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 98 92 99 110
Mara 92 90 85 91 97
Teazel 98 89 89 96 107
Hurley 94 82 86 93 102
Izetti 97 81 85 95 106
Jalna 99 62 89 100 106
Wurm 97 58 89 95 102
Orpheus 89 55 80 87 97
Pedro 103 49 96 102 110
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 23 102 108 120
Pipsqueak 81 22 75 82 90
Cheeko 122 19 110 112 139
Dangle 89 18 83 90 93
Jimmy 86 16 81 84 89
Juji 101 15 91 96 113
Shay 112 15 101 106 116
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 8 76 88 91
Rongo 94 7 85 95 98
Lupa 111 7 102 120 122
Juno 109 6 102 108 117
Kybos 109 5 105 110 115
Heron 91 5 93 95 96
Peridot 97 5 83 100 110
Loon 110 5 101 109 111
Corelli 106 4 100 103 110
Kenny 101 4 94 104 111
Dove 108 3 104 107 112
Alfie 95 2 94 95 95
Apus 104 2 99 104 108
Tilt 133 2 128 133 137
Jet 120 2 115 120 124
Des 103 2 99 103 107
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
Worm 80 1 80 80 80