Crossword SNITCH

A quantitative guide to the degree of difficulty of the Times Cryptic Crossword
We see that you have been redirected to our site from the original heroku site. That site will be removed soon, so please update your bookmarks to use the https://times.xwdsnitch.link address.

Times Cryptic Crossword 27802

Date 22 October 2020
Number 27802
Day of week Thursday
NITCH 92
Count of ref solvers 60
Ref solvers excluded with errors 12
Link to crossword View Crossword*
Times for the Times Link 27802

* Requires access to the Times Crossword Club

Detailed solving results

Reference, Tracked and Blog solvers with error-free solutions to this puzzle are shown below.

We also show the solver's Personal NITCH, which is their result on this puzzle compared to their average time, and the Wavelength Index of Times Cryptic Hardness, the WITCH, which is the Personal NITCH compared to the SNITCH.

Name TfTT Name Average time This time Personal NITCH WITCH
Nigel1953 03:42 04:10 112 121
edwards.robert1 04:29 04:28 99 107
mohn mohn2 05:26 04:35 84 91
Diskus 06:23 07:11 112 121
Jason 06:27 04:28 69 75
verlaine Verlaine 06:51 05:25 79 85
Nathan Panning 07:14 07:39 105 114
mistigris 07:23 05:54 79 85
aphis99 aphis99 08:00 08:47 109 118
hilarym 08:08 08:55 109 118
Paul Gilbert 08:29 11:10 131 142
asaldanha 08:49 13:03 148 160
Midas 09:12 07:41 83 90
boulemiche 09:29 09:23 98 106
AlanS 09:38 08:31 88 95
chindit 10:01 09:56 99 107
scrabbler 10:03 10:05 100 108
chriswords 10:18 08:52 86 93
philjordan1147 BUSMAN 11:12 09:12 82 89
glheard glh 11:17 12:46 113 122
jimpen 11:22 11:15 98 106
lickert 11:27 10:07 88 95
robertL 11:39 08:41 74 80
Topical Tim Topical Tim 11:43 13:29 115 125
p.wild 12:33 11:30 91 98
neilr neilr 12:37 11:39 92 100
John Walsh 12:53 11:17 87 94
keriothe_ keriothe 12:55 12:00 92 100
Sheapey Sheapey 13:00 12:18 94 102
HenryBW 13:18 10:22 77 83
Ben Staveley 13:30 13:36 100 108
xyster 13:32 15:24 113 122
Stavros Stavrolex 13:34 10:40 78 84
Silva 13:36 15:18 112 121
fshephe 13:52 13:03 94 102
Tibthorpe 14:10 13:17 93 101
MikeOsborne mikeosborne 14:17 15:56 111 120
Sue Sweeper 14:29 16:28 113 122
jamesah 14:29 15:20 105 114
qieduan 14:36 14:21 98 106
Malcj malcj 14:58 17:57 119 129
cyrillic 15:07 13:17 87 94
doublecross anguswalker 15:07 11:14 74 80
tilbee 15:17 12:13 79 85
grape 15:17 14:46 96 104
njnclarke 15:19 12:55 84 91
Penfold_61 Penfold 15:19 13:30 88 95
Aloysius 15:27 15:51 102 110
March (JeffCollins) mch1 15:32 11:59 77 83
David Crooks dcrooks 15:46 11:02 69 75
tunflog 15:56 14:41 92 100
mikegrocott 16:04 16:39 103 111
phthisis 16:06 12:26 77 83
tapbarker 16:45 25:18 151 164
MK76 16:57 15:10 89 96
fishernick79 16:57 18:35 109 118
johninterred Johninterred 17:26 17:03 97 105
GMcD 17:26 20:00 114 123
robinh 17:48 19:37 110 119
Pavel Tudor 17:50 13:17 74 80
OliviaRhineb oliviarhinebeck 17:57 16:24 91 98
Dzhigit dzhigit71 18:05 22:34 124 134
LouWeed LouWeed 18:12 20:01 109 118
JezWoolfrey 18:29 16:31 89 96
Craven 18:35 17:31 94 102
RobR RobR 18:47 13:41 72 78
annelambirth 18:49 20:14 107 116
John Arnold 19:05 29:48 156 169
Hamish.S 19:13 20:46 108 117
pterodactyl 19:19 20:23 105 114
Pootle Pootle 19:36 28:24 144 156
Zabadak (zabadak2) 19:46 24:55 126 136
Terrier 20:00 14:05 70 76
benedick 20:07 13:29 67 72
barracuda barracuda 20:17 25:54 127 138
colin2355 20:51 24:08 115 125
mcjwright 20:55 19:34 93 101
Zander 21:14 21:23 100 108
Solver52 21:48 22:11 101 109
sampson 22:23 22:03 98 106
gbestanley 22:25 22:04 98 106
Jagsfan1971 23:24 22:21 95 103
Semillon 23:43 20:13 85 92
goblin 23:45 16:53 71 77
alwsn8 23:47 25:09 105 114
KET 24:06 23:24 97 105
alexh 24:18 26:17 108 117
fudgiebates 24:32 20:39 84 91
James P Special_bitter 24:34 17:05 69 75
crosswordian 24:44 21:59 88 95
Waterloo 24:53 20:24 81 88
dec 25:24 25:22 99 107
rjcassidy rjcassidy 25:57 20:16 78 84
GeorgeTz 26:06 20:25 78 84
Corymbia Corymbia 26:17 34:05 129 140
joekobi 26:39 20:52 78 84
annbrew 26:50 19:24 72 78
pph22 27:08 19:45 72 78
Manveru 27:11 34:48 128 139
eniamretrauq eniamretrauq 27:30 23:53 86 93
Mkgnao Mkgnao 28:01 25:57 92 100
Tudds 29:21 36:57 125 135
john.brassey 30:51 26:54 87 94
koro kororareka 31:17 29:22 93 101
boltonwanderer 31:57 29:00 90 97
ulaca ulaca 32:23 40:10 124 134
Glyndwr 32:23 44:36 137 148
SwissWavey 32:44 19:12 58 63
FelicityTT 32:55 25:26 77 83
Crippens1 34:17 35:25 103 111
Mike Harper Mike Harper 36:54 37:29 101 109
dosbarth 38:33 33:45 87 94
maryht 39:11 30:23 77 83
empty 39:29 44:42 113 122
starstruck starstruck_au 40:02 38:12 95 103
vissa 41:59 28:27 67 72
MartinP MartinP1 45:30 49:51 109 118
paulmcl paulmcl 47:05 25:57 55 59
FrameShift 47:30 26:02 54 58
kjbr 49:43 85:37 172 186

A guide to the solver status

Legend
 Reference solver used for SNITCH
 Other Reference solver
 Tracked solver
 Blog solver

Blog Solvers

Blog Solvers are those who have allowed their times to be taken from the Times for the Times blog.

Notes for Blog Solvers:

  • the most reliable format for reporting times is with format "mm:ss" or as "x minutes" in the title or at the start of the entry
  • only the first main comment for each blogger is used; responses to other comments or a second comment is ignored
  • to report errors, include "n errors" just after the time
  • If you just have a time it is assumed you have no errors unless you mention DNF or pink squares or giving up, etc, in the text
  • Examples of good time notifications are "38:30, 0 errors" and "39 minutes, 0 errors" in the comment title or as the first part of your comment

Notes

The definition of Reference and Tracked solvers is described on the Neutrinos page.

The results for Reference solvers are normally used to calcuate the SNITCH. When this happens they are shown in the list with a solid blue line to the left. In the previous SNITCH results listing for each crossword, these were the only entries shown.

The most common causes for Reference solver results not to be used are: (a) that they did not meet the criteria this month to be used as a reference (e.g. they may not have completed enough puzzles on each day of the week) or (b) they have been pushed out of the top 100 on the leader board. In these cases, the results are now shown, but their data is not used for the SNITCH calculation.

Where there is data for Tracked solvers, I show them also in this table. The solving data is not always available, as the Crossword Club site only shows the top 100 solvers to everyone. Logged-in users get their own leaderboard position and those around them, but this is not available to everyone. So the SNITCH site only gets data for those who have made the top 100 in the leaderboard at some point during the day.

As a result there are a few geographically advantaged solvers; those of us who solve early in the day (e.g. we in the Antipodes, those in Asia and those staying up late in North America) are more likely to hit the leaderboard even with slower times. Solvers who are just as capable but solve later in the UK day might not make the top 100 and I have no way to capture their results.

You may wonder why there are Tracked solvers (in red) with low average solving times, mixed in with the Reference solvers (in blue). These are usually those that, while they don't seem to be Neutrinos, are not well aligned to the SNITCH. So I don't use them as Reference solvers in the SNITCH calculation, but still show their overall results.

You might also notice that there's some inconsistency at the tail end of the Reference solver list. My cutoff point is an average solving time of 45 minutes. But if someone around this mark is chosen as a Reference solver, their next month's results might end up being over 45 minutes and they will still be used. Alternatively, a Tracked solver might creep in under 45 minutes on the next calculation, but didn't make the cut for the prior Reference list. It's on the to-do list to see if I can make this a bit more predictable.

Stored SNITCH Values

Here are the SNITCH values (stored on the day) from the crossword.

Loading...
Loading...
Back