Times Crossword Championship 2026

Yesterday was the annual Times Crossword Championship in London and, once again, I was competing.

You can read the Times newspaper article about it here. As the Times Crossword Club summary says..

"Congratulations to the new Times Crossword Champion Liam Hughes, who won a tense final after solving the final puzzle in 10:05 with no mistakes.

Second placed was 2023 winner Matthew Marcus, who was the last of the finalists to finish, in 12:12, but was the only other solver to complete the puzzle correctly. Third-placed Chloe Hutton, the fastest finisher, took 8:09 but made one mistake, as did Peter Steggle in fourth and the 2025 champion and 14-time winner Mark Goodliffe in fifth,at 11:14 and 11:16 respectively.

Erik Agard, a former winner of the American Crossword Puzzle Tournament who came over from Kansas City for the event, won the Richard Rogan Prize for best newcomer, finishing fourth in the qualifier and 12th in the semi-final.

Liam, a 29-year old postdoctoral researcher in maths based in Helsinki, sets a new record for the youngest champion, being two months younger than Guy Haslam when he won in 1992.

The final was livestreamed on YouTube with closeup views of the contestants' puzzles, and expert commentary by Times deputy crossword editor Colin Thomas. You can watch it back here, but be warned it contains spoilers if you plan to tackle the final puzzle when it is printed in the paper and online on Monday."

The official photographer Stewart Williams' picture of the 5 finalists is shown at the top of this post. You can see his excellent photo gallery of the day here. It's not easy to find me in the photos but I am in a handful.

As for the competition... I struggled a bit in the qualifying round getting stuck for about 3 minutes on my last two clues - one in the second puzzle  "Good malware possibly hiding trace of pirated material (7)" - answer GROGRAM and one in the third "Do try bending out (6)" - answer CONVEX, so finished with only about 4 1/2 minutes to spare out of the hour.

Alas I must have made a typo or something in the first puzzle as it was marked 29/30, but I've no idea what the error was as, as far as I can see, I got it all right. That meant I was ranked 64th out of 113 and missed out on a place in the semi-final instead of 52nd - still not as good as last year. But never mind. I still got to do the semi-final crosswords and managed to finish them all on the train home. I thought the puzzle difficulty was well-pitched with the semi-final puzzles (and final) noticeably harder than the qualifiers, which were about a Wednesday average in difficulty.

I saved the final puzzle to solve today - no time, I'm afraid as I got interrupted by Dawn to go for a walk at Ickworth House while it was nice and sunny, but I did finish it all correctly.

As usual several of us met up at The George afterwards. Gosh it was busy!

Here are a few of my photos.

My train from Bury St. Edmunds.

It was 3 minutes late so I got to see the sun rise over the sugar factory.

I had plenty of time this year and enjoyed my walk from Liverpool St in the sun.

I passed a photo shoot.

I crossed London Bridge.

I had a little wander through Borough Market. Lots of yummy food!

The News building, home of The Times and venue for the Championship. People were waiting outside to get in.

Through the airport style security. I wondered if my new knee implant would set off the scanner, but it didn't. Then there was some light breakfast and drinks before the start.

Phil Jordan had come this year. Here he is with Chris Williams.

Penfold, Astonvill1 and Keriothe were here too.

Verlaine had come over from the US again.

Peter Biddlecombe, Sunday Times crossword editor in conversation with Amoeba.

The room was set out for 121 people.

At my desk ready to turn off my phone before the signal to start.

All done with the qualifiers, I spent some time enjoying the fabulous views before joining the queue for lunch.

Mike Harper and Pootle.

Mick Hodgkin (Puzzles Editor) and Jason Crampton (Times Crossword Editor) hosted a Q&A.

I didn't make the cut-off for the semi-final but was able to sit at the back and tackle the puzzles at the same time as those did.

As before, the finalists sat on the stage to tackle the final puzzle. An innovation this year was for each to have a camera looking down at their desks and a live video stream (see link in the introduction) mixed in some coverage from the cameras.

Before the winner was announced, Erik was presented with his prize for top-finishing newcomer.

Liam Hughes, our new champion.

Liam and Matthew Marcus (aka Verlaine), 2nd.

The George.

A few photos from The George. Here we were joined by Linxit.

Ed Hall is one of the setters and is another Suffolk resident.

Davidivad1 got a young lady sat at this table to take a photo, which includes me.

We tried using the app to order drinks for our table, but it took a looooong time.

A last few photos.

And then it was time to go and get my 8pm train home.

A great day out, as always, if rather exhausting. Congratulations to our winners Liam, Matthew, Chloe and Erik. Well done to The Times for organising it and it was great to see so many familiar faces.

You can see more of my photos here on Flickr.