Teen is a man of letters in the puzzle world
By Craig Wilson, USA TODAY
BALTIMORE — Michael Shteyman is only 17. His wispy
mustache tells you that immediately. But the freshman at Johns Hopkins
University here already knows the ups and downs of life. Actually he's
more familiar with the acrosses and downs. Shteyman is a cruciverbalist,
as they say in the business. A crossword puzzle addict.
So good is Shteyman that he makes
up puzzles and sells them. And he was doing it before immigrating from
St. Petersburg, Russia, five years ago.
Yes, English is his second language, but you wouldn't
know it. Talking between classes in the Johns Hopkins library, he looks
and sounds as all-American as the university's famed lacrosse team.
"Actually I'm a better constructor than a competitor,"
admits the "possibly pre-med" neuroscience major who also studies piano
composition at the nearby Peabody Conservatory.
He'll see if that's true this weekend when he joins
almost 400 other fellow cruciverbalists in Stamford, Conn., to compete
in the 25th Annual American Crossword Tournament, an event founded by Will
Shortz, the crossword puzzle editor of The New York Times.
Shteyman began constructing puzzles back in Russia
even though the St. Petersburg paper paid him nothing for his effort. "I
thought I'd try my hand. It didn't seem very hard to me, so I started to
make more."
The rest is not so much Russian history as American.
Since then, his puzzles have appeared in The New York Times,
The Los Angeles Times, the Universal Press Syndicate and Games Magazine.
"I just sit down and do it," says Shteyman, who
often passes time making up puzzles during slow periods at his part-time
job as a cashier. "I also compose, so it's like asking a composer where
you come up with the notes. Sometimes I see a word and I associate it with
another and that's that. But most times it just comes with a whim. There
is no method."
He admits, however, that he likes to pay attention
to "those rarely used letters like Q and Z."
Shteyman, a quick and eager rookie who solves puzzles
in pen, will join veterans such as Jean Tintle of Whiting, N.J., who has
missed only two tournaments in 25 years and finishes near the top every
year. Last year, she came in second in the senior (over 70) division. Shortz
dubs her a "fine solver."
"My reaction time isn't what it used to be," she
admits. "I don't get that pencil to the paper as quickly as I once did."
But "the solving is easier than it was 20 years ago, because I've been
doing it so long."
Some of the younger contestants, she says, can finish
the easier crossword puzzles in less than two minutes. She takes about
five. Shteyman says he averages about seven. (When Shortz interviewed President
Clinton about his love of crosswords a few years back, the president did
a moderately difficult one in six minutes, 54 seconds — half of the time
on the phone.)
This weekend's competitors range from teenagers
such as Shteyman to octogenarians. They're evenly split between the sexes,
represent dozens of professions and come from every corner of the country.
But they all have one thing in common. They love wordplay.
On Saturday, they will sit at long tables in a hotel
ballroom and work their way through six puzzles. Two large clocks with
sweeping second hands will mark the time as they speed their way through
the clues. The contestant with the fewest mistakes and quickest times gets
to compete on Sunday morning and possibly take home the big prize of $1,500.
The three top scorers who make it to the Sunday
morning playoff work on giant puzzles set on stage so the audience can
watch. There's even play-by-play, but the contestants can't hear it because
they're wearing earphones.
Doug Hoylman, a retired actuary from Chevy Chase,
Md., has won six times. He's dubbed "The Ice Man" because of his cold methodical
technique of starting at 1 across in the top left corner and not stopping
until he makes his way to the bottom right.
Last year's winner was Ellen Ripstein of Manhattan,
who had lost so many times — she has competed 24 years, finishing in the
top three 12 times — she was dubbed the "Susan Lucci of crosswords," after
the perennial soap opera Emmy loser. But they can say that no longer.
Besides, anyone who can finish the Sunday New
York Times crossword in less than 10 minutes is no loser. She can finish
the Saturday one, which is smaller but harder, in six to eight minutes.
To prepare for the tournament, she works up to 10 puzzles a day.
The Wall Street Journal did a story on her
just before her win last year, something she now thinks was a "good omen."
"Grade-school friends saw the story and called and
said this was going to be my year," she recalls. "But I told them it's
never been my year."
But what really helped was that her two final competitors
made last-minute mistakes, giving her the win.
This year, she says she's feeling less pressure.
A freelance puzzle editor and statistician by trade, she knows the chances
of winning twice in a row are slim. After all, it took her all those years
to win once.
Don't underestimate her, however. Just last week,
using a computer, she did a Newsday puzzle in 1 minute and 59 seconds.
But age may be taking its toll on her, too.
"I don't see as well as I used to," laments the
49-year-old.
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