| Personal information | |
|---|---|
| Nationality |
|
| Born |
November 5, 1984 Hartford, Connecticut, USA |
| Sport | |
| Country |
|
| Sport | Cruciverbalism, Other puzzling |
| Event(s) | Solving, constructing |
| Achievements and titles | |
| National finals |
2005-2009: American Crossword Puzzle Tournament |
2005-2009: American Crossword Puzzle Tournament
Champion, Regional Champion, Age-Group Champion
2003: American Crossword Puzzle Tournament
Tyler Hinman (born November 5, 1984) is a crossword solver and constructor and a five-time winner of the American Crossword Puzzle Tournament (ACPT). He holds the tournament record for youngest champion ever (Hinman won as a 20-year-old in 2005), and formerly held the record for consecutive titles, with five, a feat matched and bested by 6-time champion Dan Feyer. Hinman has since placed second in the crossword tournament four of the past five years and he has finished third once. He was one of the featured players in the award-winning 2006 documentary film Wordplay.
Hinman was born in Hartford, Connecticut and raised in Connecticut and in England. While a 9th grade student at The American School In England (TASIS), Hinman was introduced to The New York Times crossword puzzle and became immediately interested. He first entered the ACPT as a 16-year-old in 2001, finishing 101st out of the 322 entered contestants.
After graduating from TASIS The American School in England in 2002, Hinman returned to the United States to attend Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute (RPI) where he earned a bachelor's degree in Information Technology in 2006 and joined the Phi Mu Delta fraternity. After graduating, he accepted a job in Chicago, Illinois as a bond trader at Darwin Capital Trading through a connection from the producer of the film Wordplay. After a little more than a year, Hinman reported that the position "wasn't working out" and left in October 2007 to move to the San Francisco Bay Area where in June 2008 he took a job as a developer at Google. Hinman is currently a games developer and software engineer at Lumosity in San Francisco.