Helen Chen author page
1 puzzle by Helen Chen
with Constructor comments
See the 6 answer words debuted by Helen Chen.
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Last winter, I bought a deck of cards at a puzzle show, and while flipping through them one day, I realized there's an ACE in FACE CARDS. I love hidden word themes, and from this seed, BLACKJACK was an easy follow up, but I initially dropped it since JACK isn't really hidden. TRICK TAKING GAME was another early candidate, but it wasn't until I found BREAKS EVEN that I thought to have the hidden values add to 21 with BLACKJACK as the revealer. From there, I pored through casino related words and eventually hit the jackpot with PLACES A BET and AMOUNT WON — a symmetric theme set with both one and eleven as values for the ACEs!
In a different universe, this puzzle would have had "24" as the theme, a game where you make four cards equal 24 with any order of operations. In fact, my final set of hidden values still does this (7+1)*(2+1) = 24, but that's probably too much math for a crossword.
This debut puzzle is a full circle moment — Wyna Liu wrote me feedback for the first puzzle I ever submitted, and I am so grateful for her mentorship throughout the Diverse Crossword Constructor Fellowship. Excited to keep constructing!