World Sudoku Championship 2012

The 7th World Sudoku Championship was held from 1st-3rd October, 2012 at Kraljevica, Croatia.

Championship Page

The Indian team was selected from the Indian Sudoku Championship 2012 and I had hinted this team is probably the best four in India presently (considering Rishi is not in India).

Indian Team
Rohan Rao
Sumit Bothra
Gaurav Korde
Rakesh Rai

Unofficial
Prasanna Seshadri

Captain
Amit Sowani

Download WSC Instruction Booklet

The first thought on seeing the IB was "This is going to be exhausting". 7 Individual Rounds + 2 Team Rounds in a day is a bit too much in my opinion.

Regarding the rounds and the puzzles, 5 of the 7 rounds were based on some linking between the puzzles. Most of the sudokus were well-known types or minor tweaks to common variations, so not much of 'new variations' to look forward to.

I finished 12th at last year's World Sudoku Championship missing the playoffs by 2 ranks. This year, only the top 8 qualify for playoffs and that was my goal.

Another surprise was defending champion Thomas Snyder's decision to not participate in the WSC as his focus and goal was to win the WPC and thus be the first player to win the WSC as well as WPC.

Part 1: Pinnochio
It was a decent start. I could solve all but one sudoku though I had 5+ mins for the last one.

Part 2: Smurfs
This was the big round. Maximum points. Triplets of sudokus linked with a pair of common cells. It was quite messy trying to look at three grids simultaneously considering the sudokus were not on the same page. A lot of turning of pages was required. It got quite irritating after a while, but it turned out to be a good round for me.
I would have preferred to have smaller sized grids, but each triplet on one page.

Part 3: Snow White And The Seven Dwarfs
Another linked round which was not very good. 7 mini sudokus and 1 big tough sudoku. The last sudoku was worth 30 points which is quite big considering the rest and most of the scores read 60 or 90+ thus giving a large point advantage to those 4~5 players who were able to solve the big one. I went for the kill attempting the 30-pointer as soon as I figured the missing clues, but fell short on time. That also lead one of my minis to remain incomplete.

Part 4: The Muppet Show
Again, flipping of pages to identify the codes of the cartoons, and then solving the Irregular Sudokus. I thought this was a bad-themed round. There was hardly any 'solving' required to figure out the codes, it was more like just flipping through all the grids and eliminating the possibilities using standard row/column/region constraints. An average round for me.

Part 5: Professor Balthazaar
This was a good round for me even though I missed the high-pointers.

Part 6: Disneyland
I've always had one bad round at every WSC and this time it was Round 6. I kept making solving errors in one puzzle after another and this round pulled me down to 11th place.

Part 7: TNT
Even though the scores weren't out (I didn't know I was 11th before this round), I had a feeling my rank was somewhere between 8th and 15th. It was a tough chance to make it to playoffs but possible if I had an extremely good round and some of the other competitors miss out.
And it turned out to be a dream round. I finished 5th (But got time bonus of 4th place because one of the top four would've turned in incorrect solutions, I think it was Jan) and all the other results went my way.

So, I finished 8th. I made it to the playoffs. The first Indian to rank in the top 10 and the first Indian to make it to a WSC playoffs (I don't consider 2009 WSC as a valid 'playoff'). It felt great, and I was extremely happy.

Playoffs
The playoffs format was a one-on-one quarterfinal followed by semi-final and final. I was up against 1st-placed Kota Morinishi (Japan). The one good thing about being 8th in the playoffs is, you can't get worse! So, I had nothing to lose. The sudokus to be solved during the playoffs were to be chosen by the higher ranked player 1st and then the lower ranked player from among three pools. All the top players obviously chose from the non-Classic pools, so there was not much choice for me

1st Kota Morinishi (Japan) vs 8th Rohan Rao (India)
Mine was the first playoff. An Irregular Sudoku which Kota beat me easily followed by a Medium Classic which he beat me again. 2-0 to Kota and he qualified for the semi-final.

4th Jakub Ondrousek (Czech Republic) vs 5th Hideaki Jo (Japan)
Hideaki won the first, Jakub won the second and Hideaki convincingly won the third and advanced to the semi-final against Kota.

3rd Tiit Vunk (Estonia) vs 6th Bastien Vial-Jaime (France)
Tiit won 2-1 but it was a close fight.

2nd Jan Mrozowski (Poland) vs 7th Chen Cen (China)
Jan won easily 2-0 to setup the semi-final against Tiit.

Semi-Final 1: Kota Morinishi (Japan) vs Hideaki Jo (Japan)
An all-Japan semis which Kota sweeped.

Semi-Final 2: Jan Mrozowski (Poland) vs Tiit Vunk (Estonia)
Tiit made some silly errors and Jan outclassed him.

Final: Kota Morinishi (Japan) vs Jan Mrozowski (Poland)
A best-of-5 finals which Jan won 3-1.

Individual Results

1. Jan Mrozowski (Poland)
2. Kota Morinishi (Japan)
3. Hideaki Jo (Japan)
4. Tiit Vunk (Estonia)
5. Jakub Ondrousek (Czech Republic)
6. Bastien Vial-Jaime (France)
7. Chen Cen (China)
8. Rohan Rao (India)

Complete Results

Team Results

1. Japan
2. Czech Republic
3. China
4. Germany
5. France
6. Slovakia
7. India
8. Hungary
9. Poland
10. USA

Complete Results

Indian Results

8. Rohan Rao
32. Gaurav Korde
37. Rakesh Rai
51. Sumit Bothra

39. Prasanna Seshadri (unofficial)

It was nice meeting up with everyone again and it was a dream-come-true to make it to the playoffs. The team also performed well to get 7th which equalled our 2008's 7th rank.

The sudokus were tough, which is very evident from the scores. They were fun but could have been better at a couple of places. I am not completely in favour of the playoff format used. I would never suggest a one-on-one system when the entire time you are playing against all participants simultaneously. Solving on a board is never the same as solving on paper. It may be nice for the audience but is it really the best way for solvers? Why not have the same grids on paper and use a camera, like in WSC 2010. Most of the top solvers use a lot of pencilmarks (and guesswork at times) which is not feasible on huge flex sheets. The concept of an eraser is lost.

Congrats to Jan Mrozowski who wins his third WSC title to equal Thomas's record. Good performance by Kota Morinishi and Hideaki Jo and the Japanese team for an amazing result.

Apart from a couple of problems, the organisers were helpful and did a good job. The results and checking was done at a fairly good pace and updates were regular. Thanks to all the Croatian organisers and hope to see more of you in future (but without cartoons please!).

As for the Indian results, Gaurav and Sumit were way below par and it was disappointing to see them perform poorly. But debutant Rakesh Rai had a phenomenal result ranked 37th. Hope to see him improve in future. I really missed Rishi (I hope you read this!) this year and I hope my dream of playing with him as part of Team India comes true sooner rather than later.

I'm looking forward to WSC 2013 which will be held in Beijing, China. Hope to see the top players there and I hope to perform even better next year :-)

World Sudoku Championship 2011

The 6th World Sudoku Championship and 20th World Puzzle Championship was held on 6th-10th November, 2011 in Eger, Hungary.

Championship Page

This is the first time the WSC and WPC was held as a combined event.

Team India
The national finals of the Indian Sudoku Championship and the Indian Puzzle Championship was held in June 2011. Unfortunately, Ritesh Gupta and Gaurav Korde were unable to attend the WSC, and Harmeet Singh was unable to attend the WPC. So, we were forced to go down the list and finally are team consisted of:

Sudoku Team
Sumit Bothra (Bengaluru)
Tejal Phatak (Mumbai)
Prasanna Seshadri (Mumbai)
Rohan Rao (Mumbai)

Puzzle Team
Rajesh Kumar (Bengaluru)
Rajib Ranjan Borah (Mumbai)
Tejal Phatak (Mumbai)
Rohan Rao (Mumbai)

I was very busy since I had three exams before my trip and have my entire end-semester examinations immediately after my trip, so I spent minimal time for puzzles. Not the best thing to do by a national champion but I was left with little choice.

Last year I stood 15th in WSC and my goal this year was to reach the top 10. I really thought I could make it this time, especially with my improvement in the LMI tests and other championship results.



6th November, 2011
We reached Eger around 6pm, rested for a while, and went for the Welcome Party. All of us were quite tired and sleepy after an 8-hour journey and being 4.5 hours behind our usual time-zone, we immediately hit the sac.


7th November, 2011
The World Sudoku Championship 2011 began.

Part 1: Wrong Puzzles
Many players were of the opinion that this is not a 'sudoku-solving' round. I was indifferent. I didn't think it was completely random, nor was I convinced it was the best round to start a WSC with.

The puzzles were a pleasant surprise. There were a good mix of grids, with various fonts, styles, sizes and overall, it was a fun round. I don't think many people would have complained after the round, but surely, it was better than expected for most players.

In terms of scores, I started very poorly with a mere 68 points in this round compared to the highest 150 by David McNeill (UK).


Part 2: Sudoku Pieces
It took me a while in understanding the puzzle when I was studying the booklet. Once it was clear, I wasn't comfortable with this. I'm not very good at these kind of sudoku rounds. When it was announced that we had to place the pieces on the sheet itself, I thought I was doomed. I just wanted the round to begin and then end, as soon as possible. I was glad this round had partial scoring.

When the round started, it was a little comforting that there were 81 clues and no empty cells. I was slow to start, but after getting a few pieces, I was quickly able to crack the grid. I was mighty pleased with myself as (I think) this was the first time I said 'Finish!' at a WSC :-)


Part 3: Easy Classics
This round went quite average for me. Tiit Vunk (Estonia) scored an exceptional 605 points.


Part 4: Halved Squares Sudoku
I had a bad feeling about this round. I did not practise at all (not even the ones of the Hungarian championship) and I was quite sure this would be one of the bad rounds.

I will not say it was good, but it went better than I expected. A below average score though.

Thomas Snyder (USA) took a considerable lead from many top players after this round.


Part 5: Sudoku Central Clues
This round was good, and I was able to move up a few ranks. I think I was 17th or 18th after this round at the end of Day 1 of Individuals.


Part 6: Circle Sudoku (Team)
The concept of this round was well thought of. The execution, even better. I always enjoy solving linked puzzles and this was very exciting. We were able to solve 4 sudokus and missed one more by a few seconds.


Part 7: Vasarely Sudoku (Team)
Another nice team round and we were quite happy we were able to finish it in time. A lot of other teams finished it too.


8th November, 2011
Day 2 of WSC. I needed all my rounds to go extremely well in order to be in the top 10. Tough chance, but possible.


Part 8: Decorated Sudoku
This was one of the big rounds. I started well and scored 465 points. Just for argument sake, I equalled Thomas Snyder (USA) in this round!


Part 9: Sprint Sudoku
A fast-paced round. I need to practise these Sprint rounds. I tend to do better in longer rounds. Probably because of my mental stamina.


Part 10: Sudoku Mix
Another big round. This round pulled me down a bit. I got stuck in Tetris and Increasing Roundabout and lost some time.


Part 11: Not Easy Classics
I got the highest score in Hard Classics in WSC 2010 in Philadelphia. Well, fluke rarely happens twice!


Part 12: 3D Sudoku
I'm not particularly good at solving Cube Sudokus, but I surprised myself and was able to solve it in time. So, second time in one WSC, I said 'Finish!'. Pretty cool!


Part 13: Weakest Link (Team)
A standard weakest link round where each player of the team solves an individual puzzle and then goes to the team table. Our team finished this round and we were confident of finishing in the top 10 in the team rankings.

WSC Playoffs
I finished 12th. Missed the playoffs by about 80 points. The playoffs consisted of a good set of players.

The format of the playoffs was interesting. Top 10 puzzlers start solving based on a time difference in proportion to their scores. The last 3 players to finish the first 3 puzzles are eliminated. Then the last 2 players to finish the next 3 puzzles are eliminated. Then a fight to the finish with the next 4 puzzles.

Thomas Snyder (USA): World Sudoku Champion 2007, 2008. He had a big lead and would surely win if the playoffs went smoothly for him.

Jan Mrozowski (Poland): World Sudoku Champion 2009, 2010. He was probably the biggest threat to Thomas.

Tiit Vunk (Estonia) and Kota Morinishi (Japan) were looking very strong in the championship.

Florian Kirch (Germany), Jan Novotny (Czech Republic), Nikola Zivanovic (Serbia), Michael Ley (Germany), Hideaki Jo (Japan) and Jakub Ondrousek (Czech Republic) complete the top 10.

The playoffs started with a shock. Jan Mrozowski was stuck on the second puzzle while everyone else proceeded. He probably had some problem on his end. Kota Morinishi was racing through the puzzles and catching up with Thomas who was always one table ahead. Thomas kept the lead and calmly finished all the puzzles. Kota finished second, and Tiit,  with a slight stumble midway finished 3rd. Hideaki, after starting 9th, finished a creditable 4th.


Playoff Results

1. Thomas Snyder (USA)
2. Kota Morinishi (Japan)
3. Tiit Vunk (Estonia)


Individual Results

1. Thomas Snyder (USA) - 3760
2. Jan Mrozowski (Poland) - 3525
3. Tiit Vunk (Estonia) - 3459


Indian Results

12. Rohan Rao - 2983
44. Sumit Bothra - 2154
54. Tejal Phatak - 1966
71. Prasanna Seshadri - 1725
101. Rajesh Kumar - 1314

Complete Individual Results


Team Results

1. Germany - 16436
2. Czech Republic - 16181
3. USA - 14488

8. India - 11708

Complete Team Results

Overall, it was a great championship. The sudokus, the rounds, and the format and organisation was as good as it could get. With WSC and WPC combined, it involves a lot of effort and work, and the Hungarians did a wonderful job.

I am happy with my performance. Top 10 would have been ideal, but at least I was close. Maybe next time.

Congrats to Thomas Snyder for winning his 3rd WSC title. He has been very consistent throughout the year and is a deserving winner.

It was good meeting up with old friends and new ones, and I hope this trend of WSC+WPC continues.

World Sudoku Championship 2010

The World Sudoku Championship 2010 was held in Philadelphia, USA from 29th April to 2nd May.

Download Competition Rules
Download Puzzle Examples
View WPF Forum

You can view the list of participants, schedule and more information on the Official Website.

The Indian team was selected from the winners of the Indian Sudoku Championship 2010. Unfortunately, Rishi Puri dropped out at the last moment and could not make it. Hence Ritesh Gupta got promoted from Team B to Team A leaving Jaipal Reddy and Asha Siddaiah without a complete team and I was selected captain of India due to Rishi's absence.

India Team A
Rohan Rao (captain)
Gaurav Korde
Ritesh Gupta

Jaipal was part of Team UN6 and Asha was part of team UN1.

Team India was shocked by the exit of Rishi Puri and was tensed since Gaurav Korde got his visa and passport on 27th April! We had some early jitters on 30th morning since Gaurav had not reached the hotel when we woke up. Finally we were in peace when he showed up during breakfast at 10am, just 3hrs before the first round began!

23rd April - 28th April
My flight was Mumbai-Brussels-Newark and I reached there on 23rd evening. I went to USA a week earlier mainly to get rid of any jetlag, though surprisingly I wasn't affected for more than a day. I was staying with friends in New Jersey and did some sight-seeing and WSC practise.

29th April
I reached the hotel around 4pm and so did Asha, Jaipal and Ritesh. Jaipal and Gaurav shared a room, while I shared my room with Ritesh. Asha had a room-mate from the USA Team. After unwinding ourselves, all participants went to the Visitor Centre for the 'Welcome Reception'. All teams were introduced and we had a great time meeting and chatting up with participants of various countries. By the time we reached the hotel, we were quite tired and sleepy. So, after discussing the puzzles and rounds, all of us crashed.

30th April
After a quick breakfast, satisfied after seeing Gaurav's face, we went to the 'Love Statue' and to take our team photograph. A few minutes later, WSC 2010 began!

Round 1: 100m (20 minutes; 100 points)
Puzzles: Classic Sudoku

There were 8 'easy' Classic Sudokus. I managed to solve 5. Jakub Ondrousek, who's speciality is the Classic, started off with a bang proving he's the best by completing all 8.

Round 2: Long Jump (40 minutes; 200 points)
Puzzles:

I loved the Killer Sudoku! It was fun solving the Colour Sum Sudoku though I made a mistake and had to start again losing precious time. I managed to solve Arrow Sudoku in the last 5mins! (I just guessed, and fortunately got it correct)

Round 3: Shot Put (40 minutes; 190 points)
Puzzles:

0-9 Sudoku was very nice. I solved the small grids of Surplus, Countdown, Tightfit and Deficit. I enjoyed solving this round, though scored less points relative to others.

Round 4: High Jump (35 minutes; 155 points)
Puzzles:

I solved 5 out of the 7 puzzles, and I was quite happy. I dont like the Thermometer variant, so didn't even try that. All the puzzles were very nice and fun to solve!

Round 5: 400m (35 minutes; 155 points)
Puzzles: Classic Sudoku

There were 8 'medium' Classic Sudokus. This was a good round for me as I solved 7 of them. Jakub again proved his class by completing all.

Team Round 1: Weakest Link (40 minutes)
Each individual had to solve the same Double-Triple Sudoku and had to go to the Team table when submitted correctly. I finished it very quickly followed by Ritesh and Gaurav. So, at the Team table, we had to solve the Triple-Quadruple Sudoku together, and we ended up completing it 2nd only to Germany.

Team Round 2: Number Place (42 minutes)
I think this was the best team round of the event in terms of the concept and the use of team co-ordination. Each team member had stickers containing numbers of a single colour (yellow, red and green) and could place stickers in the puzzles ONLY of the respective colour. This was a very nice round but unfortunately we made a mistake in one sudoku.

Day 1 ended here and Team India were well in the top 5. Our individual ranks were good too, with Gaurav and me within the top 20.

We were quite tired after dinner, and crashed almost immediately after discussing puzzles of the next day.

1st May

Round 6: 110m Hurdles (20 minutes; 110 points)
Puzzles: Just One Cell Sudoku
I loved the concept of 'Just One Cell' and found it very innovative and addictive. I managed to solve 11 out of 20. Jan was by far the best in this round and started his superb roll on Day 2. All the puzzles were very nice!

Round 7: Discus (35 minutes; 155 points)
Puzzles:
This was the round that pulled me down. I made some error in Hexagon Sudoku. I had more than 10mins to solve Dragon Sudoku, but I kept going wrong and finally was unable to finish it. Jan Novotny finished all the puzzles with a good time bonus.

Round 8: Pole Vault (40 minutes; 200 points)
Puzzles:
Another round where I sub-performed. I wasted too much time on Digital and Dice and hence could not complete Roman.

Round 9: Javelin (45 minutes; 225 points)
Puzzles:
I scored a hat-trick of poor rounds with this one. Irregular Sudoku was very well-made. I just managed to finish it in time! Penrose and Primrose looked very dangerous so I didn't try it though later I got to know they were not very difficult. As of what I heard, Ten-Box was very tough.
Very nice puzzles and innovative new variants.

Round 10: 1500m (35 minutes; 310 points)
Puzzles: Classic Sudoku
I can go on and on writing about this round. This round was literally my saviour on Day 2! There were 9 Classic Sudokus that were 'tough' and most of them needed guesswork. I solved 3 logically (which surprised many participants) and made guesses in 4 others. Luckily, in most of them I got my guesses right in my first attempt, especially the last two sudokus, totally fetching me lots of points! The grapevine news was I scored highest points (235) in this round, and by quite a big margin compared to others (other than Chen Cen who scored 229). I was quite surprised since I am not very strong in Classics, I seem to be better in variants. I got a certificate for my performance in Round 10 :-)
I was very happy since I beat Jakub in a Classic round! I also beat Jan ;-) I beat them all! :-)
When the results of the three Classic rounds were combined, it turned out that I stood 3rd overall with Jakub first and Jan second. This was really unexpected and undoubtedly the best round of my WSC.

Team Round 3: Jigsaw Sudoku (30 minutes)
Here started the dramatic downfall of team India. Lack of homework on this round cost us dear. We solved just one puzzle out of four. The puzzles and idea was very nice.

Team Round 4: Track and Field Relay (40 minutes)
This was absolute disaster. It was going good until we reached Skyscraper Sudoku. Gaurav and me had more than 30mins to solve it and we went wrong... and wrong... and wrong and wrong! We just kept going wrong and finally got it incorrect! So, it was very poor sudoku solving skills by Gaurav and me.

Team Round 5: Pentathlon (40 minutes)
Same story again. This time all three of us kept going wrong in multiple places. It was quite a horrible performance by Team India in the last three team rounds due to which we crashed from 5th to 17th by the end of Day 2.

Finals
The top four played the final playoff.
Jan Mrozowski (Poland)
Jakub Ondrousek (Czech Republic)
Hideaki Jo (Japan)
Florian Kirch (Germany)

Due to the massive points difference, Jan got an 8 minute lead over the other three. The finals had 10 puzzles (1 from each individual round) to be solved in 60 minutes.

Jan cracked the Classic and moved on to the Killer in no time. The Killer proved to be the toughest puzzle of the lot for all the participants. Jan made some small errors but quickly corrected and solved it. By the time he finished the Killer, Jakub, Hideaki and Florian finished their Classics around the same time. From this point, the battle was only between Jan and Jakub.
Jan solved the 0-9 and went on to the Consecutive. Here the drama began. Jan put a '7' next to an '8' without a bar between and hence, he kept going wrong and he just couldn't identify his mistake. On the other hand, Jakub erased all the time disadvantage and even finished the Consecutive by the time Jan finally found his error after wasting about 10mins. Now the fun began. Jan Mrozowski, the 2009 World Sudoku Champion in the backseat. Jakub Ondrousek, the young teenager, whom many thought before the start of WSC, would be the one who would beat Jan this year, was racing ahead.
One by one the puzzles were completed, Jan being careful and Jakub just going for the victory until he reached the 9th puzzle which was an Irregular Sudoku. This turned out to be unlucky stumbling block for Jakub. While Jan was quickly catching up with Jakub, Jakub got stuck at this puzzle. Jan reached the Irregular Sudoku while Jakub was still at it making slow progress. He destroyed it in less than 3mins and became the first to move on to the last puzzle.
He wasn't going to let go now. Jan Mrozwoski let out a sigh of relief when his last puzzle was declared correct and was crowned the champion.

Individual Results

1. Jan Mrozowski (Poland) - 1335
2. Jakub Ondrousek (Czech Republic) - 1159
3. Hideaki Jo (Japan) - 1159
4. Florian Kirch (Germany) - 1153
5. Byron Calver (Canada) - 1134
6. Ko Okamoto (Japan) - 1113
7. Chen Cen (China) - 1050
7. Salih Alan (Turkey) - 1050
9. David Jones (Canada) - 1035
10. Jan Novotny (Czech Republic) - 1031

Indian participants

15. Rohan Rao (India) - 934
20. Gaurav Korde (India) - 871
42. Ritesh Gupta (India) - 725
59. Jaipal Reddy (India) - 588
96. Asha Siddaiah (India) - 363

Team Results

1. Germany - 7904
2. Czech Republic - 7720
3. Japan - 7156
4. Canada - 7016
5. Poland - 6917
6. UK - 6760
7. USA - 6632
8. Netherlands - 6445
9. France - 6239
10. Hungary - 5881

12. India - 5575

Complete Results

It was a great trip and I enjoyed it till the last moment!

All the puzzles (except one) were made by Thomas Snyder and Wei-Hwa Huang. The puzzles were exceptionally good and the USA Team lived up to the big expectations that were set after last year's not-so-good WSC with some good organisation, fun and interesting puzzles, and some sensible new rules that should be used in future too.

Gaurav Korde came up with a good performance despite his jetlag. Ritesh felt he under-performed which I think is because of lack of practise. Jaipal's silly mistakes pulled him down while Asha enjoyed her first WSC finishing within the top 100.

Thanks to Amit, Deb, Rishi for their ever-ready support and help, though it would've been great if Rishi had made it.

Well, so WSC 2010 is over. Jan Mrozowski from Poland wins the championship for the 2nd time in a row. Anyone out there who can beat him?

World Sudoku Championship 2009

The 4th World Sudoku Championship 2009 was held in Zilina, Slovakia from 24th-27th April, 2009.
Official Website



Download Instruction Booklet (Part 1)
Download Instruction Booklet (Part 2)

Download Puzzle Booklet A: Mix (Individual)
Download Puzzle Booklet B: Symbology (Individual)
Download Puzzle Booklet C: Snowman (Individual)
Download Puzzle Booklet D: World Record (Individual)
Download Puzzle Booklet E: Power Of Team (Team)
Download Puzzle Booklet F: Musketry (Team)
Download Puzzle Booklet G: Relay Race (Team)
Download Puzzle Booklet H: Play Off Extra (Individual)
Download Puzzle Booklet J: Little Final (Individual)
Download Puzzle Booklet K: Nightmare In Zilina (Individual)
Download Puzzle Booklet L: Strategy (Team)
Download Puzzle Booklet M: Semifinal (Individual)
Download Puzzle Booklet N: Final (Individual and Team)

Indian Participants

Team A
Ritesh Gupta (New Delhi)
Gaurav Korde (Mumbai)
Rohan Rao (Mumbai)



Ritesh Gupta, Rohan Rao, Gaurav Korde

Team B
Himanshu Mittal (New Delhi)
Lovely Krishna (Vijayawada)
Puneet Goenka (Mumbai)



Himanshu Mittal, Lovely Krishna Kattamuri, Puneet Goenka

23rd April, 2009
Gaurav, Puneet and I took a flight from Mumbai, while Ritesh, Himanshu and Lovely took a flight from Delhi around 5am to Vienna via Istanbul. All six of us met for the first time at Istanbul airport. We had a Mumbai Indians vs Delhi Daredevils sudoku competition!

On reaching Vienna, we unloaded our luggage at Euro Hotel, and went out for an evening walk. After a long walk down the lane and back, we had a final discussion of the sudoku puzzles and our team strategies followed by lazy 'Good Night's'.

24th April, 2009
We took a bus from Vienna airport to Bratislava bus station (capital of Slovakia) and then took a local bus to Zilina bus station. We stayed at Hotel Slovakia, two persons per room. The room-mates being Ritesh-Gaurav, Lovely-Puneet and Himanshu-Rohan. After relaxing for a couple of hours, we went for the Welcome Party, where all participants are introduced. We received our bags and WSC T-shirts. What stumped me was the large number of comments I got regarding this blog! Now I know so many of you view my blog :-)

The Q & A session regarding the IB wrapped up the day. There were lots of questions and doubts, some of them still unsolved! Some of the rules were unclear, funny and silly.

25th April, 2009
Competition day! It was great to know I was among the best sudoku solvers in the world. This was my first WSC. With all pencils sharpened, and all participants ready to have a shot at the title, the 4th World Sudoku Championship began.

Part A: Mix (Individual)
The round with maximum puzzles and maximum points. These were related puzzles, and most of puzzles were non-unique if solved individually. Many of the big guns goofed up in this round. The puzzles were good, tough and an interesting set.

Part B: Symbology (Individual)
The top 29 of this round qualified for Part H. There were just 3 puzzles in this round, and 28 participants finished 2 puzzles, me being one of them. No one could finish all three puzzles.

Part C: Snowman (Individual)
Personally, I found this the best puzzle of the championship. Many participants completed this linked puzzle before time, but I missed out on Pencilmark Sudoku.

Part D: World Record (Individual)
This round had one Classic Sudoku to be solved in 10mins. The time to beat to have the Guinness World Record was 5m 25s. Vincent Bertrand from Belgium was the only participant to finish it within 5m 25s and he now holds the world record of an amazing 3m 06s. Great speed and accuracy, I guess we all need to learn from him! Have a look at this Classic Sudoku and see if you can beat Mr. Bertrand.

Part E: Power Of Team (Team)
The concept of this part, i.e. one part of the puzzle per person, was quite nice. But the time was poorly decided. 25 of the teams finished this round before time, so, it made no sense.

Part F: Musketry (Team)
Just one puzzle in this round. Each team member gets 10mins on the same puzzle. Sounds easy right?
It was a great performance by the Hungarian team which was the only team to score points in this round!

Part G: Relay Race (Team)
A relay round which did not impress me. Most of the teams were unable to solve the 2nd puzzle, which was quite tough. Many did not even finish the 1st puzzle in the given 60mins.

Part H: Play Off Extra (Individual)
This was the semi-finals for the next round. There was one sudoku to be solved in 15mins. The top 9 qualify for the Little Finals. I completed the sudoku in 11mins but there were 16 participants quicker than me.

Part J: Little Final (Individual)
The top 9 of the previous round fought it out in this round for the Little Final crown.
Jaselsky Pavel from Slovakia was the quickest.

Part K: Nightmare in Zilina (Individual)
This was a tough round. The fact that this round ended at midnight only added to the difficulty.

After a long championship day... it was time for bed... :-)

26th April, 2009
The remaining rounds of the championship took place.

Part L: Strategy (Team)
This was one of the most disappointing rounds of the championship. 31 teams finished 9 out of 10 puzzles. The 10th puzzle (dominoes) was too tough! The Japanese team did wonders by getting two solutions to this puzzle but still failed to get any bonus points due to some silly rules of the championship.

Part M: Semi-Final (Individual)
The top 36 individual competitors qualified for the semi-final. The format of the Semi-Final was very unfair, especially to competitors like Thomas Snyder (USA) who had a big lead over the rest and yet failed to qualify to the final.

We went for a walk around the city with Slovakian girls who guided us. I think this was better than the championship! ;-)

The closing ceremony followed soon alongwith the Finals and some team rounds. 4D Sudoku was the talk of the evening. It is a very interesting puzzle. Only 3 people have ever solved it. Wei-Hua from USA was the 4th person to solve it. He did it in about 1 hour. Want to beat him? Try out a 4D Sudoku.

The top 8 competitors from the Semi-Final advanced to the Finals in which there were two sudokus. A clear winner emerged in the name of Jan Mrozowski.

27th April, 2009
Bags packed, we took a train to Vienna, and spent a day at Hotel Messe. Daniela Perlega, a member of the Austrian team helped us during our journey and gave us some imputs and ideas about how to spend the day. We did some sight-seeing, took a lot of photos, and wrapped up our trip on a good note. We visited an amusement park, a church, the Schronbrunn castle and many such tourist sites.

28th April, 2009
After a long and tiring trip, we took our respective flights back home to Mumbai and Delhi via Istanbul.

WSC 2009
WSC 09 was not a very big success. Some of the rules, were very unfair and silly. The pattern and points of various rounds were very unreasonable. Personally, the championship was not a very good one.



Puneet Goenka, Rohan Rao, Ritesh Gupta, Himanshu Mittal, Lovely Krishna Kattamuri

Results

Individual Results

1. Jan Mrozowski (Poland)
2. Branko Ceranic (Serbia)
3. Robert Babilon (Czech Republic)
4. Nikola Zivanovic (Serbia)
5. Mehmet Murat Sevim (Turkey)
6. Sebastien Leroy (Belgium)
7. Ko Okamoto (Japan)
8. Goran Vodopija (Croatia)



Branko Ceranic, Jan Mrozowski, Robert Babilon

Indian Individual Results

13. Gaurav Korde (India)
20. Ritesh Gupta (India)
25. Rohan Rao (India)
53. Lovely Krishna Kattamuri (India)
71. Puneet Goenka (India)
78. Himanshu Mittal (India)

Team Results

1. Slovakia 1
2. Czech Republic 1
3. Serbia 1
4. Hungary 1
5. Japan 1
6. Czech Republic 2
7. China 1
8. USA
9. Belarus
10. Germany 2

20. India 1
22. India 2

Country Results

1. Slovakia
2. Czech Republic
3. Serbia
4. Hungary
5. Japan
6. China
7. USA
8. Belarus
9. Germany
10. France

16. India

Complete Individual Results
Complete Team Results
Complete Country Results

Congrats to everyone!

Special Thanks to Deb Mohanty and Rajesh Kumar for providing the Indian team with some good practise sudokus.

Looking forward to WSC 2010 in USA!