Make Up Puzzles! Make Big Bucks!Plus America's Most Creative Crosswords

By the Nation's Top Gonstructors

AMAN, APLAN, ACOMPUTEREricAlbert

by Helene Hovanec

Jn 1989 Eric Albert, a computr whiz wirhI a passion for words, needed to construct a

Ihome-hased business for himself. He andhis wife, Peg himak, were planning to startafamily and had a$eed ttrat he would be thestay-at-home parent. Drawing upon his edu-cational background, professional work expe-rience, and prowess at Scrabble, Albert startedto create computer-generated crosswords. Injust a short time his puzzles have risen !o thetop of the crossword hit parade.

While there are commercial crossword-consfructingprogramson themarket, Albert'sdiffers from them in three major ways. First"his sophisticated program creates grids andfills them with the bestpossible combinationsof words, allowing him to achieve an eleganceof creation heretofore reserved for few con-structors. Second, each entry in his constantlyexpanding database has been rated as o isdesirability in crosswords. Third, Eric Albertis the force behind the program and his skillsmake the program efficacious.

Albert's joumey from a precocious child toa crossword entrepreneur, who is also theprimary caregiver for his year-old son, fol-lows a logical path. He's a computer scientist,a topnorch Scrabble player, and the author ofnumerous articles on words. Moreover, he'snot afraid to change carcers, is adept at net-

working, and is a nurnring person.Albert started fiddling around with puzdes,

computers, numbers, and words as a child. Hisfather, a computr prcgrummer, drilled himon matl from the time he was five years old.The senior Albert, also enthralled with math,mechanical, and logical puzzles, passedalongthis passion to his son. "I knew ttre classic SamLoyd and nick puzzles by the time I waseight," Albert recalls. "I had memorized themwithmyDad."

The two also solved ttre crosswords in TfteNew YorkTimes wgether, competing good-nahredly for the answers." If I lnew ttreanswerto aclue,I'd tell myfather thenumberand he'd try to say the answerbefore I wroteit in the grid, and vice versa." Albert, influ-enced by this early teamwork, rarely solvespuzzles alone. "I like cooperation more thancompetition."

The 34-year-old Aubumdale, Massachu-setts resident entered the world of profes-sional computing asa l3-year-oldby workingfor a company that published a magazineabut computers. '"The owner was interestedin doing research about artificial intelligenceand would hirehigh schml studens from myschml. Back then computrs were high-pricedrefrigerator-sized machines kept in lockedrc,oms. Almostnobdy got to see them. It was

wonderful. I got to eam money and leamprogramming."

He was influencedby this experience a fewyean later when he enrolled at Brown Univer-sity as a computer science major. Since he"already knew all ttre stuff they were going toleach about computers," he took the minimalnumber of computer courses and pursued aBA (rather ttran ttre raditional BS) degree incomputer science. While at Brown, Albertjoined a Scrabbleclub and leamed toplay thegame competitively, where the emphasis is onsmtegy. As his abilities progresed and hestarted to compete in more toumaments, heused a computer to give him a leading edge.

"I was able to track down a copy of TheOfficial ScrabblePlayers Dictionary in com-puter form." (He nenvorked with a formercolleague who owed him a favor and repaidthe debt by sending him the program.) He andafew other top Scrabbleplayers hackedawayat the dictionary to analyze the disribution oftiles in the game. They produced a list of theseven-letter words most likely [o show up onaScrabblerack. Then theymemorized thelist"enabling them to play more efficiently andscore higher points.

After graduating, Albert worked as a com-puter scientist for a company that qpeciatized

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Albert (from Page 5)in large govemment research projecs. A1-though he enjoyed his work and ttre financialcompensation he felt frusnated because, "Inever saw anyone using this stuffand it drovemecrazy."

So he worked for a few smaller companiesthat were creating consumerproducts. Throughone of these venhres, Albert and his co-workers designed and marketed a commercialprogram . Alttrough he became a partner/vice-president in this company, he "wasn't gettingup in the moming and looking forward togoing to work." He quit and decided to takestock of his life.

Albert reflected for a month-"lying onmy couch and talking with my s29."-s1ddecided to pursue a carcer as a psychottrera-pist The desire wasn't that bizarre for he hada background in social service-working forthe Samaritans, volunteering on a suicide hotline, and teaching sign language. After enroll-ing atl-esley College in Cambridge-snrdyin g,inteming, getting his degree, and ttren work-ing professionally-he realized that he nolonger wanted this career. "I liked being atherapist, but I had aromantic idea of what thejob hours were--not the job, the hours. Ithought it was 'work out of your own home,make your own hours, run your own life,' butit wasn't. Once my hours were set I had to dothe same ttring at the same time every week."

He retumed to the computer fieldand, intheinterim, metand marriedPeg. "When wedecided we wanted !o start trying to have achild we felt pretty strongly that one of usshould be home for the baby. Since peg iscomfortable working with big companies andI've never been enchanted with bureaucracy,we decided that it would do for me to stayhome once the baby arrived."

Albert's goals were specific: earn money,make his own hours, take care of the baby.What career could meet these needs? Whilehe was making his decision he attended theannual National Puzzlers' kague conventionand chatted with several league members whosupport themselves by creating crosswords.Suddenly, he thought, "I could do this. I'llmake a living selling crossword puzzles."

They all ried o dissuade him, pointing outthe main pitfall-low pay for a lot of work.This didn't deter Albert because, "I decidedthere was a chance of writing a computerprogram to speed up tl-reprocess andeliminatea lot of the grunt work. I felt that the normalpenon can't make a very good living doingcrossword puzzles, but maybe with the com-puter doing a lot of work I could."

He planned to spend one year trying to

design aprogram and gather information aboutpublishers' needs andpay rats. His immedi-ate goals were to find out if he could sellcrosswords and if the computer could handlemost of the work. The one-year restrictionwas necessary because he needed "anothercareer very quickly" ifthis one didn'tpan out.

As he was developing his program, twocolleagues provided professional assistance.Scott Marley, an editor for Dell ClampionPuzzles, gave Albert detailed oitiques of hiscomputer-generated grids, while Alan Frank,a master Scrabble player and computer ex-pert, helped him fine-tune his program. Thisfeedback was so valuable that "it actually cuta half year off of my leaming curve."

interested in volume. "My goal was a programthatcould construct grids that were notdistin-guishable from the best human constuctors(inAlbert's opinionHenryHook, MerlReagle,and Mike Shenk). If I was going 0o do thar thecomputer had to have taste; you couldn'tjustput a bunch of random words in ttre grid."

"As my database gew I would tag theentries (as many as 1,000 a day) and wouldrate each of them on how good I thought itwas, e.g., how much Iwanted itto show up inthe grid eventually. I would rate all the enriesforeach word length, go from A to Z for all thethree-letter words, then the 4-letter words,etc." Every time he completed rating a wordlength he was able to use words of ttrat lengttr

9.

10.

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Albert's venture has three major compo-.nents: the business side-sending outpuzzles,drumming up business, and getting paid; thecomputer program-constructing the grids;and the database-obtaining a huge collec-tion of words o frll the grids.

The database is the crux of the program.Starting with that hrst Scrabble dictionary incomputer form, Albert used his networkingabilities to b"ck down liss of words to add ohis base. "There were a lot of programsavailable thatindividuals hadjust tlped up ontheir own. I'd buy a copy of the program,figure out how it was encrypted, and thenwrite a program to decode it and move thewords to my database." Using this methodhe's added entire dictionaries, fivia lists, andspecialized liss-musicians, songs, books,authors, films, enterlainers, etc.-to his data-base.

Albert's goal was "to have the computerhll in the grrd as well as an expert. I decidedthat the way for me to make money was to gofor the Cadillac of crosswords." He wasn't

in his program. (He's completed the ratingsthrough the nine-letter enries.) He now has750,000 entries in his database; about 16 ofthem have been rated.

Albert soon realized that he was going to beable to produce puzzles that were as good asthe best stuff out there. He remembers the"golden moment" when someone actuallvcommissione d a ptzzlefrom him.

Eric andPeg's otherplans were on sched-ule also-they were expecting a baby in early199 1. He quithisjobjustbeforeGus wasborn.He had already started to sell his puzzles, hadpurchased a powerful computer and laserprinter, and had set up his home office. He'sbeen busy ever since.

A fypical day for Albert srarts ar 10:30 inthe moming (Gus is trained to sleep late) whenhe "rolls out of bed" and goes to the computerto see how it's frlled the grid ovemight. .,It'sone of the pleasures of my job that I get almostas much fun as the solven do because I don'tknowwhat's goingto show up. Frequently the

ERIC ALBERT'S RATING SYSTEMAlbert has given each entry in his database a number from 0 to 12. The

numberrepresents "how much I want to see an entry show up in the grid."0 is the best; 12 is "something which I probably wouldn't use, even in anuclear disaster." He rarely uses entries with a 9 or above. Note that anenffy can be one word, a phrase, a partial phrase, an abbreviation, etc. Hereare samples at each level:0. Dr. Jekyll; Fort Knoxl. full moon; game plan2. backstab; claptrap3. moonlit; octopus4. quality; Sharif (ag., Omar

_ )5. routine; notice6. dared; scoops?. feeblest; posers8. frere; abbr.

guns'n (e.g., Rock goup, _Roses);

Imno (e.g., Movie, "_ Angel")lnys (e.g., Acress Myma and family);WSI (e.g., abbr. for Wall Smeer Journal)nosarian; Sobscene) (this categoryrepresents very specinlized and/or ob-scene words that would never be usedin a mainstream puzzle)blastid; trabeae (very obscure words)

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(Continued on Page 9)Page 7

Albert (from Page 7)computer surprises me." Albert's cross-word-constructing process involves severalsteps-some manual and some computer-generated. First, he comes up with a tiemeand searches the database for the mainentries. After placing them in the gridmanually, the computer fills in the rest ofthe grid with black squares, following hispreset parameters. The computer gives himoptions by finding the first "legal" grid andthen continuing to find better ones. "WhenI get bored I stop the machine."

Next, the computer fills in the non-the-matic words one section at a time (he hasmanually pre-divided the grid into a fewmajor parts.) After the computer finds thefirst choice, it keeps offering somethingbetter and might come up with 30 or 40versions. "IfI have a rush deadline or I'mbored, I might stop it earlier. Usually thefirst grid is something that can be sold, butI'm trying to make a name for myself so ifI've got the time I'll push it all the way tocome up with the best one." Although mostgrids are completed in a few minutes to afew hours, he's been known "to spend a dayor two on really wide-open grids" (thosewith very few black squares).

After the grid is filled, the computerchecks the entries to eliminate duplicatewords and point out words which havesomething in common, e.g. dogfight anddogfish. "I scan thatquickly to see ifthere'sanything that bothers me. If there is, I'llrefill that section."

Albert then runs a program which allowshim to make sure he never duplicates a cluehe's already used for a magazine. (When-ever he finishes cluing a puzzle he enters allthe clued words in his base indicating themagazine to which it's going.) This pro-gram, after eliminating clues already usedfor a client, picks out the best unused clueand preclues almost halfof the puzzle.

Then he stara cluing "like a normal per-son." He feels that'tlues should have bal-ance. There shouldn't be a bunch of one-wordclues in a row, etc." Albert is "a slow cluer."He thinks that "no solver ever notices the hllbut they do notice the clues." He uses lots ofreference books and aims for clevemess.

After typing tle clues he uses a spell-check program to eliminate typos. Then heprints out the puzzle grids and clues andmails the pnzzle. Another program trackshis puzzles-where they've been sent, whoowes him money, when he gets paid.

His puzzles are foundin CROSSW RDmagazine, Dell Champion Crossword

"Pillar of the community?" ..Lot's wife"{oThe non.silence of the lambs" {(Baas',"Bookmakers?tt 6Pagedt'The eyes heve it" ..SlghtD

"Frequent fllers'n

"C*nlne.lover's lament?tt'Canlne klng?'{olorfut crnlne?tt

ttCalls a epade a thpade,, ftLlspsD"Lose one's tail" ..Shakett'{Recording star?t r{Pepysrt"Add your John Hancock?tt .Torgett"Useful artlclett ,olhe.

PuzzlesandDellChampionVarietyPuzzles forever. What he'dreally liketo do is to write(he does all the contests for these two maga- a best-selling murder mystery. But that's onzines), the Creators Syndicate edited by thebackbumerfornowbecausehedoeslikeStan Newman, Tough Puzzles, Games toseehisbylineonpuzzles,andhisnameand/magazine, united Media syndicated orpichre on the cover of a magazine. "That'spuzzles, the Washington Post, and the worth a lot to me."Crosswords-of-the-Month club. He also Although he's "in no danger of starving,"sells custom-made puzzles. he would like to get his salary closer to that

Albert feels that "there's a reason I sell of computer scientists. Acknowledging thateverything I do and there's areason I got so "in crosswords tlat's a challenge," he real-popular so quickly. unlike the majority of izes that he may have to go into editing orothers I construct to make money. I didn't syndicating to achieve those goals.grow up thinking someday I wanted to be a Rightnow his career allows him to spendcrossword constructor. Most people in this quality time with Peg and Gus, earn a fairbusiness really enjoy sitting down and amount of income, have a flexible workmaking crossword puzzles. The reason I schedule,andmakeanameforhimself.Hegot into this was to make a living; so I spend has few monthly commitments, preferringall my energies on two things-trying to to think of himself as a free-lancer and notmake the editors happy and trying to make even remotely as a hired person. Althoughthesolvershappy. Ialmostneverconstruct he's never been able to keep up with theapluzzle to make me happy." demand, and turns down work every month,

Albert keeps up with ttre competition by he doesn't anticipate increasing his output.CLUES AND THEMES FROM THE ALBERT FILE

"Junk mail"

From '"The Wizard of Paws" (Dogs + '"The Wizard of Oz'):'6If IOnly Hada Dane,''{Bowwowardly Llontt(Rover the Rainbodt

Some of Albert's grids are truly innovative. In "Tipping Permitted" the theme entries,"Tilt at windmills," "Angle for," and "Ifan on Me" were placed in the grid diagonallv.In "swiss cheeso" the theme entries had "holes" (black squares) in th; riaoi. "irii.phrases. Thus,the l3letterphrase,HOLEINTHEWALL, filled 15 boxes with twoblackspaces between H and E. In "Crushquote" Albert merged a Stepquote and a Crushword.The finished pazzle had a euote trat read from trt" top left square to the botrom rightsquare (the Stepquotepart), whilesomeofthesquares containedmorethan oneletter (theCrushword part).

buying every major pvzle publication andstudying the puzzles and letters columns tosee what's being published and to find outsolvers' preferences.

His program is designed for "lop-notchconsbructing ofpuzzles" and he doesn't envi-sion marketing it commercially. "Peoplewouldn't mind paying $50 for a progmm toconstruct one prtzzls. This program isn't forthat. I thinkthereareonlyadozenpeoplein theUnited States for whom this program wouldbe beneficial." But that's not to say that "ifsomeone came along lomorrow and gave mea check for $100,000 I wouldn't sell theprogram and start another business."

In spite of araining his work-related goals-freedom to set his own hours and financialindependence-Albert doesn't plan o do this

What he does envision is "hiring peopleto clue for me." He'd give them lists ofwords and let them unleash their creativityto write clever definitions. Then he'd addtheir clues to his database, filing each setunder the name of the cluer. "I could thenact as an editor of my own puzzles."

Albert hasbeen at his latest career longerthan the l8-month span of many prior ven-tures. Since Gus is very young, needs to benurtured for years, and might someday havea sibling who'll needcomparable attention,it's possible that his dad's crosswords willcontinue to give solvers pleasure for a longtime. nHELENE HOVANEC is editor and pub-lisher of Kids' Puzzle Express.

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