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 98 63 92 99 108
Mara 90 59 83 90 96
Teazel 98 57 89 96 107
Izetti 98 55 87 97 107
Hurley 95 51 88 94 102
Orpheus 89 48 79 86 97
Jalna 100 38 92 98 106
Wurm 98 31 91 97 102
Trelawney 74 31 69 74 78
Oink 85 29 79 83 89
Pedro 105 28 95 105 110
Breadman 109 27 101 104 120
Felix 101 27 91 101 110
Alex 90 21 84 89 99
Jimmy 86 16 81 84 89
Pipsqueak 86 14 80 87 91
Myles 103 10 91 106 113
Cheeko 125 10 111 124 139
Asp 113 10 101 110 121
Beck 99 8 93 96 101
Dangle 85 6 79 86 91
Lupa 112 6 105 121 122
Peridot 97 5 83 100 110
Shay 117 5 106 111 112
Rongo 97 5 95 96 101
Juji 96 5 85 92 97
Bjorn 111 5 104 115 115
Corelli 106 4 100 103 110
Juno 117 3 114 120 122
Kenny 97 3 90 99 104
Des 103 2 99 103 107
Alfie 96 1 96 96 96
Marty 89 1 89 89 89
Hawthorn 106 1 106 106 106
Bubbles 84 1 84 84 84