Want to Be a Crossword Champion? Start With the Right Pencil. (2024)

A solver needs three things from a writing implement in a crossword competition: precision, comfort, and speed. In most cases, a mechanical pencil delivers each of those qualities better than an old-fashioned pencil does.

For starters, “A regular pencil starts out very sharp, but it doesn’t take long before it gets a little more rounded,” Hinman said. Mechanical pencils, on the other hand, maintain a sharp tip and a crisp line no matter how long you’re writing, because all it takes is a super-quick click of the knock to keep the lead fresh. That’s an important detail when your answers need to be legible not just to you but also to total strangers (that is, the ACPT judges).

“When you’re judging, if you can’t read something, you have to mark it wrong,” says New York Times Games columnist Deb Amlen, who has served as an ACPT judge. “You’re not going to sit there for long periods of time and try to determine what they wrote, because you’ve got thousands of puzzles to judge. So it’s in the solvers’ best interests for their writing to be clear.”

Second, a wooden pencil’s typically hexagonal barrel may not offer the most comfortable feel—particularly when you’re clenching it in a timed, high-stress environment. Mechanical pencils typically feature a grip that provides a more ergonomic grasp between your fingers, even when your competitive juices have you pressing on it hard. “I’ve gotten very used to the grip; it’s got a good feel to it,” Hinman said. At a tournament, “there’s a benefit I get from just being comfortable with it,” he added. “And the fact that the stroke is consistent doesn’t hurt.”

All of that literal and figurative pressure, of course, may also precipitate the most obvious risk of using a regular pencil: pushing down on the paper hard enough that the lead breaks mid-solve. Though any mechanical pencil allows you to remedy that issue with a simple click, hardcore solvers know that only certain, rare pencils—like the Twist-Erase III with 0.9 mm lead—may prevent such a disaster in the first place.

Mechanical pencils come in a variety of lead widths. According to Wirecutter senior staff writer Melanie Pinola, who wrote our mechanical pencils guide and has tested 61 writing implements for Wirecutter since 2021, those widths typically range from 0.3 mm to 0.9 mm, with 0.5 mm being the most common.

Not every mechanical pencil is offered in models that accommodate wider leads; all of our mechanical pencil top picks, for example, are available only in 0.5 mm and 0.7 mm models. The Pentel Twist-Erase III goes up to 0.9 mm, and as a hardcore solver will likely tell you, it’s much more preferable to err on the wider side.

In a FAQ page for tournament rookies (PDF), the ACPT notes, “Most champion solvers prefer thicker leads (0.7 and 0.9) as they are less prone to breaking during rapid solving.” Hinman told us, “I like the 0.9 mm because I don’t really snap it. I don’t mind a 0.7 mm, but the 0.9 mm just gives me that extra sturdiness. The 0.5 mm is unusable; forget it.”

Even crossword-puzzle champions make mistakes. For those, the Twist-Erase III offers an extra-long, smudge-resistant, built-in eraser, which just might be Hinman’s favorite feature on the pencil.

“I do want a clean erase,” he said. “In a tournament setting, if the eraser leaves a really deep gray smudge, it’s a problem. Maybe I move away from a word because I can’t figure it out, and then at the end of the puzzle, it looks like everything’s filled in because you have that gray smudge in that one spot, which is kind of everyone’s nightmare.”

Erasers can be annoying to replace and refill, so the length of the Twist-Erase III eraser—more than 2.5 inches—is a huge bonus.

“The Twist-Erase is really just the queen of the long eraser,” Hinman said. “A lot of pencils of all stripes have such small erasers, and you can replace them, [but] it doesn’t take long to use them up.”

When the Twist-Erase III’s eraser is finally ready for replacement, refills are remarkably cheap. “I can get a box of three replacement erasers for a couple bucks, and I’m good to go for another several months,” Hinman said. (As a San Francisco resident, Hinman buys his refills at , but they’re available online from Pentel and Amazon as well.)

While the devoted following for the Pentel Twist-Erase III is undeniable (Amlen called it “the chic one and the most popular one to use” at the ACPT), winning the ACPT without one is certainly possible. Just ask nine-time champion Dan Feyer, who told us in an email interview that the only crossword accessory he has purchased in the past five years is a 40-pack of Bic Xtra-Smooth mechanical pencils.

“My job already uses pencils exclusively, so before I got into crosswords, I always had a bunch of cheap mechanical pencils with me,” Feyer—whose main gig is working as a music director and keyboardist for musical theater—added in a phone interview. “For sheet music purposes, you have to mark things in pencil on your music as you’re rehearsing. So when I started solving crosswords, I just used those because that’s what was around my house.”

The Bic Xtra-Smooth is available with a 0.7 mm lead width, which Feyer said is thick enough for him that breakage is not a persistent problem, though he added, “That’s definitely happened to me while solving a tournament puzzle, getting too excited and pressing too hard.”

Feyer’s favorite thing about the Xtra-Smooth pencils, however, is probably how they’re available in bulk for about 10 bucks.

“With these, I won’t have to think about having extra pencils around,” he said. “I’ve got about 10 in my bag at any point, and at work, at a show … there’s always someone who needs a pencil. I can give one away and not worry about getting it back.”

Further proof that a fancy pencil isn’t an essential part of making your mark at the ACPT: The 2024 tournament champion, Paolo Pasco, proudly fills out his grids with a Dixon Ticonderoga Classic Yellow Wood-Cased Pencil, which happens to be Wirecutter’s budget pick.

His reason is simple. As he told us at the tournament in April: “I tried mechanical pencils, but I write so hard, I break the lead.”

This article was edited by Alexander Aciman and Catherine Kast.