How to Solve Beginner Crosswords

Here’s a not-so-well-kept secret for you: anyone can solve the New York Times crossword puzzle.

If you’re already rolling your eyes, believe us: Jackie Frere, Community Engagement Manager, and Isaac Aronow, Associate Editor of Gameplay. Jackie was someone who tried the Monday crossword once, failed, was embarrassed and gave up completely. Isaac has been problem-solving for a while but fell out of practice early in the pandemic. We challenged ourselves to see if we could start fresh within a few weeks and solve a New York Times crossword on Saturday. Spoiler alert: we did it.

In case you didn’t know, The New York Times Daily Crossword has a difficulty curve throughout the week. Monday is the easiest puzzle, and then Tuesday is a little harder, climbing up to Saturday, the hardest day of the week. Sunday riddles are sometimes called the hardest riddles of the week, but much of that difficulty comes from the larger size of the Sunday riddles and not from the clues, the answers, or the topics.

The mini doesn’t have a difficulty curve like the daily crossword. So how difficult it is depends on the individual puzzle you solve rather than the day of the week it runs. Minis rarely contain advanced solution elements such as a rebus (more on that later), but often contain intermediate solution elements common to midweek puzzles. If you’re familiar with solving minis, we recommend doing daily crosswords through Wednesday.

It takes time, practice and a little help from the game team, but you too can solve a Monday puzzle and eventually a Saturday crossword. Let us show you how.

Start with the mini

If you haven’t heard of the Mini, it’s a daily five-by-five crossword created by Joel Fagliano, a senior puzzle editor. It’s free, contains pop culture hints, and can most likely be solved in minutes — or seconds, the more you play.

Dip your toe in the crossword water by solving the mini each day. You’ll get a feel for how the tools work in the app or on the web, and you’ll start to gain confidence in your solving abilities.

Let’s solve the mini from 08.02.2022 together:

When you’ve got the hang of completing the mini for about a week, it’s time to try a Monday puzzle.

Immerse yourself in everyday life

Opening the daily crossword can be daunting, especially if it’s your first time solving it. No fear! Contrary to popular belief, the crossword puzzle is not a competition on how much trivia you know. Yes, random facts and knowledge will come in handy as you complete the crossword, but believe in yourself.

When attacking the grid head-on, take a few tries to figure out your approach style. Jackie likes to go around the grid and fill in what she knows. Then she will keep going through and see if her memory was stimulated by any filled-in letters or if an answer “just came to her” the second or third time. Isaac likes to start with simpler types of clues, like fill in the blanks or abbreviations.

Rachel Fabi, a Wordplay columnist, takes a different approach. “I start each puzzle the same way: I start in the Northwest and work my way through,” she said. “So it’s going to go back and forth between crosses and downs in the corner and then build on what you have until you have the whole thing.”

Did you get as far as you can? Try to use automatic verification to make sure your answers are correct. Do you need to customize something? Continue. If you’re still stuck, check out Wordplay, your new best friend. Wordplay is a daily column written by game editors that explains tricky clues, answers, and more about the New York Times crossword puzzle. That one If the word Rachel, Deb Amlen or Caitlin Lovinger supplies, there may be the key you need to unravel the rest of your puzzle. And they’re great at explaining what certain crosswords are asking you to do, or how they might trick you.

Now that you have some tools in your pocket, let’s solve the Monday of March 21, 2022 together:

Take some time to get acquainted with solving the Monday puzzles and don’t be afraid to use the tools mentioned above. “The more you solve, the better you get and the faster you are at these things – but just trust yourself; you will get further than you think,” said Sam Ezersky, a digital puzzles editor. “And if you keep coming back to those Monday riddles, you’ll keep making progress.”

For additional homework, read Deb’s guide How to Solve the New York Times Crossword Puzzle. It’s packed with tips, tricks, and definitions of crossword lingo. We didn’t say it was going to be easy!

Here are five montages Wordplay columnist Rachel Fabi recommends:

August 2, 2021

August 30, 2021

September 20, 2021

November 29, 2021

February 7, 2022

So you are ready for Tuesday

Honestly, not on Tuesdays the much heavier than Monday. An important lesson to learn is to make your solving experience your own. Some hardcore puzzlers might consider using Autocheck or Google cheating, but at the end of the day you should solve the puzzle in whatever way is most convenient for you. Google a word or answer if you don’t know it. You might learn something new and use that information in a future puzzle.

The beauty of a crossword puzzle is that you won’t know all the answers. That’s the fun part! It’s an educational game. But you will be surprised how much you know. And if you get stuck, don’t be afraid to take a break. “You have to put it down and come back to it,” Sam said. “I’ll boldly say that every time you put this thing down and come back to it an hour later, you’re going to absolutely see something you haven’t seen before.”

Another tip that will help you solve a puzzle is to know a few things about clues. First, clues and their answers must always match. A plural clue has a plural answer, a clue in another language has an answer in the same language, the parts of speech are always the same, and the tenses match. Also, clues with initials or abbreviations always have initialized or abbreviated answers, so the answer to “J. Los Former Partner” will be AROD and not ALEX RODRIGUEZ, but there is an exception for abbreviations used for brevity – for example US, VIP or MLB.

And by now you may have noticed that Monday and Tuesday always have a theme. It’s possible to solve the Daily without figuring out the topic, but Rachel suggests always identifying the topic whenever possible. “It’s so much more satisfying when you find out early and then predict what’s coming,” she said. The topic can give you an extra hint if you haven’t figured out other long answers in the grid.

We will go into more detail on the concept of themed and themed puzzles in part 2. However, try solving Tuesdays first until you feel ready for another challenge.

Here are five Tuesdays that Sam Ezersky recommends:

June 8, 2021

July 20, 2021

August 24, 2021

September 28, 2021

December 7, 2021