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!

Classic Tapa Contest 2016

Classic Tapa Contest (CTC) 2016 was held in Jan-Feb, 2016 on LMI.

Championship Page

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1. sai (Japan)
2. EKBM (Japan)
3. Prasanna16391 (India)
4. deu (Japan)
5. Psyho (Poland)
6. Para (Netherlands)
7. nyoroppyi (Japan)
8. willwc (USA)
9. kiwijam (New Zealand)
10. anderson (USA)

View Complete Results

sai won the last CTC and this time completely dominated at the top. After a horrific start, Endo blew through the middle days and just managed to overtake Prasanna in the last week to finish 2nd. And phenomenal performance by Prasanna, who takes 3rd, after an extremely consistent run of two months.

I was in the race to get into the Top-20, but unfortunately missed a few days due to personal matters. Nevertheless, I'm quite happy with my performance and enjoyed the Tapas.

I'm sure a lot of people are going to miss CTC... it just gets on you after 50 days :-)

Puzzle Ramayan 2016

The online rounds of Puzzle Ramayan 2015-2016 have ended! This is a national level event aimed at encouraging puzzle 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 Puzzle Championship 2016

The championship consisted of 8 online rounds (Sep-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 - 597.3
2. Amit Sowani - 575.8
3. Swaroop Guggilam - 477.4
4. Rajesh Kumar - 458.3
5. Rakesh Rai - 411.2
6. Ashish Kumar - 374.2
7. Kishore Kumar - 372.1
8. Jayant Ameta - 344.2
9. Jaipal Reddy - 302.7
10. Devarajan D - 277.2

View Complete Results

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


Round 8: Placement (26th - 28th Mar, 2016)
Author: Rajesh Kumar
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Nice puzzles, but on the harder side. A little disappointed that I wasn't able to finish the set.
Horrible answer keys, I struggled a lot with it, so did a few other players.

Overall, a decent end to PR.

The Top-10 look more-or-less as expected, but really good to see Ashish and Kishore improving and a great job by Devarajan for maintaining his top-10 position throughout the rounds. Looking forward for an interesting and fun-filled finals in Chennai in July.


Round 7: Loops (27th - 29th Feb, 2016)
Author: Prasanna Seshadri
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Wow! Another wonderful round. I'm not very good at Loops, but I could solve this very smoothly. Puzzles were excellent, and a very well-balanced set and PR round. Probably the best so far.

I finished the set in 47mins, with Swaroop in 57mins and Amit in 65mins.  Swaroop now has increased his lead at 3rd place above Rajesh and should be able to hold on to it since the last round is authored by Rajesh.

Hope to end it well.


Round 6: Shading (23rd - 26th Jan, 2016)
Author: Swaroop Guggilam
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Wonderful! What a perfectly balanced round this was. Kudos to Swaroop for authoring this set, my favourite round of PR so far. Prasanna finished the set in 44mins, I finished in 58mins and Amit in 65mins.

Lot of swaps in the points table after this round. Also due to the rankings being updated after discarding the worst two scores. I regain the top spot over Amit. Rajesh is less than a point above Swaroop. A disappointing round by Rakesh allowed Kishore to move above him.

With the last two rounds to go, it will be an interesting finish, especially crucial for Swaroop, who needs to be in the Top-3 to be eligible for the NRI wildcard.


Round 5: Snake (26th - 28th Dec, 2015)
Author: Ashish Kumar
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After a great Round 4, I had an absolutely disastrous Round 5. Snakes is not a type I really enjoy, and it showed here. I scored a poor 57 points, compared to Amit's 88. Prasanna did well by finishing all puzzles just within 90 minutes.

Puzzles were top-notch quality from Ashish, but they were too hard for PR. I'm not surprised to see the participation low, but a little surprised by some regular names missing, including ones in the current Top-10.

Lot of changes in the top-10 after this round. Amit takes the top spot with a good lead, Swaroop moves to 3rd, above Rajesh, and finally, Rakesh moves above Kishore.
Its getting interesting, and I hope the remaining 3 rounds are better, way better. 


Round 4: Regions (28th - 30th Nov, 2015)
Author: Rakesh Rai
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This was one of my better performances in a puzzle contest in recent times. The puzzles were of my liking. Yin Yang, Spiral Galaxies, Area Division are in my all-time favourites, and it was wonderful to solve this set. Puzzles were really fun and it was a better set than the last 3 PR rounds.

I topped the round by finishing in 48mins and was ranked 11th internationally, which is my best rank after Twist way back in 2011. Amit did well by finishing in 56mins, Prasanna finished in 64mins and Swaroop in 83mins.

That put me on top in PR rankings and also got me my best LMI Rating in Puzzles! So, a pretty good weekend!


Round 3: Evergreens (31st Oct - 2nd Nov, 2015)
Author: Amit Sowani
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That was hard! Especially for the type of rounds expected in PR. Well, it was time to improvise. Since this resulted in a very low scoring round, the scoring system was changed to add a bit of normalization so that such variability in the difficulty of tests can be overcome to some extent.

Even though I topped the round (among Indians), it didn't feel like a smooth performance. Felt like I could've added some 8-10 points more to my score of 73.

Prasanna tested the puzzles, so you won't his name on the scorepage. Congrats to Rajesh and Swaroop for their good performances.


Round 2: Number Placement (26th - 28th Sep, 2015)
Author: Deb Mohanty
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I didn't do too well. Couldn't finish the round, and got stuck up in too many puzzles during the test.
Puzzles were really nice. Much better than Deb's SM round :-)

Congrats to Prasanna who finished the set in 72 minutes and Amit who just managed to finish it before time. I scored 97.4 points.

This was supposed to be one of the rounds I was most comfortable with, and it bombed. Hope to cover-up in the next few rounds. I also hope this is the worst performance which will get discarded (along with R1 which I authored).


Round 1: Classics (5th - 7th Sep, 2015)
Author: Rohan Rao
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Congrats to Prasanna, Swaroop and Amit for completing the set. Prasanna finished in 50mins which put him in 12th place worldwide. Swaroop and Amit were very close and finished just one second apart in the 77th minute.

Its nice to see my three team-mates, who will represent India at the WPC along with me, performing at the top among the Indians.

Congrats to Endo, Ulrich and Hideaki who take the top-3 international spots.

Overall, I'm glad the feedback was positive and most participants enjoyed the puzzles. There was some discussion around one puzzle, Hitori Blocks, being a tad harder than the rest for this set. I agree it was a little outlier, but it didn't affect rankings and performances much. Most of the results were as expected.

Seems like a good start to PR... 57 Indians with non-zero scores and totally 304 participants. I hope these numbers increase in subsequent rounds. And I'll be participating in the coming rounds! :-)

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.

Indian Puzzle Championship 2015

The Indian Puzzle Championship (IPC) 2015 was held on 9th August, 2015. It was open and free for all. The winners would be selected to represent India at the World Puzzle Championship (WPC) 2015 in October, 2015 in Sofia, Bulgaria.

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I won! Yay!
I must say that this was possible only thanks to Prasanna organizing. He's been the best Indian in the puzzling circuit last couple of years, and still continues to spearhead the Indian contingent in puzzles.
So, I stood 1st with 930 points, with Amit in 2nd place with 774 points and Swaroop in 3rd with 725 points. Just the team I predicted, and I'm glad we made it. Definitely the best team in India today.

This is my 4th IPC title (after 2010, 2011, 2012), and it feels good to be back on top, after missing out in 2014 and the terrible performance in 2013.

Old-school Rajesh Kumar was 4th with 659 points.
Impressive performance by Ashish Kumar who stood 5th with 611 points. Certainly a hot prospect to represent India in the near future.
The usual suspects Rakesh Rai, Jayant Ameta and Jaipal Reddy complete the top-8 with 582, 560 and 506 points respectively.

Lets hope we can rock at the WPC this year and get India a top-10 rank.

"With Prasanna organizing the IPC once again, it is down to the top-3 of IPC who will join Prasanna to form the Indian team for the WPC. I fancy my chances this year, since I've been in touch lately (at least in Sudoku, by winning TSC and coming 3rd in ISC) and I'm confident of making it to the team. I was runner-up last year to Amit Sowani, with Swaroop Guggilam in 3rd.

I think Prasanna, Amit, Swaroop and me would make a strong team and I hope we finish at the top :-)
Good Luck to all participants!"

Times Sudoku Championship 2015

The Times Sudoku Championship will be held in July/August. This championship will select four players who will be sponsored to represent India at the World Sudoku Championship 2015 (WSC).

Note: This will be the 'sponsored' team for the WSC. The main A-Team that will represent India for the WSC has been selected from the Indian Sudoku Championship 2015 held last month.

--- Rishi Puri, Prasanna Seshadri, Kishore Kumar and Me are in the A-Team ---

Read Rules and Regulations

The schedule is as follows:

Regional Round in Delhi (12th July, 2015)
Regional Round in Mumbai (12th July, 2015)
Regional Round in Chennai (19th July, 2015)
Regional Round in Bengaluru (26th July, 2015)

National Finals in Mumbai (August, 2015)

Top-3 players from each regional round will be selected for the National Finals. Last year's TSC winners (Prasanna, Rishi, Sumit and Me) get wild cards for the National Finals.


Mumbai Regionals (12th July, 2015)
Who better to take the Mumbai crown than Tejal Phatak! Congratulations for finally making it on the Mumbai podium! Congrats to Prabha Joshi and Jaykumar Patel for qualifying too. See you all during the finals!

Read the Mumbai Article

The regional rounds in Mumbai and Delhi will be held simultaneously on 12th July. I won the Mumbai regionals last three years. Since I have a wild card this year and so does Prasanna Seshadri, its an open door for newcomers. I have no idea who could be in the top-3 unless someone is planning to travel from another city, maybe Tejal.

Delhi Regionals (12th July, 2015)
Delhi results are not surprising. Congrats to Akash Doulani, who has been in good touch lately, followed by Rajesh Aggarwal and Ritesh Gupta. Lets lock horns at the finals!

Read the Delhi Article

The regional rounds in Mumbai and Delhi will be held simultaneously on 12th July. Among the top known solvers of India, I expect Akash Doulani and Ritesh Gupta to qualify from Delhi (if they participate). Maybe Himani Shah, who's not been in the sudoku circuit recently or even Dileep Singh.


Chennai Regionals (19th July, 2015)
Chennai results were as expected too. Congrats to Rakesh Rai and Kishore Kumar for their consistent performances at the sudoku circuit, and Pranav Kamesh for coming in third. Looking forward to the finals!

Read the Chennai Article

I'm expecting and hoping Rakesh Rai and Kishore Kumar qualify from Chennai, they've been among the top solvers of India in recent times. There are some upcoming names from Chennai, so I wouldn't be surprised to see a new name in the top-3 this year.


Bengaluru Regionals (26th July, 2015)
The Bengaluru regionals is going to be a cracker! There are many potentials players who could make it in the top-3 this year. Some usual suspects are Rajesh Kumar, Harmeet Singh, Kunal Verma, Jayant Ameta, Gaurav Kumar Jain, Zalak Ghetia... and some more who's names are not on the top of my head! I would've loved to be there and see you guys battle it out, but unfortunately, I'm in Mumbai over the weekend.
Good Luck and may the best-3 qualify!

Indian Sudoku Championship 2015

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


Information
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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
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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 :-)

Unlucky 13

I authored a Sudoku contest Unlucky 13 on LMI. It was held from 1st - 6th April, 2015 and consists of 13 sudokus to be solved in 65 minutes.

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"13 is my favourite number and I created this themed test in late-2014 during some easy days at work. Incidently, this is also the 13th test I'm authoring at LMI. Lot of special moments and memories along the way... and I hope players enjoy this set and make it a success!"

Congrats to Jan Zverina, Hideaki Jo and Jakub Ondrousek for the top-3 overall players.
Congrats to Prakhar Gupta, Kishore Kumar and Rishi Puri for the top-3 Indian players.

"Good artists copy, great artists steal" - Pablo Picasso.

Few months back, a couple of my friends created some sudoku variants and asked me to test solve them. It was their first try at creating sudokus and they did quite a decent job, since they were all unique. Only problem was, all the variants could be solved like Classics without having to use the variant rule and I had a hearty laugh while solving them. For example, there was an Odd Even Sudoku with 42 givens... a Non-Consecutive Sudoku with 33 givens... etc. :-)

That's how the idea was formed for this test. If I enjoyed it so much, maybe other solvers would enjoy it too, in its own humorous way. It was subtle April 'fooling', unlike last year's total surprise (which was awesome in its own way). Thanks to Deb Mohanty and Prasanna Seshadri for test-solving and other inputs and 'contributions'. I'm happy many players were able to complete the test and get the bonus, it was intentionally left longer and the difficulty such that a large portion of solvers would finish.

Thanks for all the messages, and hope to see some more exciting Sudoku solving in the months to come! :-)

Sudoku Mahabharat 2015

During my trip to London, UK for the World Sudoku Championship 2014, the Indian team had a very entertaining dinner just before the WSC finale and prize distribution. When you sit at a table with Deb, Jaipal, Jayant, Prasanna, Rishi and Swaroop, there's bound to be some fun. Kunal was lost somewhere and Sumit had left to meet some relatives in London. Well, they certainly missed a lot of fun.

During the humorous discussions, we touched upon the topic of creating some more enthusiasm among sudoku solvers in India. It is certainly true that Prasanna, Rishi and me have been the top players in India and people tend to lose motivation knowing its hard to beat us and make it to the team. This was the sixth consecutive year I've been in the India A-Team, and though the top players have been performing extremely well at the World Championships, there was a need to do something more for the players who have potential of becoming the top solvers of India some day. And thus, Sudoku Mahabharat was born.

The idea suddenly hit Deb that we should conduct some sort of national event in India, but more to encourage new players and potential players to participate, win and get a feel of being and performing at the top-level. The idea was discussed and we came up with this event.

Read more about the rules, eligibility, schedule and format of Sudoku Mahabharat 2014-2015

Six of the top players: Jaipal, Prasanna, Rishi, Sumit, Swaroop and me won't be participating, in fact, we'll be organizing the event. This would give some of the upcoming solvers a chance to win this event and hopefully be a part of the Indian team soon.

Episode 1: Standard Variants by Rishi Puri
Dates: 20th-22nd September, 2014
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Episode 2: Irregular Variants by Rohan Rao
Dates: 18th-20th October, 2014
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Episode 3: Odd-Even Variants by Deb Mohanty
Dates: 15th-17th November, 2014
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Episode 4: Outside Variants by Rakesh Rai
Dates: 20th-22nd December, 2014
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Episode 5: Math Variants by Prasanna Seshadri
Dates: 17th-19th January, 2015
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Episode 6: Neighbours by Rajesh Kumar
Dates: 21st -23rd February, 2015
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Episode 7: Math Variants by Swaroop Guggilam
Dates: 21st-23rd March, 2015
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Whether you're a beginner, regular or pro, whether you're 17yrs, 31yrs or 67yrs, whether you're an Indian or not, this is a chance for you to participate (even for fun!) and solve some different interesting sudokus created by some of the best sudoku creators in India. There is something for everyone to enjoy! Who knows, maybe you can be the one who wins the Sudoku Mahabharat !

Beginners Contest on LMI

I authored the July Beginners Contest on LMI. This was a short contest consisting of 4 Classic Sudokus and 4 Sudoku Variants. The difficulty was aimed at ensuring new comers to be able to solve these. The contest was held from 23rd July - 28th July, 2014.

The Sudoku Variants that appeared are Arrow, Diagonal, Extra Region and Trio. You can view some examples here.

You can discuss about the contest on the LMI Forum.

There were totally 295 participants across 38 countries! Congrats to sworls (USA), Mehmet Eren (Turkey) and Vidhya (India) for being the top-3 Beginners. And congrats to Kota Morinishi (Japan), Timothy Doyle (France) and Hideaki Jo (Japan) for being the top-3 Seasoners.

You can view the Complete Results.

Overall from the feedback I received, most participants enjoyed the 'easy' Classics. Among the variants, Trio is always easy, Diagonal was easy, Extra Region was medium and Arrow, well, Arrow was something, right? The Arrow Sudoku was certainly challenging, especially for beginners, but I don't think it was too tough :-)
Maybe you can decide for yourself after checking the solve below:

This is the puzzle:

The 'long' arrow has to be '6'. After that, I admit, the next step is not straightforward. Intuitively, I thought people will target the bottom-left, and there is an opening there. You should get the following pencilmarks using simple addition rules and constraints.

If you look at R8C4, it cannot be '2' or '3' because it will result in the following contradictions for those two arrows. This is not very easy to identify, but filling those two arrows is quite tight.

Hence, R8C4 is a '1'. From here, the solve is smooth.

At this stage, R8C3 cannot be '3', hence it is '2' and that will also enable the other arrow to be completed. There are other ways too, but if you try filling up box 7, along with the arrows, there is just one possibility.

Using Classic rules, you can reach this stage, with those two possibilities for '5' in box-8.

The arrow in box-2 covers R1C5 and R2C6. Minimum in R1C5 is '3' and minimum in R2C6 is '6'. So, it has to be 3+6=9, which will also give you the 5-9 pair in box-8.

The centre box can then be completed, which will give you a few more digits using Classic rules.

The arrow with '7' can only be 1-6 and you get a few more digits.

You have just one arrow left to complete, and eliminating '4' is simple since neither 1+3 nor 2+2 is possible. Using '8', you should get 3+5 and the rest gets solved using simple Classic rules.

So, what do you think now? Tough? Maybe not that much!

This Arrow Sudoku was not very trivial and a lot of solvers struggled on this variant. But I hope you enjoyed solving it at the end.

And, I hope everyone enjoyed the sudokus in general, and thanks for participating in this contest! :-)