Canny Minds Blog

The Times National Su Doku Championship

Posted on 16. Jun, 2009 by Jenny in Articles, Brain Training, General

Almost five years after The Times introduced Su Doku to the puzzle-loving public, the ever-expanding brain teaser continues to defy expectations..

A Sunday newspaper announced in March this year that Su Doku had been solved — by the devising of a formula that would solve any variant of the puzzle. An American computer scientist was going to unveil “a pen and paper algorithm” for cracking the puzzles in five logical steps.

Sorry, but we’ve been here before. When The Times launched Su Doku on November 12, 2004, it received a letter a few days later from a correspondent saying that he had devised a computer program to solve the puzzle.
So is it game over? Not quite. You see, the history of Su Doku has been punctuated by regular claims to have solved it or cracked it or beaten it. They all miss the point. Su Doku fans don’t want to switch on a computer to crack the fiendish or super-fiendish puzzles. As one disgruntled reader put it, in response to the Sunday newspaper claims this year: “This is nonsense . . . the fun is solving it with your brain.”

The really amazing thing about Su Doku is how indispensable it has become to millions of people across the world since its populariser in its modern form, Maki Kaji, published it in Japan in 1984 (Kaji based his puzzle on a game called Numbers in Place that appeared in a US magazine). Su Doku now appears in more than 600 newspapers, thousands of websites and dozens of books in at least 70 countries. There are Su Doku television games, mobile phone games, video console games and, most recently, about 30 games for the iPhone.

The Times has developed its original Su Dokus into increasing levels of difficulty, and offers readers Killers, Samurai Su Doku and most recently the three-dimensional Tredoku. So, Su Doku remains unchallenged in its popularity for all kinds of reasons — and not always logical ones. One reader complained (or was it praised?) the puzzle five days after its inception, saying that her husband would not speak in the morning until he had done it..

Edited from The Times Nation Su Doku Championship by Mark Shillam 15th June 2009

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The Times Su Doku

The Times Fiendish Su Doku

Photo courtesy of teotwawki

Tags: sudoku, The Times