Stats: The puzzle page was loaded 385 times. 58 visitors had a go at it. 43 solvers completed both the puzzle and bonus form. 1 submitted the grid but not the bonus form. The remaining solved it partly. 33 solvers got the full score.
Chiaroscuro<<< Click Here for the Puzzle Post
Here is the solution grid:
Annotations
| Ref. | Clue | Solution | Annotation |
| 1A | Exploiting a software issue takes depravity (7) | ABUSING | A BUG around SIN |
| 5A | Cheat pocketed gold with a glow (6) | CORONA | CON around OR with A |
| 9A | Plants spread endless energy with time (8) | GREENAGE | ENERG* with AGE |
| 10A | To bring someone to their knees is extremely deplorable an act (6) | DEFEAT | D..E FEAT |
| 12A | Benignly clad, maybe scantily clad performance (5,7) | BELLYDANCING | BENIGNLYCLAD* |
| 15A | Artful nude perhaps intended to seduce people (10) | FRAUDULENT | ARTFULNUDE* |
| 17A | Essentially one guy and girl taking vows (3) | NUN | oNe gUy aNd |
| 19A | One’s stupid, somewhat to a fault (3) | OAF | tO A Fault |
| 20A | Cakes and drinks got Ross tipsy (5,5) | SWISSROLLS | SWILLS around ROSS* |
| 22A | Study of French Revolution’s objective (12) | DELIBERATION | DE LIBERATION |
| 26A | Pop star interested in men and women brewing beer (6) | BIEBER | BI BEER* |
| 27A | One occupying a throne nefariously? (8) | ANTIHERO | Anag &Lit. I in A THRONE* |
| 28A | Stands for the work of artists (6) | EASELS | CD |
| 29A | Love fresh tamale as a breakfast offering (7) | OATMEAL | O TAMALE* |
| 1D | It grows in water from botanical gardens (4) | ALGA | botanicAL Gardens |
| 2D | Excellent peeled potatoes, for instance (4) | UBER | (-t)UBER(-s) |
| 3D | Bar opening with nude dancing that is suggestive (8) | INNUENDO | INN O with NUDE* |
| 4D | Set out to perform piece from leading writer (5) | GOGOL | GO GO L |
| 6D | Repaired one’s AC mains (6) | OCEANS | ONESAC* |
| 7D | Wild lion yet to consume hay with docility (10) | OBEDIENTLY | LIONYET* around BED (hay) |
| 8D | Social worker distributed gains to adversary (10) | ANTAGONIST | ANT GAINSTO* |
| 11D | Promotion covering one’s dish (6) | ADONIS | AD ON IS |
| 13D | Warm harbours toured regularly at pocket-friendly prices (10) | AFFORDABLE | AFFABLE around even letters tOuReD |
| 14D | Justice is the end of brutal monstrosity (10) | LAWFULNESS | L AWFULNESS |
| 16D | Dull, pompous fellow ignored (6) | LOWERY | FLOWERY – F |
| 18D | One with a burning interest in things? (8) | ARSONIST | CD |
| 21D | Mariner spins a yarn about going down a mountain (6) | ABSEIL | AB LIES< |
| 23D | Dance montage sadly didn’t include me (5) | TANGO | anag MONTAGE – ME |
| 24D | Egoists often mention this viral content (4) | MEME | ME ME |
| 25D | Stolidly evens out a piece of land (4) | SOIL | odd letters of StOlIdLY |
Here’s the list of Top Scorers (For the full list, please check the Leaderboard in the Hall of Fame)
Out of 44 solvers, 33 got the full score. Each of the following scored 156 points (Grid Score – 156, Bonus – 0).
Aashwina Mouli
Al Sanders
Arvind Ramaswamy
Avtaar
Bhalchandra Pasupathy
Ganesh Raman
Harish Kamath
Himanshu Rajurkar
Ian VanderSchee
Koteswar Rao
Lakshmi Prakash
Lakshmi Vaidyanathan
Madhup Tewari
Max Jackson
Melissa McSeismal
Mona Sogal
Nagendra Prasad R.
Narayana Swamy D
Narayanan R
Nilesh Parmar
Prakash Arumugam
Ramki Krishnan
Ranjani Srikanth
Rathnakumar V
Ratna Rao
Samit Kallianpur
Sandhya Paruchuri
Sparsh Sinha
Steve Gunter
Supriya Mithal
Veera Raghavan
Venkatesan P.
Venkatraghavan S
Congrats to the toppers and to all the solvers who participated.
Grid Rating: The puzzle got an excellent rating of 8.33. It got 6 perfect 10s (14% of those who rated). The lowest rating was 4.
Favorite Clues: The Top clues were
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- Exploiting a software issue takes depravity (7) – 11 votes
- Benignly clad, maybe scantily clad performance (5,7) – 11 votes
- Cakes and drinks got Ross tipsy (5,5) – 11 votes
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Fun and solid grid from Textrous – wish he could make more time for setting puzzles – obviously, our solvers love his grids.
Here’s what our solvers said..
| Name | Comments / Feedback on the puzzle |
|---|---|
| Jose A | Enjoyed it! Learned a couple of new words too… |
| Mukundala Balasubramanyam | Simple and elegant puzzle |
| Veera Raghavan | Very nice grid. Great clues. |
| Al Sanders | Very clean puzzle, enjoyed it very much |
| Anantakrishnan N. | Lovely clues |
| Avtaar | Excellent puzzle. Enjoyed solving |
| Bhalchandra Pasupathy | Nice high quality puzzle. Had to tune in a few times to get on the setter’s wavelength for solving, eg ADONIS, but even then for a couple I couldn’t figure out the why despite slotting in the answer, eg ANTIHERO (I wouldn’t reckon this to be an &lit). Good weaving of terms in wordplay, but wish the past tense constructs had been avoided |
| Lakshmi Vaidyanathan | Nice puzzle |
| Madhup Tewari | This puzzle is on the easier side but has superb clues. |
| Nagendra Prasad R. | EASY ONE |
| Prakash Arumugam | Excellent Clues with a very good surface. Delightful for the solver |
| Rathnakumar V | Nice Grid , no Bonus -was a Bonus. |
| Sandhya Paruchuri | Good one! |
| Satyavrat Bondre | Great grid – been a while since I got back to a full puzzle and this was an excellent puzzle. |
| Sparsh Sinha | Some really good twisters there…learned a few new words |
| Venkatraghavan S | Super grid with lovely surfaces |
| Harish Kamath | Nice grid |
| Mona Sogal | So many delightful surfaces… grid was on the easier side, but not complaining 🙂 surface story for DEFEAT is truly superb!Opening for O was new to be– also I thought the wordplay led to ABSEILING and not ABSEIL- did I miss something? |
| Narayanan R | Nice grid |
| Ramki Krishnan | Nice crossword with smooth clues. |
| Samit Kallianpur | Nice one with good surfaces! Not sure of anno of 3d..opening = o?. 21d should be abseiling (going down a mountain)? |
| Arvind Ramaswamy | Simple fun clues. |
| Max Jackson | Some nice clues. Should I have deduced the relevance of the title? |
| Ramesh Swaminathan | Smooth solve. Title is cryptic! |
| Koteswar Rao | GOOD |
| Narayana Swamy D | Comparatively easy one |