So, what are cheater squares?
They're symmetrically placed black squares which can be removed without affecting the total word count of a grid.
Let's look at this ?U?U puzzle Argyle and I made last November:
The
two black squares the red arrows point to: the one to the right of AHA
(6A) & the one to the the left of EDY (7D), are cheaters. The word
count here is 76. Total black squares: 36. Average word length: 4.97
(letters)
Now look at our original cheater-less submission:
No
black squares to the right of 6A or to the left of 70A. Total word
count here is still 76. Total black squares 34. Average word length:
5.03 (letters).
The reason we had to add two cheaters is
that Rich thought ELUL (7D) is not a Monday entry. Adding cheaters
smooths out the fill considerably.
Cheaters are normally
added to the grid in the filling process. The ones beside theme entries,
like these two to the left and right of OH PRETTY WOMAN (35A, the very middle 13-letter entry), should not be
counted as cheaters. I put them in the grid designing process. I had
other alternatives, but I didn't like the abundance of 3's they resulted
and preferred these stacked 8's & 6's in the corner.
As I said yesterday, cheaters are not bad. They give constructors cleaner fill. To me, cheater-less grids look pretty. Plus, you get slightly longer, thus interesting words.
John Lampkin, Don G and today's co-constructor Bruce Venzke do not like cheaters in their grids. It takes discipline and hard work eliminating cheaters. Sometimes it's just not possible avoiding them, like John's grid yesterday.
John Lampkin, Don G and today's co-constructor Bruce Venzke do not like cheaters in their grids. It takes discipline and hard work eliminating cheaters. Sometimes it's just not possible avoiding them, like John's grid yesterday.
