Times Cryptic Masterclass: 9 October 2026 - MAGNIFICENT!

Today's crossword sees Ed Hall return with a challenging and brilliant Friday puzzle. As mentioned during the video introduction, if you'd like to watch The Times Crossword championship Grand Final then you can do so at the link below: https://www.youtube.com/live/uruPHkeyZN8 Simon's solving of Periodic Location by Nebuchadnezzar has been serialised on Patreon (5 episodes in all).   / crackingthecryptic   Do please remember to Subscribe if you enjoy these masterclasses and check out our new @MinuteCryptic in a Minute daily videos too! The puzzle is available to play on @TheTimes crossword club website (which is behind their paywall): https://www.thetimes.co.uk/puzzleclub... More information about The Magpie crossword magazine is available here: www.piemag.com ** NEW CROSSWORD CONTENT ON PATREON ** Mark's solve of The Times Club Monthly Special for this month is JUST out today! And there's a solve of recent Listener crosswords too:   / crackingthecryptic   ▶SUDOKU WORMS NOW LIVE! ◀ You can try worms (strings of sudoku which feed each other) by Marty Sears or James Sinclair (or both – approx. $1 apiece) either on Steam at these addresses or on AppStore: AppStore https://apps.apple.com/us/app/crackin... Steam https://store.steampowered.com/app/37... https://store.steampowered.com/app/37... ** ORDER OUR BOOK HERE ** https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/... ▶ Contact Us ◀ Twitter: @Cracking The Cryptic email: crackingthecryptic@gmail.com ▶ABOUT US◀ Hi! We're Simon Anthony and Mark Goodliffe, two of the UK's most enthusiastic puzzle solvers. We have both represented the UK at the World Sudoku Championships and the World Puzzle Championships. We're also "cryptic crossword" aficionados. Mark is the 14-time winner of The Times crossword championship and twice Senior World Champion in Sudoku, and Simon is the former record holder for most consecutive correct solutions to The Listener crossword. We hope we can help your puzzle solving while also introducing you to some of the world's best puzzles. Thank you for watching! Simon and Mark #crossword #puzzle #cryptic