Crossword SNITCH

A quantitative guide to the degree of difficulty of the Times Cryptic Crossword
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Times Cryptic Crossword 27993

Date 02 June 2021
Number 27993
Day of week Wednesday
NITCH 118
Count of ref solvers 65
Ref solvers excluded with errors 34
Link to crossword View Crossword*
Times for the Times Link 27993

* 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 03:43 04:26 119 100
Nathan Panning 06:18 04:46 75 63
Jason 06:24 06:04 94 79
verlaine Verlaine 06:47 08:34 126 106
mistigris 07:31 07:23 98 83
aphis99 aphis99 07:46 07:58 102 86
Paul Gilbert 08:25 06:34 78 66
Midas 08:52 09:31 107 90
asaldanha 08:59 08:07 90 76
philjordan1147 BUSMAN 10:03 11:02 109 92
scrabbler 10:03 10:26 103 87
Kinghedger 10:29 12:48 122 103
Topical Tim Topical Tim 11:19 16:00 141 119
SimonAnthony 12:22 17:01 137 116
Sheapey Sheapey 12:38 31:20 248 210
keriothe_ keriothe 12:42 18:57 149 126
Stavros Stavrolex 12:43 17:36 138 116
Tom Stubbs Tom Stubbs 12:44 18:31 145 122
p.wild 12:44 15:12 119 100
fshephe 12:53 15:17 118 100
MikeOsborne mikeosborne 12:57 20:29 158 133
Silva 13:14 11:42 88 74
jamesah 13:14 12:33 94 79
tilbee 13:31 15:29 114 96
Groucho 14:03 16:14 115 97
David Crooks dcrooks 14:17 20:02 140 118
Penfold_61 Penfold 14:17 16:51 117 99
qieduan 14:42 15:47 107 90
grape 14:55 18:44 125 105
tunflog 15:22 17:54 116 98
cyrillic 15:38 22:21 142 120
phthisis 15:39 20:15 129 109
pitcaithlie Pitcaithlie 15:40 20:16 129 109
Golvellius 15:42 18:57 120 101
johninterred Johninterred 15:55 14:04 88 74
JezWoolfrey 16:10 13:07 81 68
tapbarker 16:17 22:32 138 116
fuzz 17:01 19:27 114 96
CentralLine CentralLine 17:08 19:29 113 95
Dzhigit dzhigit71 17:13 28:33 165 139
Craven 17:26 20:47 119 100
annelambirth 17:27 17:16 98 83
Semillon 17:43 24:10 136 115
LouWeed LouWeed 17:50 22:33 126 106
peterh 17:53 21:40 121 102
OliviaRhineb oliviarhinebeck 18:01 19:44 109 92
robinh 18:06 28:51 159 134
ajcauk1 18:21 19:42 107 90
Hamish.S 18:39 20:24 109 92
Achernar 18:43 23:52 127 107
benedick 18:45 20:33 109 92
LuckOfLucien 20:01 24:41 123 104
colin2355 20:02 17:20 86 72
barracuda barracuda 20:09 25:03 124 105
kath 20:56 29:41 141 119
alwsn8 21:50 32:04 146 123
Kevin Gregg Kevin Gregg 22:00 24:27 111 94
annbrew 22:07 28:28 128 108
pc8 22:30 32:46 145 122
endafk 22:48 27:29 120 101
goblin 23:20 24:58 107 90
crosswordian 23:42 22:22 94 79
rjcassidy rjcassidy 23:59 26:23 110 93
Gussie 25:18 37:25 147 124
timbo 25:24 25:08 98 83
Corymbia Corymbia 25:28 30:23 119 100
MartianAlien 27:42 24:11 87 73
FelicityTT 29:11 50:18 172 145
npweston 29:57 37:40 125 105
JohnDun (johndun) john_dun 30:32 51:28 168 142
boltonwanderer 30:50 47:00 152 128
Cookincats 32:00 35:12 110 93
HanS 33:07 55:12 166 140
JoeyC 34:18 41:58 122 103
FrameShift 38:31 23:03 59 50
maryht 38:40 50:00 129 109
empty 38:43 51:54 134 113
MartinP MartinP1 43:23 53:39 123 104
marp 47:00 48:03 102 86
Shushannah 47:08 56:10 119 100
WordPlodder BletchleyReject 52:00 40:33 77 65

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.

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