship playoff. The in-person competitors with the top three cumulative scores in both divisions will win prizes!
Planned Schedule (all times Pacific) (exact timings subject to change):
10:00 a.m. Registration opens
In-person solvers: please make sure you arrive as close to 10:00 as possible to ensure that we can start on time!
11:00 a.m. Opening Remarks
11:15 a.m. Puzzles 1, 2, and 3
12:55 p.m. Break (60 minutes)
For a map of the surrounding area with walkable cafes and restaurants, visit the Travel Information page.
1:55 p.m. Puzzles, 4, 5, and 6
3:45 p.m. Puzzle 7
This puzzle will be available in two difficulty levels: Mountain 🗻 (hard) and Beach 🏖️ (not as hard)
4:35 p.m. Closing Remarks and Announcement of Winners
Twitch Stream:
John Lieb will host a Twitch stream for online solvers. Puzzles will be made available to in-person and online participants simultaneously.
Each puzzle is scored on a combination of speed and accuracy. Westwords uses the same scoring systems as Boswords, to wit:
In-person solving:
The timer for all in-person solvers starts the moment that a tournament director says to begin.
10 points for each correct entry in the puzzle (e.g., 780 points for a correct solution to a 78-answer puzzle)
25 points for each full minute under the puzzle’s time limit (e.g., for a 20-minute puzzle, a solution handed in with 12:05 left on the clock would be considered twelve full minutes under the limit and get 300 extra points)
150 bonus points for a completely correct solution
Online solving:
The timer for each online solver will not start until the solver actually clicks the link to the puzzle on the Puzzle Page. So if you click the link at 1:21 PM, your time will start from there (and end when you hit “SUBMIT”).
10 points for each correct entry in the puzzle (e.g., 780 points for a correct solution to a 78-answer puzzle)
180-point bonus for a completely correct puzzle
1 point per second under the time limit for the puzzle
1 point subtracted from your score for every four seconds that you go over the time limit
Note that to receive the time bonus, you must correctly fill in at least half the words in a given puzzle. You will not get the time bonus if you submit a blank or barely filled in puzzle shortly after you begin the puzzle.
A Note about PuzzleMe:
Online solvers will be using the PuzzleMe solving interface from Amuse Labs, embedded on the puzzle pages. Solvers must solve the puzzles on a desktop, laptop, or tablet. The puzzles will not work correctly on a phone. If a puzzle has a rebus-based theme, you can click "Rebus" within the solving interface to enter multiple letters in a square.
Ad blockers such as “Privacy Badger” that may be running on your browser can often prevent you from accessing our puzzles. So if you are running such software and run into problems, try disabling it in order to access the puzzles.