New York Times, Saturday, March 17, 2018

The original version of this grid was constructed in September 2016. A revision to the SE quadrant was requested, a revision was submitted, and the puzzle was accepted for publication in January 2017.

The requested revision was the removal from the SE of the exclamation AM I BEAT, which was deemed too contrived. I have said this myself while plopping down on a chair — maybe it's a Canadian thing.

The block layout for this puzzle is one of my favorites. I've had success with versions in which there are two blocks in the middle breaking up the 15s, and in which there is a single block dead center. This version has no central blocks. These puzzles are among my first attempts at wide open grids.

With open grids it's often difficult to achieve a Scrabble average above 1.50, which is typical for a NYT crossword. That certainly was the case here, with this puzzle coming in at 1.40, as did the original version. The open areas are conducive to low Scrabble score letters, namely, the vowels, L, N, R, S, and T. In a higher word count grid it's possible to find spots for higher value letters in the peripheral short fill — not so here. I decided to leave well enough alone.

As I look over the clues, 26-A PORE and 13-D ANDIRON make me chuckle, and I have Will and Joel/Sam to thank for that. I note that a fair number of changes were made to the clues I submitted, which have made the puzzle tougher, I think.

I get skeptical when I see a constructor using the exact same pattern over and over. Bo-ring, especially when it comes to themelesses! This one looked so familiar to Roland's other work … but to my surprise, it was a variant — and a super-tough variant, too!

Compare this grid to his other two similar ones. Note the two black squares missing from the center? That's just plain nuts! Working with a central region this big and wide-open — with FOUR grid-spanning entries running through it! — is something few constructors would even think about tackling. I like the audacity, but I was worried to see what necessary compromises there would be.

Color me impressed. A usual compromise is to rely on dull grid-spanners heavy on common letters like E R S T. ALTERNATIVE ROCK? Awesome! Along with CONSTANT CRAVING, PRIOR ENGAGEMENT, CAREER CRIMINALS, that's great stuff.

There had to be some gluey bits or some esoteric words holding everything together, then. There was SHEERED … that's a pretty odd word. It is dictionary supported, but dunno if I'd ever see it … ever. Outside of this crossword, that is.

But other than that, just a bit of VER and STE? Man, that's great work! There wasn't anything snazzy in that center, but to pull this feat off as smoothly as Roland did was impressive.

If only the corners had been of similar quality. ENERO VERE? CAPSTAN is of the SHEERED head-scratchiness level.

Okay, there wasn't as much as I remembered. So overall, it's pretty good. It's too bad though — without a ton of juicy long answers, as I've come to expect out of my themelesses, these outliers can feel harsher. As a solver, I needed more ALTERNATIVE ROCK type answers to help balance everything out.

But as a constructor, I appreciated the execution given the extreme degree of difficulty. Gets a lot of points for technical aspects, if not its snappiness.