Her name shows up in the credits. But if you want to catch a glimpse of Amy Zekas Reynaldo ’88 in the 2006 documentary Wordplay, you’re going to need a good clue. “If you watch the video loop on the DVD’s main menu screen, you’ll see a woman in a lime-green top curtsy—that’d be me,” she wrote in an e-mail prior to our interview.

What Reynaldo didn’t say was that her curtsy was made to a cheering crowd following the judges’ declaration that she, a rookie at the 28th annual American Crossword Puzzle Tournament, had just won the B division finals. Her win surprised everyone, particularly Reynaldo herself. Like all first-timers at the event, she started out in the C division—halfway between A-level stars and the Es at the bottom. “I had no idea I’d end up in the B finals,” she says. “And I have no idea why I did that curtsy. But I’m glad I did because the director must have thought it was so dorky or charming that he put it in his film.”

Founded in 1978 by New York Times puzzle master Will Shortz, the tournament, held annually in Stamford, Connecticut, is the largest and longest-running crossword competition in the country. An avid crossword solver since age 12, Reynaldo had, of course, heard of the tournament but had never seriously considered going until 2004, when she began subscribing to the crossword puzzles on the New York Times Web site.

There, she and other puzzle aficionados compete against each other and against the clock. When she saw how her scores compared to those of others, she knew she was accurate and also fast enough to be competitive. “Until I started doing those puzzles online, I had no way of knowing how I was doing compared to anyone else,” she recalls. “Once I realized I could do well, I really wanted to go to the tournament.”

Because she hadn’t been practicing long, and because her son, Ben, was only four at the time, Reynaldo decided to wait until 2005. Coincidentally, Wordplay was being filmed that year.

To prepare for the competition, Reynaldo, who works as a medical editor in Chicago, upped her usual crossword regimen from a few hours a month to two or three hours a day. That’s a lot of crosswords when you consider that each puzzle takes someone of Reynaldo’s caliber only a few minutes to complete. “Sheer repetition really helps,” she explains. “You get used to the conventions you have to understand, such as what kinds of words come up over and over, and how to interpret clues and get around tricks, as well as wordplay.”

Reynaldo majored in English at Carleton, and people assume that her mastery of words gives her an edge at the competition. It probably helps. But research has shown that the best solvers have math or music backgrounds. “Those people have a knack for seeing patterns and spatial relationships,” Reynaldo says, adding that she almost majored in math before calculus did her in.

Though it is often said that the Sunday New York Times crossword is the most mind-bending puzzle of the week, skilled puzzlers know that those on Friday and Saturday are much more difficult, says Reynaldo. “Sunday puzzles take a long time because they’re larger. But the ones on Friday and Saturday are much harder because there is no theme and the clues are intended to be difficult and tricky.” These hard-to-get-your-head-around puzzles are Reynaldo’s favorite. “I like puzzles that not only challenge me but also make me laugh,” she says. “I like to read the clue and figure out what the answer is and how it relates overall. Then you can see how the constructor is playing with you and you get this little ‘Aha!’ moment.”

Like most serious crossword solvers, Reynaldo dabbles in other puzzle-related pursuits, too. On her blog, “Diary of a Crossword Fiend”, she and other top-notch solvers post their times and debate the merits of the various puzzles published that week. In January she finished a book for St. Martin’s Press that is titled How to Conquer the New York Times Crossword Puzzle: Tips, Tricks and Techniques to Master America’s Favorite Puzzle and was published in July.

But this is clearly just the beginning of Reynaldo’s story. In 2006 she waved good-bye to her husband and son and headed off to Stamford again. She competed in the A division, coming in fifth overall out of nearly 500 competitors. “I was really happy with that,” she says. “But only the top three make the finals. I’d like to win that tournament one day.”

View clips from Wordplay.

MELEAH MAYNARD is a freelance writer in Minneapolis.