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Sudoku Miscellanea (For Novices And Beginners)

January 24th, 2010 by admin

Below are a few points and miscellaneous informations that may interest people who are still new to the ‘world of Sudoku’.

• ‘True’ Sudoku grids should have only one solution, and are solvable without guesswork. Although standard puzzles consist of 9 x9 grids, Sudoku puzzles exist in many sizes; many Sudoku variants are made up of 6 x 6 grids and some can even have 12 x 12 or 25 x 25 grids.
• There are numerous Sudoku variants, and new ones are invented every day. Some of the better-know ones are:

1. Sudoku X (has 2 additional diagonal ‘regions’, giving it an X shape) and usually has less starting numbers than standard Sudoku.
2. Slash Sudoku is contains just one additional diagonal region.
3. Killer Sudoku has no starting numbers. The player is only told what the sum of each ‘region’ is.
4. In Jigsaw Sudoku, also called Irregular Sudok, the number boxes can be in form and the player has to put them together like jigsaw pieces. It is much easier to solve online because colors can be used to distinguish the different regions.
5. There are dozens of other variants, including Circle Sudoku (where the puzzle is in a circle format), Odd-Even Sudoku (the player is told whether the number for each square is an odd or even one or whether a certain number of cells are all odd or all even), Wordoku (letters are substituted for numbers), Samurai Sudoku, Consecutive Sudoku, and many more.

• In addition to paper versions of the puzzle, you can play Sudoku online and there are Sudoku game boards, Sudoku PC programs and hand-held Sudoku games (including a three-dimensional version called the Dion Cube).
• Easier Sudoku puzzles may be solved in five to fifteen minutes; the more difficult ones could take hours.
• Sudoku is not a mathematical game (it doesn’t involve calculations, letters and pictures can be used in place of numbers).
• World Sudoku championships are organized; the first was held in 2006, in Lucca, Italy, the second took place in Prague (Czech Republic), the third (2008) in Goa, India and the 2009 World Sudoku championship took place in Zilina, Slovakia. Jana Tylova from the Czech Republic won the 2006 championship, Thomas Snyder from the USA was the winner of the 2007 and 2008 championships and Jan Mrozowski from Poland won the 2009 championship.
• Several Sudoku video games exist, the most popular being the Nintendo DS game, Brain Age: Train Your Brain in Minutes a Day! That sold over 8 million copies worldwide. Brain Age 2 also features Sudoku games.
• To promote its interactive Sudoku television game, British Sky TV created a Sudoku puzzle that measured 275 ft by 275 ft (it was carved into a hillside). Unfortunately, the puzzle was not a true, or valid, one since it had almost 2,000 possible solutions.

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