Exposed: Confession of Sneaky Crossword Solver

As a detective, my initial thought upon reading the crossword clue ‘Confession from someone who had an ace up the sleeve‘ was that the solution likely involves someone cheating or breaking the rules in a game where having an ‘ace up the sleeve‘ would give them an unfair advantage. I then turned my attention to the letters in the clue itself, noticing that the word ‘cheated‘ could be formed by rearranging several of them. This led me to consider the possibility that the answer could be ‘ICHEATED‘ – not only does it fit the clue, but it also includes the letters from the word ‘ace‘ (albeit in a jumbled order). Moreover, ‘I cheated‘ is a common confession phrase, which adds further credibility to the idea that this is the solution the crossword designer was hinting towards. Taking all of these clues and insights into consideration, I confidently filled in ‘ICHEATED‘ as the answer to the crossword puzzle.