How to do the LA Times Crossword

The LA Times Crossword is exactly right for someone getting into doing Crosswords. Here’s how to get better at doing them.

A bit of background

The LA Times crossword is published seven days a week here.

The toughest puzzles appear on Saturday. Mondays are the easiest. Sundays are roughly as difficult as the average Thursday puzzle but twice the size.

The LA Times Crossword is American style meaning black squares make up a much smaller proportion of the available squares than in UK style Crosswords.

The extra clues are both a blessing and a curse — a blessing because once you get the hang of it, it is easier to suss out the answers to certain clues based on the presence of available letters. Conversely, it is a curse because you have to really race against the clock to answer all the clues

Meta tips to solve the crossword

A few tips to set you up to actually enjoy doing Crosswords instead of hating the doing of the Crossword and thinking that you don’t like Crosswords themselves.

I know the above sentence got a little verbose.

I mean to say that if you have tried doing a Crossword before and didn’t enjoy it, it may be because your Crossword tools weren’t helping you.

Do your crossword online.

This one tip can make you fall in love with Crosswording.

I recently did a crossword in pen and I hated the experience.

For one, since I was using a pen, I found myself not entering certain answers I was unsure about simply because there was no way to erase a wrong entry. This probably added minutes to my timing.

Doing it pencil is an option but you have to remember your eraser and write new responses into smudged squares.

I genuinely feel that entering your answers into a web page is a much nicer experience since you can backspace over mistakes with no smudges to show for it.

Do your Crossword your way

There is no One True Way to do the crossword. Feel free to refer to resources if you think they will help you solve a clue.