Matt H

Finally finished a Saturday with no help! My heart was pounding when I put in the last letter (STORYARCS) and couldn’t believe there were no crumbs!

One of my most satisfying solves! 3 Fridays in a row which is probably a first for me. I’ve been doing these on and off for years, but only really started getting the hang of it lately. I love the feeling of staring at a mostly blank grid and having the confidence that I can figure it out rather than just surrendering too quickly.

Only my second true Saturday solve, but I’m definitely getting a lot better at these! Very satisfying. nAMES for DAMES got me stuck for a while :)

Took me a while to spot TOREUP where I had TORNUP. I don’t know the Muslim holiday, but I finally decided that NID didn’t look right. Phew!

Fun one! I got tripped up with GANGER instead of RINGER for the longest time (thinking doppleganger). Macs and wellies sounded British, so I convinced myself that GAAN was some kind of Welsh sport I had never heard of, and since DIRNDL from Monday looked just as nonsensical, I ran with it for for a long time. Finally came to my senses and then switched HEH for HAH and got a very satisfying gold star :)

Got everything but the SE, and then even when I turned on auto check it was still a slog. Do the people with 3 and 4-digit streaks really never get tripped up with spots like that??? I guess I could have intuited VOLVOS, but UPPERVOLTA, DIANFOSSEY, and HAYS are all new to me, and I was pretty happy with BURPS for 46D, so I don’t think I ever would have got there.

This was tough! DIRNDL, ELLE, DOUGIE, and LABORS (in this context) are all new to me, but somehow I got there, at 600% of my average Monday time :)

Really liked it. Got everything but the central section, which absolutely stumped me. Didn’t know DON HO, ONEIL, OSAGE, MEARA, or the Beatles’ song, so I’m not gonna be hard on myself.

I did the thing where I convince myself I’m looking at a word I don’t know. _HARP has gotta be sHARP right?! Now is it CUSGAM? CUSGOM? Oh, CUSTOM! But that can’t be right… 🤦🏻‍♂️ Blue star, oh well!

It's a miracle I got as far as I did. My only mistake was SPyROGRAPH, not including running the alphabet on LE_AY a hundred times. No shame in giving up after two sittings and 1h40m. Great puzzle!

Fun theme!

Will I get my first 7-day streak? Not today. Fun puzzle, but the bottom section was just too unknown for me. ABBR was a fun one that had me confused for a bit :)

This was just perfect for me. It still took me 1h22m, but I made steady progress the whole way and had several satisying "aha" moments!

I’m not familiar with RIGEL or ALEXA, so struggled there. I should have figured out PAGES, but i ran the alphabet and P didn’t look right, so had to cheat to finish this one. Still enjoyed it!

I sincerely liked the puzzle, except for the 15 minutes of trying various combinations across all of the Naticks. I was fist pumping when the piano riff finally came!

Fun one! Struggled with EPISTOLARY and EPICENE, but worked out it with the crossings.

Happy to see an Arrested Development reference!

Wow, that was a hard one! I had to get almost the entire grid filled before I figured out the theme.

Wow! What a ride. Probably the hardest puzzle I've ever solved unassisted. I've finished a few Saturdays but I had to pull a lot out of thin air for this one. Ended with running the alphabet in the bottom right corner to the very last letter on the keyboard for a climactic finish in 1h12m.

In years of solving (on and off), I’ve only gold starred 3 Saturdays, including today - in 13 minutes! A breeze compared to the last couple of days!

Can someone explain ANON to me? That was my last answer to go in and I was bracing for “oh crumbs”, but surprisingly it worked!

I was fairly confident in PONDER, CREASED, and GROUPED, but the OEU___ in 44D couldn’t possible have been right, so I eventually gave up. Never would figured out OEUVRE or HELDSERVE, but I enjoyed the rest of the puzzle!

POESY had me a little worried…