Local Crossword Champion Among Nation's Best

Prospect Heights resident Stella Zawistowski beat out nearly 700 competitors—including a computer—to finish ninth at this weekend's American Crossword Puzzle Tournament, held at the Marriott at the Brooklyn Bridge.

Last week, Zawistowksi that she would finish in the top ten as long as she didn't make any mistakes. It turned out that she was right.

"I did exactly what I set out to do, which was complete the tournament with no errors," she said today. "I figured that if I did this, I would get back into the top 10, and I was right."

Zawistowksi finished in the top ten in 2005 and 2010, but dropped to 17th last year. She blamed her relatively weak performance in 2011 on being overly ambitious.

"[My previous top 10 finishes] made me get greedy in other years, try to go faster, and then make careless errors," she said. "Unlike [world champion] Dan Feyer and Anne Erdmann, I am not quite fast enough to make a mistake and stay in the top 10, much less the final. So I'm very happy with the fact that I stuck to my plan."

What's the secret to Zawistowski's success? Practice, of course.

"I actually used to be in the bottom third of tournament solvers, and it was sheer volume of solving that pushed me up through the ranks," she said. "The more you solve, the more you are able to internalize the rules by which crossword puzzles are made, and the patterns of letters that tend to show up in them. And the more you internalize the rules, the less time you have to spend thinking about what the answer could be before you write it in."