Stats The puzzle page was loaded 294 times. 84 visitors had a go at it and 35 solvers managed to complete and submit. Of those who submitted,30 managed to get the full score.
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Rich Pickings<<< Click Here for the Puzzle Post
Here is the solution grid:
BONUS QUESTIONS:
- Identify any 5 themed entries ANS:FINANCE, WALL STREET CRASH, BITCOIN, POUND, MONEY, FIVER, PORTFOLIO, PESO
Annotations
| Across | Clue | Answer | Def. / Annotation |
| 1 | Oddly some annoy and grin (5) | SMIRK | GRIN / S.M. IRK |
| 4 | Cushy setter wanting a date badly slid (9) | PLUMMETED | SLID / PLUM ME + D(-a)TE* |
| 10 | A couple of hands restrain revolutionary novelist (6) | ARCHER | NOVELIST / A R(CHE)R |
| 11 | Starting of firing by police official can setback one functioning (8) | IGNITION | STARTING OF FIRING / IG TIN< I ON |
| 12 | France cedes right for popular fund (7) | FINANCE | FUND / F(-r <> +IN) ANCE |
| 13 | Playboy discontented by blocks over a nightdress (7) | PYJAMAS | NIGHTDRESS / P…Y JAM(A)S |
| 15 | Elements hand-in-hand with royal heirs take over popular cricket tournament (5,10) | FIRST PRINCIPLES | ELEMENTS / FI(R)ST PRINC(IPL)ES |
| 18 | Threw lacs, some repeatedly let loose in major market disruption (4,6,5) | WALL STREET CRASH | MAJOR MARKET DISRUPTION /LB: THREW LACS ….. “l e t r s” repeat |
| 21 | Tiny portion (about ten) returned new virtual currency (7) | BITCOIN | CURRENCY / BIT C OI<< N # |
| 24 | Police dog’s checks brought back two fellows inside (7) | SNIFFER | POLICE DOG / FF in REINS < |
| 26 | Mix-up in yearly meeting blocks collection of papers (8) | QUAGMIRE | MIX-UP / QU (AGM) IRE Agm = yearly meeting |
| 27 | Student overcome by regret recovers case and scales (6) | RULERS | SCALES / RU(L)E R..S |
| 28 | Challenger taking over unknown research initially is the first to produce power electronics component (9) | THYRISTOR | POWER ELECTRONICS COMPONENT TH (Y R.. IS T) OR / |
| 29 | Quietly chase husband away for money (5) | POUND | MONEY / P(-h)OUND # |
| Down | Clue | Answer | Def. / Annotation |
| 2 | Drink and spoil one having money (7) | MARTINI | DRINK / MAR (TIN) I |
| 3 | Judges in genuine practice (9) | REHERSAL | PRACTICE / RE (HEARS) AL |
| 5 | Returning material partner left for study (4) | LAIR | STUDY / (-Mate)RIAL< |
| 6 | I cabled this cash wrongly claimed by one (5) | MONEY | CASH / CLAIMED BY ONE* = I CABLED + MONEY* |
| 7 | Mate sex without cover ends with one more (5) | EXTRA | MORE / E.. X.. T.. R.. + A |
| 8 | Call up accountant to check electronic franchise (7) | EVOCATE | CALL UP / E VO(CA)TE |
| 9 | Eccentric joke upsets head (8) | CRACKPOT | ECCENTRIC / CRACK TOP< |
| 14 | Note Reverend’s condition to return (5) | FIVER | NOTE / REV IF < |
| 16 | Songbird enthralls foreigner climbing arch (8) | CATENARY | ARCH / CA (ET<) NARY |
| 17 | List of assets left by one fool is all mixed up (9) | PORTFOLIO | LIST OF ASSETS / PORT (I FOOL)* |
| 19 | Ah! Gloating over Zimbabwe’s ultrasmart end-to-end navigational measurement (7) | AZIMUTH | NAVIGATIONAL MEASUREMENT A (ZIM) (U…T) H/ |
| 20 | We are nearly caught in crime and put on stand to declare the truth (5,2) | SWEAR IN | PUT ON STAND TO DECLARE THE TRUTH / S (WE AR(-e) ) IN |
| 22 | Unholy oligarchy cycling cheroot (5) | CIGAR | CHEROOT / (+c)igar(-c) = oligarchy – holy |
| 23 | Plants compete in India’s leading show (5) | IVIES | PLANTS / VIE in I S.. |
| 25 | Every third person leaving gets money (4) | PESO | MONEY / PE(-r)SO(-n) |
Here’s the list of Top Scorers (For the full list, please check the Leaderboard in the Hall of Fame)
| Participant | Total | GridScore | Bonus |
|---|---|---|---|
| Arvind Kannabiran | 162 | 157 | 5 |
| Arvind Ramaswamy | 162 | 157 | 5 |
| Ashit Hegde | 162 | 157 | 5 |
| Binay Kumar Patra | 162 | 157 | 5 |
| Deepak Gopinath (Col.) | 162 | 157 | 5 |
| Hawk Crossword | 162 | 157 | 5 |
| Himanshu Rajurkar | 162 | 157 | 5 |
| Ian VanderSchee | 162 | 157 | 5 |
| Jyothish Balakrishnan | 162 | 157 | 5 |
| Koteswar Rao | 162 | 157 | 5 |
| Lakshmi Prakash | 162 | 157 | 5 |
| Lakshmi Vaidyanathan | 162 | 157 | 5 |
| Madhusudan H | 162 | 157 | 5 |
| Max Jackson | 162 | 157 | 5 |
| Melissa McSeismal | 162 | 157 | 5 |
| Mona Sogal | 162 | 157 | 5 |
| Mukundala Balasubramanyam | 162 | 157 | 5 |
| Nagendra Prasad R. | 162 | 157 | 5 |
| Narayanan Rangamani | 162 | 157 | 5 |
| Prakash Arumugam | 162 | 157 | 5 |
| Ramki Krishnan | 162 | 157 | 5 |
| Ratna Rao | 162 | 157 | 5 |
| Samit Kallianpur | 162 | 157 | 5 |
| sandhya paruchuri | 162 | 157 | 5 |
| Suresh Dorbala | 162 | 157 | 5 |
| Tejas Siddharth | 162 | 157 | 5 |
| Veena Venkataraman | 162 | 157 | 5 |
| Veera Raghavan | 162 | 157 | 5 |
| Venkatesan P. | 162 | 157 | 5 |
| Venkatraghavan S. | 162 | 157 | 5 |
Congrats to the toppers and to all the solvers who participated.
Grid Rating: The puzzle got a good score of 8.31. It got 8 perfect 10s (23% of those who rated). The lowest score was 5.
Favorite Clues: The Top clues were
- Elements hand-in-hand with royal heirs take over popular cricket tournament (5,10) – 14 votes
- Cushy setter wanting a date badly slid (9) – 11 votes
- Starting of firing by police official can setback one functioning (8) – 7 votes
- France cedes right for popular fund (7) – 7 votes
Nice to have a modern topical theme that I don’t recall seeing in cryptic crosswords. The response from solvers was very positive. Well done Smasher. Here’s what they said.
| Participant | Comments / Feedback on the puzzle |
|---|---|
| Lakshmi Prakash | Very nice grid .Enjoyed it thoroughly.Had some tough complicated clues. |
| Jyothish Balakrishnan | An economically challenging treasure hunt. |
| Veena Venkataraman | Not very easy, but very enjoyable. |
| Mukundala Balasubramanyam | Lovely themed grid. Quite enjoyable! |
| Venkatesan P. | 18A – ‘Some repeatedly’ prompted me to pick a few letters (except ‘w’ and ‘c’) from the first two words of the clue for the second time to get the fodder complete and it worked. Not sure it was the intention of the setter |
| Rathnakumar V | NICE |
| Binay Kumar Patra | Some clues are really good and shrewd. |
| Ratna Rao | Excellent grid |
| Ian VanderSchee | Enjoyable puzzle, nice clues, but that upper right corner took a while. 🙂 |
| Nagendra Prasad R. | WELL CONSTRUCTED CLUES |
| Veera Raghavan | Nice pangram. Not much difficulty in solving. |
| Lakshmi Vaidyanathan | Nice enjoyable grid. |
| Arvind Ramaswamy | Simply loved the grid! Lots of lovely clues but my most fav is definitely the “Elements hand-in-hand” clue. Had super fun solving. Thanks “Smasher”! |
| Max Jackson | Some nice cluing, though 18ac and 19dn still puzzle me. The theme didn’t seem obvious until I started looking for the bonus entries. |
| Koteswar Rao | GOOD SHOW, SMASHER! |
| sandhya paruchuri | Good one! |
| Ashit Hegde | A Decent challenge, several clues with good surfaces |
| Tejas Siddharth | Nice. Found the north east a bit tricky. |
| Prakash Arumugam | Simple but enjoyable clues. Not sure if Zimbabwe can be abbreviated as ZIM. |
| Suresh Dorbala | Enjoyable |
| Narayana Swamy D | Smooth clues |
| Venkatraghavan S. | Nice one. Surfaces can be improved, though |
| Samit Kallianpur | Nice and smooth! |
| Narayanan Rangamani | nice theme |
| Mona Sogal | some clues are nice 🙂 |
| Ramki Krishnan | Smooth grid with clear defs and wordplay. Surface stories could be improved in a few clues. |
| Arvind Kannabiran | some of the defs and wp were iffy for me |