Didn't love the theme and overall found this puzzle quite hard.
Nope. Thumbs down. Chance doesn’t equal chants.
That was a real pain in the ding-dong.
@Lorelski worth it to read this comment!
@Lorelski Thanks for the laugh!
Dreadful slog. Felt like much more of a slog than many deep-week NYT crosswords which have taken me much longer, probably because of some of the awkward cluing and the “doesn’t quite work” theme.
@Nat ironic today that you are from Omaha
I didn’t get the theme until reading the explanation after the solve. Like, I understood to remove “om” but my brain did not make the connection between chance and chants. Solid puzzle nevertheless.
@Logan Do they sound alike? Or similar? Not to me!
@Logan It crossed my mind that chance = chants = OM, but I didn't think it was actually the theme.
@Logan I still don't get it. Why does "inventory clearance option" mean "drop om"?
Not a fan of today's. Several clues just weren't quite right (not just the "chance" issue but als: saunas aren't baths, you could only guess at the fraternity letter clue, how does "joined" mean one exactly, the answer to "who knew" makes no sense, etc., etc. In fact, I disliked it so much that this is my first time commenting. I've done the crossword puzzle every day (most days anyway) for a few years now and have become quite adept, and out of all those hundreds of crosswords, this is the worst of the bunc by a fair margin.
@Kelsey it's a brilliant puzzle why have you waited all these years to say something? that's curious!
@Kelsey Like you I've been solving for a few years too, but I've done worse puzzles than this (but not many), remember the Robert Frost "poem" from a Thursday a couple of years ago? That one still ranks as my worst and it will take some effort to topple it
@Kelsey “joined” for “one” definitely works and is pretty straightforward, as in “two become one”
@cib came here to say the same! You might get in a bath before or after a sauna, but a sauna itself, not a bath
@cib The editors have repeatedly shown that they do not care about accuracy.
@cib You're right. SAUNAS are not baths. But they're great, whatever you call them.
@cib I raised an eyebrow at this one too, but it's correct. From the good folks at Merriam-Webster: <a href="https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/sauna" target="_blank">https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/sauna</a>
@cib I spent a lot of time trying to think of a city that was an anagram for "hammam" which is a steamy bath. Took me a minute to realise it was supposed to be "sauna" which is neither steamy, nor a bath.
Solved it, but could not figure the gimmick until coming here. In what location does "chance" sound like "chants"? Nowhere I know of.
@K, I can say from personal experience that it does in Missouri, Kansas, and Colorado.
@K You can add Iowa and Illinois to those lists.
@K Arkansas for sure. I think it does in my Londoner husband’s accent too; I’ll have to ask him later.
@K Judging by the Midwesterners (and Coloradan) who chimed in, the revealer here may be much more intelligible in places where the "t" in "chants" isn't strongly pronounced. Speaking as a New England native, I'd never pronounce "chance" and "chants" identically, and so while I found the puzzle easy enough to complete, I couldn't make sense of the revealer without reading Wordplay. I'm not saying that one pronunciation of "chants" is better or worse than another, but given how frustrating a number of folks obviously found this puzzle, I might observe that puns based to such an extent on regional-dialect differences aren't the best choices for revealers. It's one thing when people for whom English is not a native language find this sort of wordplay tricky; it's another when the difficulty of the revealer is seemingly predicated on which region of the United States you come from. I'd think it was just as ill-conceived if a puzzle privileged non-rhotic pronunciations like the ones my own home region finds normal, for what it's worth.
@K How do you pronounce those words?
@K.....They are "homophones" and explained in the dictionary. See for ourself.
+18:00mins slower than average. Unhelpful revealer (CHANCE = CHANTS = OM???); bad clues (“who knew?” = GEE; for some reason); and poor entries (SAAR, ADEPTS, etc). 4/10. An absolute slog.
Dissatisfying solve… too gimmicky… I hope there is NO CHANCE of having to do another one like this again…
I’m sorry, but this theme is really reaching and needlessly annoying. I rarely have fun with a veteran constructor’s puzzle.
Long time solver, long time reader. Rare commenter. Here’s the thing. There are real people who make these puzzles. The editors give them a juzz. And then they come to us. Real people, with real feelings, making cool stuff for fellow real people crossword lovers. Was the revealer my favorite in this puzzle? No. I don’t pronounce those words in a way that sounds the same. Like many of you I had to come to the post to get the trick. It happens. Was the puzzle hard? Sure. It’s Thursday, it’s supposed to stretch your brain a bit. Is any of this the end of the world? No. It’s a game and it’s supposed to be fun and challenging and sometimes some puzzles are a crazy slog, but other people think they’re a breeze. And. At the end of the day. A real live human, with real human feelings, made a puzzle for us to figure out. So if you didn’t like it, that’s ok, but there is still a real person who you’re talking about. The world - especially the online world - is really mean these days. I hate to see it be mean here.
@B Amen! I’m projecting, but I think a lot of people are wound up right now, whether they’re aware of it or not, because of election traumas in the last 10 years.
No chance is no chants? Maybe if you squint your ears
@Kate J I disagree with your point but I love the idea of squinting my ears!
@Kate J You are from New Zealand. You do not pronounce as we do. Different accents, different pronunciation different … languages sometimes!
This is by far the worst puzzle I have solved in all the years I’ve been solving. Many puzzles I’ve seen over the years, will make you groan because you realize the constructor was showing off his abilities. Many of these puzzles are quite clever. This puzzle had none of those attributes. As a solver, one must put up with vague and misleading clues, Rebus entries, and split- and multidirectional answers. But the theme to this puzzle was so obtuse that I solved the entire puzzle without ever discovering the meaningless theme. I’m sure that many other solvers had the same experience. Solving this puzzle was a very unsatisfying experience. I’m not sure what the constructor received for this puzzle, but to my mind, a jail term would’ve been appropriate!
@Wayne Johnson Why meaningless? I didn't get the revealer but once I realized we were skipping OMs in the themed entries for their clues to make sense, everything came together and the theme actually helped me finish my solve. The worst puzzle ever was, of course, anything by Kugelman, and the art heist Sunday by David Kwong.
@Wayne Johnson "By far the worst"? "A jail term"?? Hyperbolize much?
@Wayne Johnson I’m tempted to write “Sir, this is a Wendy’s.” It’s a puzzle. If you are looking for meaning, I suggest you read Victor Frankel.
@Wayne Johnson I loved this puzzle even though it took me forever to solve. Used the theme gleaned from the. Tom Hanks answer to solve other theme clues. Even realized the chance/chants trick early. So not a meaningless theme or terrible puzzle. Just because you (and many others!) didn’t like it doesn’t make it bad. And if you’re wondering about my experience, my current streak is 2454 days.
[Soft drink since 1905] ROMCOM
Give me a break, the clue is a closed stadium with letters removed. That is not a clue, that is a poor construction.
@Jeff Or is the answer a closed stadium with letters inserted? (The clue therefore being a synonym for trendy when the letters OM are removed...)
This could be the lamest gimmick I have ever seen since I washed up here.
It feels weird when you wing it and yet ultimately succeed, doesn't it? As I typed in the final letter, I was certain I had some stuff wrong and the app would taunt me with that annoying "So close" message. My expression upon getting a gold star must have been quite funny! The fill was full of personal arcana: I think JETTA, SAAR (we went there this year - it's super beautiful) and IGAS were my only trivial gimmes, the latter only because it appeared recently in these puzzles. For all the other multiple proper names I had to rely fully or mostly on crosses. Dr Seuss is completely unknown over here, for example (and what little I've seen of his illustrations looked like nightmare fuel). I was tempted to look stuff up for the whole 33 minutes of my solve, but in the end I managed to deal with everything on my own, with lots of guesses. All I understood of the theme was that I had to skip OM. The revealer was literally zero help - phonetic ones always are. My pronunciation of English is not that racist-adjacent stereotype Americans insist on giving Slavic characters on TV, but apparently it's different enough from that of native speakers to make phonetic elements of NYT Games inaccessible to me, in most cases. There is a hint of a T in now I pronounce "chants", and thus is does not sound like "chance". Also, not really being familiar with yoga and meditation, I don't think of "om" as a chant 🤷🏽 I refuse to even imagine the horror that an ATONAL opera must be!!!
@Andrzej Berg’s opera used 12-tone serialism, a technique adapted from Schoenberg (who had adapted it from someone else less famous), but also wove in more traditional tonal music. He didn’t actually finish the opera in pre-war Austria, in part because the technique was considered Jewish art, but it was finished in 1979 well after his death. It is a fascinating bit of musical and cultural history, but an absolute horror to hear.
@Andrzej Being near the SAAR valley paid off this time. The American Rieslings grow in places with longer names.
I enjoyed this one. I figured out the extra “OM” but didn’t “get it” as chants until I read this explanation. Very clever and a very fun Thursday puzzle.
@Jenn That was my experience as well. Tricky that some clues had multiple OMs also.
@Jenn I’m a fan too! I found this difficult but fair and very clever. For those who complain that chance and chants aren’t at all the same, the clue said phonetic. Nice to have a Thursday that took me longer than my average time.
As an utter NYT die-hard, it kills me to leave this comment, but...: Such a lame thematic reveal today. Feeling like you're fighting to the end for...that...was the opposite of enjoyable. Oh well.....
Solved it, saw something was going on with "om", but wasn't understanding the theme until I read the article. More annoying than anything.
One of the worst Thursday puzzles I've seen in a long time. Disaster of a theme.
I found this puzzle incredibly frustrating and not at all fun. It requires leap upon leap and it not my idea of a fun activity.
Sorry, but this wasn’t good. As often the theme was of no help and I solved the puzzle (well under my average time) without using it.
Yeah, I didn't get chants chance. Solved without understanding theme. Not my favourite.
Gimmick, not a theme. Solved the whole thing and never understood the plan. Didn't care to either.
My wife and I have a streak going, ~2300 days. So I feel qualified to say, "not the worst puzzle in the past five years but I do think it's top-50 lamest." If I finish a puzzle and can't figure out the theme it means two things: constructor was too clever for their own good AND the wordplay column will adore the puzzle. Check and check. Finished the puzzle, normal time, but could not for the life of us figure out the theme (and groaned when I read it here). So yes, top-50 lamest themes of the past 2500 puzzles.
@B Agreed. This didn't feel clever, just sort of annoying.
@B Amen! My streak is nowhere near that long (was in the 200s until our epic trip to Machu Picchu this fall - we did the Inca trail hike with no connectivity for 4 days...blissful, but...). Glad to hear that this is in your top-50 lamest, certainly in my top-5!
@B Ooh, now I'm wondering if there are any Wordplay columns that complain about the puzzle. Perhaps they've done it for April Fools Day?
I suppose I disagree with the central conceit that “chance” sounds like “chants” but fair enough
@Marty F Exactly the same to my way of speaking.
@Marty F If the Belle of Amherst can rhyme "prose" with "doors," I guess "chance/chants" isn't such a stretch. See A. O. Scotts' sublime article in todays paper: <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2026/10/21/books/emily-dickinson-poem-i-dwell-in-possibility.html" target="_blank">https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2026/10/21/books/emily-dickinson-poem-i-dwell-in-possibility.html</a>
@Marty F It’s crazy reading all these comments, because for the life of me I can’t figure out how “chance” and “chants” could be pronounced differently from each other.
Rather than complain about the construction, I’d like to complain about the commenters who say something like, Really confusing and difficult, can’t believe it took me 15 minutes, which is 9 minutes longer than my usual Thursday.
@Canard People who obsess over completion time are a mystery to me.
@Canard meanwhile - I’m just trying to rack my brain for where I left any stray geography lessons. But like … you go speed racer.
Did not like this at all. I would say next to impossible to get the theme. The only reason the puzzle was solvable was by answering the crossing clues. And still then didn't understand the theme.
@CReyes Perhaps you should meditate over it? ;-) It took me a while to figure out the theme until I kept seeing the letters OM in the answers to the starred clues. Then I reached a Zen moment. Finished a few minutes earlier than my average Thursday.
i literally lol'd after reading the explainer b/c of how AWFUL this theme was. i'm not even mad... this is hilarious how dumb this idea was. i am baffled how this made it to the nyt publishing desk. we are all dumber having tried this puzzle.
Charles, Speak for yourself.
@Charles Hi, also, do not know how this made it to be published. I’m beginning to think that Mr. Shortz had some kind of lapse, or an aneurysm or something. (Maybe a bribe…?)
As so often lately, I find the vehemence of hate expressed here unfortunate and...puzzling. It's just another puzzle. Lighten up. For me, the themers helped me solve the revealer: it was clear from 17A and 19A that we were inserting/ removing OM. The go-to meditation mantra (... mani padme hum). Mantra. Chant. Chants. Chance. Perfectly fine Thursday puzzle! Solved in slightly above Thursday average time. Lighten up.
@Charles Peterson I agree. Even if the pronunciations are not a perfect match, I doubt they're intended to be exact. That makes it one more mental leap to figure out. I admire that in a puzzle. To me it was like a dad joke groan followed by a laugh--I had to read the column to get it.
This puzzle was deeply unsatisfying. I won't fault the theme for being corny—by itself that's not a crime because not everyone has the same sense of humor. But the horrible clues, trivia, and boring standard crossword fill that surround the theme entries feel like Messrs. Kahn and Shortz have created a "heads we win, tails you lose" scenario for us. Quite a week.
Do some of these commenters even like challenging crosswords? Do they even like word games if they dont like puns? This one was tough but fun, and I got through it slowly but surely. Visited and revisited the top right and bottom right until everything fell into place. Very rewarding. Took me over an hour... well, never ask a woman her age, weight, or crossword time! If you get stuck and frustrated doing puzzles like this, just say it with me... ooooommmmmmm
@T Do people want to learn to do crosswords or want crosswords they know how to do? As an education researcher, I have a morbid curiosity. As a human, I'll say it with you... ooooommmmmm
@T There's a difference between "challenging" and natick.
No chance->no chants->no om .... the most arcane, far-fetched theme I've ever seen. I don't even want to go back and finish the fill after this ditsy doozy
I’ve worked back in the archives to November 2002 and have seen it all. A reach like this only comes around once a year.
Cute! I grasped the theme only little by little, which is always more fun. An enjoyable solve with plenty of geography.
Om, om, om. Maybe I can chant my way out of disappointment at this lame theme. Sorry, David, this probably felt like a fun and clever concept to construct around, but it fell flat in the solve. Om means far more than just a chant.
@Linda Jo > Om means far more than just a chant. But it *is* commonly used as a chant, right? Crossword clues don’t need to exhaustively specify/define the corresponding answers.
@Linda Jo You are poet and a scholar
@Linda Jo And? 'Ole' means more than a stadium cheer too. So what?
Too much of a reach imho. Ultimately figured out having to remove the om but never made the connection until reading it here.
I am of the apparently controversial opinion that the revealer should make the theme more clear, and not less clear. This one was a stretch on top of a stretch that also only works for some accents.
@Jack In what accent does the revealer not work? I've yet to get an answer.
I don’t have particularly strong feelings about a puzzle so contrived in its theming and construction. Its cluing was so esoteric that it became completely unsatisfying to solve, but that’s about as far as it goes. It’s kind of just…nothing. At least now I know to avoid this constructor. 😬 Happy Thursday.
@D 193 of David P. Kahn's puzzles have appeared in the NYT. They cover every day of the week. Odd that you would make a decision based on ONE puzzle.
@D Esoteric? NFL teams? ABBA songs? Tom Hanks? Big sandwiches? What qualifies as common knowledge in your book?
Rarely have I been so baffled by the theme. I got the 'OM' thing after a while, but the revealer... nope, nope, nope.
@David B You’re British so you enunciate differently. We don’t.
A worthy Thursday! Seven themers plus a revealer in weekday grid is a pretty amazing accomplishment, and whether because of the grid or the clueing this puzzle didn’t pull many punches. I had to meditate a bit to get the NE corner which didn’t have many footholds, except SAMIAM once I got AM, and then NIT. The Greek letter could have been any, I didn’t know MAX, asking solvers to anagram a word that they also have to guess takes a lot of chutzpah (but I loved it), and nothing much else was obvious. I guess eventually I got ONTO ISONTO. I got the theme with SALOME which reminded me of a play my son directed based on the Oscar Wilde trial; the full title would be emu’d so look up SALOME and “The Goat Exchange” and you will find it. The revealer was so charming and finding so many themers especially with multiple OMS and fitting them in was a major accomplishment. Yeah, Barry, omitting the asterisks would have been out of the question these days but how fun would that have been!!! Frequent solvers will recognize the theme of my latest Crosshare puzzle, it was done in much more epic fashion here last year. This was my more modest unpublished version back in the day. Enjoy! (Andrzej, you should give this one a go, for the theme at least). <a href="https://crosshare.org/crosswords/jAWQUCNv6IWTc3Hrs1uy/star-crossed" target="_blank">https://crosshare.org/crosswords/jAWQUCNv6IWTc3Hrs1uy/star-crossed</a>
@SP The Greek letter in the NE could only be tau or psi given the island nation capital anagram. :-)
@SP **Spoilers for SP's puzzle** This is how far I got with your puzzle: <a href="https://imgur.com/a/CcwViUM" target="_blank">https://imgur.com/a/CcwViUM</a> I'll return to it later but I'm not hopeful about the last 6 entries - I simply don't know the trivia where my blanks are, to the extent that I'm not even sure what is and what is not trivia-related (is Barker a name? Is it clipper or Clipper? If the latter, I have no idea the name of what it may be). Of course I enjoyed the theme, even if I'm not 100% sure why it works how it does (my doubts have to do with what's going on in the bottom row). By now I'm really syncing with your clues, 95% of the time. It's interesting how that happens. A month or two ago your clues seemed largely beyond my ability to figure them out.
@SP fun puzzle SP - just did it on crosshare. it's way too heavy on trivia painfully so! enjoyed it nonetheless
@SP The 1st of your puzzles I have managed without any reveals or lookups! Yay! So what is the true version of the quotation? I have heard of the show but only ever seen snatches that someone else was surfing through.
My make-up-a-story schtick: TOM HANKS was sitting and chanting OM. When he finally quit that and returned to the set, the other cast members said THANKS! SALOME was sitting and chanting OM. When she finished, it was a signal to open up the big SALE event for seven veils at a bargain price. The cheerleaders set aside their POMPOMS to chant OM, and then some more OM. PS. It was so relaxing they never went back. PPS. But they were still very cheerful.