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| What it Takes to Wear the Sudoku Crown | What it Takes to Wear the Sudoku Crown |
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| On a mid-October Monday, shortly before 9 a.m., 179 elite puzzlers made their way into the ballroom of a Toronto hotel and found their allocated seats for the World Sudoku and Puzzle Championships. Valentin Miakinen of France positioned a plastic, pigeon-shaped hunting decoy at the front of his desk, for luck. Hwangrae Lee, from Korea, polished his pencil sharpener with a tissue. Quiet descended as proctors distributed booklets for Round 1: nine Sudoku puzzles, with a 45-minute time limit. Thomas Snyder, the general manager of the event, announced: “We begin in 5, 4, 3, 2, 1 — go!” | On a mid-October Monday, shortly before 9 a.m., 179 elite puzzlers made their way into the ballroom of a Toronto hotel and found their allocated seats for the World Sudoku and Puzzle Championships. Valentin Miakinen of France positioned a plastic, pigeon-shaped hunting decoy at the front of his desk, for luck. Hwangrae Lee, from Korea, polished his pencil sharpener with a tissue. Quiet descended as proctors distributed booklets for Round 1: nine Sudoku puzzles, with a 45-minute time limit. Thomas Snyder, the general manager of the event, announced: “We begin in 5, 4, 3, 2, 1 — go!” |
| Dr. Snyder likened that moment — when competitors hurriedly flip open their booklets — to both Christmas morning and the start of the SAT, “a mix of joy and panic,” he said. Based in the San Francisco Bay Area, Dr. Snyder is trained as a chemist and works in immunology and genomics. He also founded and runs Grandmaster Puzzles, a puzzle publishing company. He is a three-time world Sudoku champion, and in 2018 he won the title of world puzzle champion, making him the first person to win both honors. | Dr. Snyder likened that moment — when competitors hurriedly flip open their booklets — to both Christmas morning and the start of the SAT, “a mix of joy and panic,” he said. Based in the San Francisco Bay Area, Dr. Snyder is trained as a chemist and works in immunology and genomics. He also founded and runs Grandmaster Puzzles, a puzzle publishing company. He is a three-time world Sudoku champion, and in 2018 he won the title of world puzzle champion, making him the first person to win both honors. |
| The annual championship event comprises two days of Sudoku, followed by three days of other types of pencil-and-paper logic puzzles. Some of the Sudokus were classics: In a 9-by-9 grid, insert a number from 1 to 9 into each cell so that no number repeats in any row, column or bolded 3-by-3 square region. There were also trickier variants, such as “Difference Sudoku,” for which the standard rules apply, but also each number shown in a circle between two adjacent cells indicates the difference of the numbers in those two cells. | The annual championship event comprises two days of Sudoku, followed by three days of other types of pencil-and-paper logic puzzles. Some of the Sudokus were classics: In a 9-by-9 grid, insert a number from 1 to 9 into each cell so that no number repeats in any row, column or bolded 3-by-3 square region. There were also trickier variants, such as “Difference Sudoku,” for which the standard rules apply, but also each number shown in a circle between two adjacent cells indicates the difference of the numbers in those two cells. |
| Although puzzlers qualify for the event on a national level, most attend just for fun and for the community — to revel with people who share in the same nerdy delight. A member of Italy’s team, Laura Tarchetti, sported a hoodie with a confession on the back: “SUDOKU ADDICTED.” Competitors came from 33 participating countries; the youngest was Toni Borozan, 14, of Croatia; the eldest was Jouni Sarkijarvi, 75, of Finland. | Although puzzlers qualify for the event on a national level, most attend just for fun and for the community — to revel with people who share in the same nerdy delight. A member of Italy’s team, Laura Tarchetti, sported a hoodie with a confession on the back: “SUDOKU ADDICTED.” Competitors came from 33 participating countries; the youngest was Toni Borozan, 14, of Croatia; the eldest was Jouni Sarkijarvi, 75, of Finland. |