Thomas Snyder (aka Dr. Sudoku) is a two-time World Sudoku Champion and five-time US Puzzle Champion, as well as the author of several books of puzzles. His puzzles are hand-crafted, with artistic themes, serving as a kind of “cure for the common sudoku.” Each week he posts a new puzzle on his blog, The Art of Puzzles. This week’s prescription consists of several hand-made Sudoku that were featured at the recent Silicon Valley Puzzle Fest Tournament.
I don't write too many classic sudoku; in part because it's challenging to make them stand out from all the computer-generated sudoku out there and in part because there is simply no market that "pays" for classic sudoku because the random scatterings of digits from a PC are essentially free.
Still, I do enjoy exploring different classic sudoku themes, and making challenging puzzles that only require "simple" steps. Fortunately every year I write 7 puzzles (3 youth round puzzles, 3 adult round puzzles, and an adult final) for the Silicon Valley Puzzle Fest tournament (my previous years' puzzles can be found here, here, and here). This week's prescription consists of the puzzles that were highlighted last weekend. This year I tried to make some slightly harder puzzles while still exploring interesting geometries and some unusual themes. I particularly like "Missing Digit?", but I think the solving paths of other puzzles like "Button" came out really well too.
The winner - James Wilson of San Francisco - averaged about 5 minutes on each of the adult puzzles including the final, so use that as your par time if you want to play along at home.
Rules: Place the digits 1 through 9 into the empty cells in the grid (a single digit per cell) so that each digit appears exactly once in each of the nine rows, nine columns, and nine outlined 3x3 regions.
Adult Round Puzzles:
__Adult Final and Youth Puzzles »____Solutions »__Adult Final:
Youth Round Puzzles:
