Sudoku Mahabharat 2016

The online rounds of Sudoku Mahabharat 2015-2016 have ended! This is a national level event aimed at encouraging sudoku solvers of India to participate and compete with the top solvers to gain experience and improve competition in the years to come.

NOTE: This event serves as a qualifier to participate in the Indian Sudoku Championship 2016

The championship consisted of 8 online rounds (Aug-2015 to Mar-2016) from which the top solvers will be invited to participated in the national finals.

Championship Page

National Finals
The finals will be held on 17th July, 2016 in Chennai.

View Finals Page


Online Top-10
1. Rohan Rao - 600.0
2. Kishore Kumar - 529.6
3. Rakesh Rai - 517.8
4. Jayant Ameta - 468.3
5. Jaipal Reddy - 441.8
6. Amit Sowani - 435.1
7. Suvarna - 413.6
8. Gaurav Kumar Jain - 406.59. Rajesh Kumar - 397.2
10. Shaheer Rahman - 383.3

View Complete Results

P.S. Prasanna's name is removed from list since he has a wild card for the WSC next year on being the best Indian performer at the WSC this year.


Round 8: Irregular (12th - 14th Mar, 2016)
Authors: Akash Doulani, Amit Sowani and Gaurav Kumar Jain
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Smooth ending. Really good set of sudokus considering a majority of them were authored by first-time author Akash.

Overall, a good end to SM and I'm glad I was able to top every round from the eligible participants.

The Top-10 look more-or-less as I was expecting except for 7th place Suvarna (don't know who she/he is), but looking forward to a grand national finals in Chennai in mid-July.


Round 7: Converse (12th - 15th Feb, 2016)
Authors: Harmeet Singh and Rakesh Rai
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I started badly, struggling on the Average sudokus... Took 11 minutes for the 6x6 and 13 minutes for the 9x9. But from there, it went really smooth and was able to cover up some lost time. I finished the set in 67mins, ahead of Prasanna in 84mins.

Really good performance by Shaheer Rahman, who gets his first podium in SM, scoring 84 points.
We have a newcomer 'Suvarna' in 2nd place with 88 points, who also enters the overall Top-10, quite an unknown player and it remains to see how she will perform at the national finals.

Well, since the final score is Best 6 out of 8 rounds and having topped 6 rounds, I will have a perfect score of 600 irrespective of the outcome of the last round. I can't say I wasn't expecting this, with Rishi's and Prasanna's absence, but its good to have achieved it.


Round 6: Twisted Classics (9th - 11th Jan, 2016)
Author: Rajesh Kumar
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This went well. Had a couple of minor stumbles, but overall it was a smooth solve. The test was quite easy, especially compared to some of the previous rounds.

I completed the set in 41mins. Kishore finished in 58mins and Rakesh in 63mins.
I must mention a standout performance by Hemant Malani, who is one of our Sudoku Champs toppers, who finished the set in 80mins, ranking him 7th among Indians, which places him above some of the regular experienced folks. Hope to see some more strong performances like this in the future.

Its nice to see many Indians completing this set and a better participation level.

Now with 6 rounds completed, the top-10 look more-or-less stable, with few changes expected after the last two rounds.


Round 5: Outside (14th - 16th Nov, 2015)
Author: Rishi Puri
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I was on a good streak before this contest, with some of my best performances in LMI puzzle test and Fed Sudoku. Unfortunately, it didn't continue here. I started well, but then broke the 9x9 Skyscraper. It was hard to find the error, so I just erased and started again. Lost over 10mins here.

I made mistakes while solving a 9x9 Classic too. And the icing on the cake was when I submitted the first 6x6 Classic incorrectly. And it drove me mad that I had to restart it twice to finally solve it correctly. I know I don't like 6x6, but what was wrong with me?

Overall, the participation was low. I still managed to finish the set in 76mins and be the top Indian after Prasanna, who finished in a great time of 62mins. Rakesh and Kishore missed out on a couple of sudokus but were not far behind.

With that, the top-10 remain the same with a couple of swaps.


Round 4: Math (14th - 16th Nov, 2015)
Author: Rohan Rao
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Congrats to Prasanna for a very good score and to Kishore for topping my round among the eligible Indians. Jaipal and Rajesh were 2nd and 3rd with their strong performances. Nice to see them back among the top.

I really enjoyed creating this set and personally liked it much better than most of the other contests I've authored on LMI.
There is some feedback on the sudokus being hard. Yes, it was intended and since the scoring system has changed to normalize the points, tests can have varying difficulty without much effect on the score distribution.

The GroupSum 6x6 was my favourite of the set while the GroupSum 9x9 and Equal Product 9x9 were the hardest puzzles.

I'm glad most solvers enjoyed the round and its delighting to see close to 350 participants worldwide and over 100 Indians.


Round 3: Odd-Even (24th - 26th Oct, 2015)
Authors: Ashish Kumar and Swaroop Guggilam
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I finished the set in 46 minutes. It was one of my smoothest solves on LMI. I started slowly, taking 13 minutes for the Odd-Event Count variants, but after that it was brisk.
So far, 3/3. Next SM Round is authored by me.

Wonderful sudokus by Swaroop and Ashish. I must mention that I loved the Quadro 9x9. Fantastic sudoku by Swaroop. Odd or Even 9x9 and Odd Sum 9x9 were good too.

Congrats to Prasanna, Rakesh, and Jayant for the other top Indians. A below par performance by Kishore who finished 6th among Indians.


Round 2: Neighbours (12th - 14th Sep, 2015)
Authors: Aditi Seshadri and Prasanna Seshadri (P.S. - They are not related :-) )
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I finished the set in 52 minutes, made a small mistake in Touchy 6x6, which I was quickly able to correct. It was my best online contest this year.

Wonderful sudokus by Aditi and Prasanna. I loved the Touchy 9x9, Quadruple 9x9 and Repeated Neighbours 9x9. Touchy was just fantastic for rule usage whereas Quadruple had a slightly different rule which turned into a very nice variant.

The set was a little harder than SM1, but had very interesting set of sudokus.

Congrats to Jayant for completing in 59 minutes. I think this is one of his strongest performances in a sudoku contest. I hope his form continues. Kishore completed in 73 minutes to take the 3rd spot among the Indians.


Round 1: Standard (22nd - 24th Aug, 2015)
Author: Deb Mohanty
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I finished the set in 49 minutes, stumbled slightly in a couple of grids, but overall it was a smooth solve.

Nice set of sudokus, but it didn't give that 'Deb' feeling :-)
A fun solve though.

Congrats to Kishore who finished the set in 52 minutes and a shocking performance by Prasanna who finished in 64 minutes. He certainly messed up, but we all have our bad days. Rishi, the fourth member of our Indian team at WSC has quit from sudoku solving and tested the set. Its sad to hear that, but I hope he continues to help LMI and the puzzle community in India.