Indian Sudoku Championship 2016

The Indian Sudoku Championship (ISC) 2016 was held on 16th July, 2016 in Chennai.

The championship was an offline event (after three years of having it online), where the top-50 qualifiers of Sudoku Mahabharat were invited. This is the first time the reigning champion did not defend the title. Rishi Puri, who won ISC in 2014 and 2015, has called it quits for his sudoku career.

View Top Qualifiers

Last 3yrs were very exciting competing with Prasanna and Rishi. Its unfortunate that neither of them participated this year since Prasanna, being the best Indian at the World Championships last year, gets a wild card for the national team this year and hence, decided to organize the national event.

I've traditionally done well in offline ISCs... in fact, only 3 of the ISCs were offline (2010, 2011, 2012), and those were the 3 times I won! This year I made it 4/4.


Puzzles
The championship consisted of four rounds. When you have Deb and Prasanna authoring sudokus, you know you're in for a treat. Really nice set of puzzles.

The fourth round of 6x6 sudokus had a fun twist to it, and was well thought of. The timings were perfectly set and the event ran very smoothly.

Those of you who'd like to solve these puzzles can purchase it here (Unfortunately due to certain reasons, they are not publicly available this year).


Results
I'm glad I topped all four rounds and won my fourth ISC title, this one after 4 years!

Rakesh Rai pipped Kishore Kumar for 2nd place as Kishore had a really bad 4th round. Most of the other results were as expected. Akash Doulani and Pranav Kamesh were the top inexperienced players comfortably, and I'm glad they'll finally be making it for their first World Championships.

View Complete Results

The winning trophies were really cool! Custom-made sudokus by Prasanna printed on the trophy with the shapes '1', '2' and '3'. Thanks to Sumit Bothra for getting these made.

Organization
Thanks to Deb Mohanty and Prasanna Seshadri for organizing this event smoothly. Also, a big thanks to Varun, Ezhilarasi, Ashish, Kumaresan, Rakesh, Kishore, etc. and the other folks in Chennai who helped out with the event. It was a big success!

Indian Sudoku Championship 2015

The Indian Sudoku Championship 2015 was held online on 28th June, 2015.


Information
View Championship Page

Download Instruction Booklet
Download Puzzle Booklet

View Forum
View Results

The top-4 from ISC will represent India at the World Sudoku Championship (WSC) 2015, which will be held in October. There will be a separate event Times Sudoku Championship (TSC) conducted later by TOI and LMI to sponsor four players for the WSC.

Yes, its a little complicated (with a 2-experienced + 2-inexperienced rule being enforced in TSC this year), but I'll come to that later once TSC is announced. Right now, its more about practising for this Sunday, enjoying the afternoon solving some wonderful sudokus (like its always been during ISC) and crowning the national champion.


Personal
I've finished in the top-3 of ISC for the last 5 years and hoping to do the same this year too. Its going to be a tough and interesting contest battling it out with Rishi and Prasanna, who have been in great form recently.

There are many other good contenders who have the potential to make it to the team this year. Let's hope we have the best team that will get India into the top-5 in the World!

Good Luck to all participants!


Results
View Complete Results

Congrats to Rishi Puri, for retaining the National Title with a impressive performance of completing all sudokus in 97mins, to Prasanna Seshadri, who's been in top form, for completing all sudokus in 112mins and to Kishore Kumar, who has missed the top-4 closely last couple of years, for finally making it.

I finished all sudokus in 119mins, making me 3rd.

Really nice set of sudokus (as usual), and it was an enjoyable contest. Thanks to Deb and all the authors for organizing another successful ISC.

Even though Kishore completed 26 / 27 sudokus, it was good enough to get him into 4th place. I'm really happy he's on the team after narrowly missing out last year.

So, Rishi, Prasanna, Kishore and me. I think this is a strong team, definitely the best 4 sudoku solvers in India today and hope we can get India into the top-5 this year!


Practise Sudokus
I'll upload some practise sudokus as and when I get time. Feel free to comment if you want any particular sudoku type to practise, I'll try creating some.

Here's are some sudokus that I created for practise.

Shape Sudoku (using colours instead of shapes):

Filler Sudoku:

Links to some more practise sudokus:

Triomino Sudoku (Ashish Kumar)
Triomino Sudoku (Prasanna Seshadri)
True Or Lie Sudoku (Rishi Puri)
Search-9 Sudoku (Rishi Puri)

LMI Forum (Links to practise puzzles are generally shared)

You always have Google for more :-)