Quick SNITCH

A quantitative guide to the degree of difficulty of the Times Quick Cryptic Crossword

Crossword Setters and Difficulty

This table shows an overview of all crossword setters in the database, including how many crosswords they've authored and how difficult their puzzles tend to be.

  • Setter: The name of the person who created the crossword. Click the name to view all their crosswords.
  • Average NITCH: A measure of difficulty, where 100 is average. Higher numbers are harder; lower numbers easier.
  • # Crosswords: The total number of crosswords attributed to that setter.
  • 25th Percentile: 25% of the setter’s crosswords are easier than this value. It gives a sense of their easiest puzzles.
  • Median: 50% of the setter’s crosswords are easier/harder than this value. A difference from the average highlights a skew in the distribution
  • 75th Percentile: 25% of their crosswords are harder than this. It shows how difficult their tougher puzzles are.

You can click on any column header to sort the table by that column. Click again to reverse the order (ascending/descending).

Setter Average NITCH # Crosswords 25th Percentile Median 75th Percentile
Joker 100 87 92 99 111
Mara 91 80 85 91 97
Teazel 99 79 89 97 107
Izetti 97 74 85 95 106
Hurley 95 73 88 93 102
Orpheus 89 55 80 87 97
Jalna 99 54 91 99 106
Wurm 98 49 91 97 103
Pedro 103 43 95 102 111
Trelawney 75 41 69 74 79
Breadman 109 38 98 104 115
Oink 84 38 76 82 89
Felix 100 34 91 101 107
Alex 91 26 83 88 99
Pipsqueak 82 20 74 83 91
Asp 109 17 102 105 116
Jimmy 86 16 81 84 89
Cheeko 122 15 111 114 139
Dangle 86 13 78 88 93
Juji 99 11 91 96 109
Beck 100 11 93 97 108
Myles 103 11 93 102 112
Shay 114 10 101 108 116
Bjorn 113 8 102 113 119
Rongo 94 7 85 95 98
Lupa 111 7 102 120 122
Juno 109 6 102 108 117
Peridot 97 5 83 100 110
City 111 5 110 113 113
Kenny 101 4 94 104 111
Corelli 106 4 100 103 110
Loon 113 3 105 109 120
Kybos 113 3 110 115 117
Tango 84 3 76 76 88
Des 103 2 99 103 107
Alfie 95 2 94 95 95
Heron 100 2 98 100 102
Jet 111 1 111 111 111
Hawthorn 106 1 106 106 106
Marty 89 1 89 89 89
Noel 118 1 118 118 118
Oran 126 1 126 126 126
Bubbles 84 1 84 84 84
Teasel 93 1 93 93 93
Apus 95 1 95 95 95