I would've aced today's Mini Crossword if not for 1 Down. That was something I had never heard of before, and I tried a varietion on it as just a guess, then had to backtrack when

The NYT Mini is a smaller, quicker, more digestible, bite-sized version of the larger and more challenging NYT Crossword, and unlike its larger sibling, it’s free-to-play without a subscription to The New York Times. You can play it on the web or the app, though you’ll need the app to tackle the archive.