Saturday, July 16, 2022

Sunday 22:23* 



The time is asterisked because it's when I finished, but not to whatever the Times counts as done. This stuff has happened before in similar puzzles and it tends to break my streak. See, quite a few squares are rebuses, with either a card suit or rank, together making a Texas Hold 'Em Royal Flush (39-Down). However, they are suits going down, and ranks going across (the 1-Down and 8-Down answers are AV(CLUB) and IN(SPADE)S, but 22-Across is (QUEEN)ANNESL(ACE)).

I've tried refilling the puzzle with all ranks, but that hasn't worked to give me the done. All suits didn't either.


As it turns out, I had a wrong letter, and I didn't check, so my streak is broken and it's my own fault. (The clue for 33-Across was "Former MGM rival," and I immediately thought Vegas instead of Hollywood)  Without that errors, it might have even worked on my original mixed fill. Bah. This representation (which only appears after you finish) makes it much clearer what's going on, with 4 hands and 5 community cards in the middle. Sucks to be the guy on the lower left with the full house.