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 101 77 92 99 112
Mara 91 71 85 91 96
Teazel 99 69 89 96 108
Izetti 98 66 87 95 107
Hurley 94 64 87 93 102
Orpheus 89 55 80 87 97
Jalna 99 45 92 98 105
Wurm 99 39 91 98 105
Pedro 104 38 95 102 111
Trelawney 75 36 69 74 79
Breadman 110 35 101 104 120
Oink 84 34 76 83 89
Felix 100 34 91 101 107
Alex 91 23 83 89 99
Jimmy 86 16 81 84 89
Pipsqueak 84 16 79 87 91
Asp 110 12 99 108 117
Cheeko 122 12 110 117 139
Myles 103 11 93 102 112
Beck 100 11 93 97 108
Lupa 111 7 102 120 122
Dangle 83 7 76 85 90
Juji 100 7 89 97 111
Bjorn 109 6 100 109 114
Rongo 95 6 87 95 99
Shay 113 6 100 108 111
Juno 109 6 102 108 117
Peridot 97 5 83 100 110
Corelli 106 4 100 103 110
Kenny 101 4 94 104 111
Alfie 95 2 94 95 95
Des 103 2 99 103 107
Noel 118 1 118 118 118
Jet 111 1 111 111 111
Kybos 120 1 120 120 120
City 98 1 98 98 98
Marty 89 1 89 89 89
Hawthorn 106 1 106 106 106
Oran 126 1 126 126 126
Bubbles 84 1 84 84 84
Teasel 93 1 93 93 93
Telawney 68 1 68 68 68