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 97 92 99 111
Mara 92 89 85 92 97
Teazel 98 88 88 96 107
Hurley 94 81 86 93 102
Izetti 97 80 85 95 106
Jalna 99 61 91 101 107
Wurm 97 57 89 95 102
Orpheus 89 55 80 87 97
Pedro 103 48 95 102 110
Trelawney 74 46 68 74 77
Breadman 108 42 98 104 114
Oink 84 41 76 83 89
Felix 100 34 91 101 107
Alex 92 28 82 88 100
Asp 111 22 102 107 119
Pipsqueak 81 22 75 82 90
Cheeko 123 18 111 113 139
Dangle 87 17 83 90 93
Jimmy 86 16 81 84 89
Juji 100 14 91 94 112
Shay 112 14 101 108 117
Beck 98 12 90 96 105
Myles 103 11 93 102 112
Bjorn 112 10 100 113 123
City 107 9 106 113 113
Tango 85 7 76 87 90
Rongo 94 7 85 95 98
Lupa 111 7 102 120 122
Juno 109 6 102 108 117
Peridot 97 5 83 100 110
Loon 110 5 101 109 111
Kybos 109 5 105 110 115
Corelli 106 4 100 103 110
Kenny 101 4 94 104 111
Heron 91 4 88 95 98
Jet 120 2 115 120 124
Des 103 2 99 103 107
Apus 104 2 99 104 108
Alfie 95 2 94 95 95
Dove 109 2 105 109 113
the 99 1 99 99 99
Marty 89 1 89 89 89
Noel 118 1 118 118 118
Oran 126 1 126 126 126
Hawthorn 106 1 106 106 106
Frank 85 1 85 85 85
Teasel 93 1 93 93 93
Bubbles 84 1 84 84 84
Tilt 142 1 142 142 142
Worm 80 1 80 80 80