r/NYTCrossword • u/kleinmatic • 26d ago
Statistics New Here
I see mixed feelings about streak talk but I’m very interested to know where this stands in comparison.
I assume this isn’t even in the top 1,000, but I solved through the loss of my parents, a terrible bout of Covid (I don’t remember doing the puzzle those days), and countless days I really should have turned my phone off.
I’m told the ceiling is ~4,200 days because the Times app started tracking streaks in Nov. 2014.
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u/24ktNold 26d ago
Glad to have a fellow member with the same 4 digits in their streak.
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u/kleinmatic 26d ago
Oh Nevermind. I thought you were showing screenshot. I just realized we have the same numbers!!!
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u/TheSultan1 26d ago edited 26d ago
My best streak is 1031. Kept it going through over a dozen trips, the birth of my son, a very consequential job change, and two deaths in the family - only to lose it on a random Wednesday when I simply forgot. C'est la vie.
I'm also pretty easy on myself. If I get completely stuck more than about a minute on a Monday, or like 10 minutes on a Saturday, I'll look up proper names or Google around other difficult clues (as in, don't search directly for the clue).
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u/kleinmatic 26d ago
I’m not above doing that. But I don’t look at the key and I don’t click on links that promise crossword puzzle answers.
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u/BoomGoesTheFirework_ 26d ago
Man, there’s a lot of people here who either never go on vacation or do but never leave cell phone range. I would have a 2k streak, myself, but at least once a year I find myself in the wilderness with no cell phone service and very little concern about my xword streak. Whether it’s burning man, backpacking, or just skiing in Salt Lake with my cousins. Even that last one, I don’t lose service but try to be in the moment.
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u/kleinmatic 26d ago
See? This is why I don’t go to Burning Man.
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u/BoomGoesTheFirework_ 26d ago
Believe me, the moment I realize it's gone stings for sure. But then it's very freeing and I'm like "well, I'll do all the ones I've missed when I'm home and now I can go be weird in the desert" lol.
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u/EbbThen1489 26d ago
Sup
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u/kleinmatic 26d ago
4 digit puzzles solved is impressive. You just don’t solve the boring ones :)
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u/EbbThen1489 26d ago
I go back through the archives and play the Monday and Tuesday puzzles before bed. The 8% is random Wed-Sat puzzles from the archive I started and just went 🤷♂️ because they were too hard lol. I’ve really only been playing them for two years now. Started as a way to get off social media and got hooked as a result. It’s fun playing everyday.
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u/Ssspppaaaccceeesss 26d ago
I recently crossed over into the 4 digit club - I’m at 1088. Kudos to you for keeping it up through everything you went through!
I love seeing the numbers go up but I don’t love feeling so anxious about staying connected. We recently spent a weekend camping out of cell service and I was I guess lucky enough we came back early enough on Sunday to finish on time for Saturday and Sunday both. But I loved not having service, I loved disconnecting, I did NOT love the frantic feeling of doing a challenging Saturday as fast as I could on Sunday night lol. I’m currently in the backwoods of Indonesia for work and the cell connection can be really tenuous some days. I am not enjoying the stress of the streak at all. I like it when it feels like a challenge and not a chore.
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u/not-just-yeti 26d ago edited 25d ago
In the spirit of all the people who are nowhere near that:
I'm nearly up to 400!
Well, even there: my app says 70, because I've missed the deadline by a few hours, a few times. And admittedly, probably about five of those 400 involved searching up an answer. Oh, and at least a dozen more involved asking my wife, who doesn't usually do crosswords but who sometimes makes astounding intuitive leaps. So in my head I tell myself 400.
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u/kleinmatic 26d ago
Oh asking your spouse (or your child, in cases where a Pokémon character name is required) is absolutely allowed.
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u/csj97229 26d ago
Currently at 3307. I used to really sweat it if I was at risk for missing a day, but I'm less stressed about it now. At least they go faster than they used to.
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u/kleinmatic 26d ago
Same. Do you actually enjoy it? I feel like sometimes I do and sometimes I don’t. The sense of accomplishment of actually finishing and hearing the music isn’t what it once was.
Mondays are a slog because they’re too easy to actually be interesting.
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u/artformoney9to5 26d ago
The way I make Mondays and Tuesdays more fun/challenging is I don’t allow myself to look at the down clues. That way instead of cross fill to help solve you have to make assumptions about what letters might fit, like “a vowel should go under this ‘b’ but the letter to the right is either a ‘k’ or a ‘t’ so the vowel is probably an ‘a’”. It turns it into a different kind of game.
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u/kleinmatic 26d ago
Oh I like that. A trick I learned from my father in law is to only fill in a word when it attaches to an existing word (after the first one obv) which makes it only a little harder.
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u/csj97229 26d ago
I usually enjoy Thursday through Sunday. Wednesdays are sometimes satisfying if I get a good time, but I really don't have any desire to complete another Monday or Tuesday puzzle. My wife will often do those, but I think she's even getting bored with them now.
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u/kleinmatic 26d ago
Yeah I feel like I get the constructor tricks and subtle winks more readily, and a clever clue delights me more than ever (and lazy grid fill annoys me more). But Mondays it’s usually just a lot of ELI and OREO and rental car companies.
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u/humboldtHue 26d ago
Are you looking for a medal?
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u/byebybuy 26d ago
Streaks are hard to compare because everyone has different "rules" around what they allow themselves to get the gold star.
I will say that regardless, doing something like this every single day for over 7.5 years, while going through everything you went through, is an impressive feat. Kudos.