World Puzzle Championships
It may not be well known, but there is a World Puzzle Championship that takes place once a year.And this year's competition has just been held in Eger in Hungary.
The World Puzzle Championship - or WPC - pits the wits of the best puzzlers around the world against each other. Language is no barrier, because the puzzles are all number and logic puzzles or puzzles that are independent of language and semantics, so no matter what language people speak they all can tackle the puzzles (unlike, say, a crossword championship).
The competition is comprised of various rounds, and also a group competition split by country in addition to the individual rounds. Puzzles might be sudoku-based variants or a whole range of novel puzzles that are created just for the championships. Competitors need to put in lots of practice before the event to get fast at solving, and also of course have an innate ability to spot patterns and quickly make inferences from instructions as to possible ways to solve novel puzzle types. Also good technique is essential to cut out errors - the bane of many top puzzler's lives!
The winner this year was Palmer Mebane of the US, the other top three finishers were Ulrich Voigt in second and Thomas Synder in third place. Thomas Snyder won the World Sudoku Championship that took place in the same location a few days earlier.
The top finishing Brit was Neil Zussman who finished the championships in 10th place.
Date written: 14 Nov 2011
Category: Puzzle competitions | Keywords: world puzzle championship
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