Crossword SNITCH

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

Times Cryptic Crossword 5156

Date 23 March 2025
Number 5156
Day of week Sunday
NITCH 92
Count of ref solvers 42
Ref solvers excluded with errors 0
Link to crossword View Crossword*
Times for the Times Link 5156

* Requires access to the Times Crossword Club

Detailed solving results

Reference, Tracked and Blog solvers with error-free solutions to this puzzle are shown below.

We also show the solver's Personal NITCH, which is their result on this puzzle compared to their average time, and the Wavelength Index of Times Cryptic Hardness, the WITCH, which is the Personal NITCH compared to the SNITCH.

Name TfTT Name Average time This time Personal NITCH WITCH
Paul Gilbert 05:52 14:18 243 264
Magoo 05:55 07:30 126 136
Nathan Panning 05:57 04:46 80 86
cmjhutton 06:06 04:50 79 85
Jason 06:08 06:46 110 119
verlaine Verlaine 06:29 07:19 112 121
aphis99 aphis99 07:18 09:37 131 142
Jif1603 08:31 07:24 86 93
donalhurley11 08:39 06:09 71 77
HoneyBadger HoneyBadger 08:46 08:51 100 108
Umpire 09:03 06:08 67 72
tunflog 09:11 07:02 76 82
fshephe 09:12 03:08 34 36
AlanS 09:38 10:02 104 113
Icarus 09:41 11:58 123 133
DennisO 10:35 12:09 114 123
chindit 10:40 13:05 122 132
Deane Short Deane Short 10:49 10:03 92 100
lickert 10:55 13:40 125 135
scrabbler 11:10 13:16 118 128
keriothe_ keriothe 11:25 09:51 86 93
philjordan1147 BUSMAN 11:28 09:16 80 86
MikeOsborne mikeosborne 11:32 11:25 98 106
Tom Stubbs Tom Stubbs 11:37 12:07 104 113
Heyesey 11:44 08:07 69 75
Morphosis 11:49 14:36 123 133
fuzz 11:50 10:39 90 97
andy 11:52 13:38 114 123
tilbee 12:01 13:11 109 118
Amoeba89 Amoeba 12:07 09:00 74 80
Glencairn 12:46 11:26 89 96
MJLD 12:56 04:08 31 33
canismiser 13:01 11:55 91 98
Secondbass 13:13 13:12 99 107
LouWeed LouWeed 13:40 10:45 78 84
alexh 13:55 13:15 95 103
Semillon 14:15 12:19 86 93
Ben Staveley 14:32 12:56 88 95
Tibthorpe 14:38 14:56 102 110
franceslc11 15:01 11:42 77 83
Looch 15:11 11:05 72 78
Finzi 15:11 15:49 104 113
andrewlake 15:45 11:21 72 78
Valance 16:52 16:41 98 106
ilan 17:04 16:39 97 105
DanSolo 17:22 15:49 91 98
Galspray (Rabbitoh) galspray 18:02 11:43 64 69
KET 18:06 10:53 60 65
Mike Mansbridge 18:10 14:04 77 83
Zander 18:20 14:45 80 86
thewanderingeditor 18:22 15:00 81 88
ramf 19:04 16:44 87 94
Colin2355 19:06 14:05 73 79
Nangle 19:15 15:47 81 88
Curarist Curarist 19:16 14:51 77 83
Upfisher 20:06 13:19 66 71
george.garlick 20:41 11:54 57 61
Kevin Gregg Kevin Gregg 28:48 22:32 78 84
vinyl12345 vinyl1 31:31 37:16 118 128

A guide to the solver status

Legend
 Reference solver used for SNITCH
 Other Reference solver
 Tracked solver
 Blog solver

Blog Solvers

Blog Solvers are those who have allowed their times to be taken from the Times for the Times blog.

Notes for Blog Solvers:

  • the most reliable format for reporting times is with format "mm:ss" or as "x minutes" in the title or at the start of the entry
  • only the first main comment for each blogger is used; responses to other comments or a second comment is ignored
  • to report errors, include "n errors" just after the time
  • If you just have a time it is assumed you have no errors unless you mention DNF or pink squares or giving up, etc, in the text
  • Examples of good time notifications are "38:30, 0 errors" and "39 minutes, 0 errors" in the comment title or as the first part of your comment

Notes

The definition of Reference and Tracked solvers is described on the Neutrinos page.

The results for Reference solvers are normally used to calcuate the SNITCH. When this happens they are shown in the list with a solid blue line to the left. In the previous SNITCH results listing for each crossword, these were the only entries shown.

The most common causes for Reference solver results not to be used are: (a) that they did not meet the criteria this month to be used as a reference (e.g. they may not have completed enough puzzles on each day of the week) or (b) they have been pushed out of the top 100 on the leader board. In these cases, the results are now shown, but their data is not used for the SNITCH calculation.

Where there is data for Tracked solvers, I show them also in this table. The solving data is not always available, as the Crossword Club site only shows the top 100 solvers to everyone. Logged-in users get their own leaderboard position and those around them, but this is not available to everyone. So the SNITCH site only gets data for those who have made the top 100 in the leaderboard at some point during the day.

As a result there are a few geographically advantaged solvers; those of us who solve early in the day (e.g. we in the Antipodes, those in Asia and those staying up late in North America) are more likely to hit the leaderboard even with slower times. Solvers who are just as capable but solve later in the UK day might not make the top 100 and I have no way to capture their results.

You may wonder why there are Tracked solvers (in red) with low average solving times, mixed in with the Reference solvers (in blue). These are usually those that, while they don't seem to be Neutrinos, are not well aligned to the SNITCH. So I don't use them as Reference solvers in the SNITCH calculation, but still show their overall results.

You might also notice that there's some inconsistency at the tail end of the Reference solver list. My cutoff point is an average solving time of 45 minutes. But if someone around this mark is chosen as a Reference solver, their next month's results might end up being over 45 minutes and they will still be used. Alternatively, a Tracked solver might creep in under 45 minutes on the next calculation, but didn't make the cut for the prior Reference list. It's on the to-do list to see if I can make this a bit more predictable.

Stored SNITCH Values

Here are the SNITCH values (stored on the day) from the crossword.

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