PokerGeek

It is very rare that I dislike a puzzle so much I no longer care about the solution. I appreciate the daring attempt but the execution was very clunky on many levels. The best puzzles on this conceal how hard they are to make. The glue needed to paste the theme together was glaring. This doesn't belong at the Met. It barely belongs on grandma's refrigerator.

This is the opposite of the Sunday puzzle that caused so much controversy. You can tell from the long spans in the grid design that it is an extra level of difficulty for the constructor, yet the puzzle has a sense of the ease and elegance. There was a bit of common glue but the clueing had some nice twists.

I'm curious if you scored every NYT daily as it were made or Scrabble tiles if this would be the winner.

Some of the cluing was so clever that I actually laughed out loud when I hit the flash point.

Overall quite a challenge. The IONE clue was tricky enough without also fitting ERIN

The theme was very clever with the pairing of morning and night clues, but the glue needed to make it happen did not seem as vibrant and effortless as the high standard the NYT usually publishes.