Tiit Vunk won the bronze medal at the Sudoku World Championship!

Doesn't anyone have any information about the current state of the Logic World Championship? Considering Tiit's excellent form, there's a sneaky chance of a medal there too.

wscwpc.ini.hu Tiit is in 31st place according to the preliminary results.

Many thanks for your good wishes and for keeping your fingers crossed. I myself don't dare to hope that I'm capable of that much there. I hope that this will give everyone more faith that anything is possible if you practice hard. As for Mrozowski, I would say this much that the second sudoku of the final was fatal for him, on which he spent an inordinate amount of time. After all, he was not able to hit the idea of solving this sudoku this time. But there was nothing he could do after that, because after the third sudoku the number of boards decreased to 7 boards, so the first 7 who got there took their places and the rest were out of the game. After the sixth sudoku the number of boards decreased to 5, which I managed to get to last. By solving the 7th sudoku I managed to overtake last year's 3rd Hideaki Jo and last year's 4th Florian Kirch, and then I managed to keep my lead. Kota Morinishi, who finished in 2nd place, was already out of reach, even though I must have taken a lot of time from him and got past him on the last table.

I would like more comments from the medalist: we could start right at the beginning of the trip. Did the whole team travel separately or together, was the trip funded by other organizations? What was the first day like and the following ones, which sudoku puzzle required the most brain activity, etc.

Regarding Tiidu's modest "you have to practice hard" comment, I would say that talent is still needed. This hard training would help me enough to be able to do some easy 6x6 sudoku in less than an hour, but in competitions my hands would still shake so much that half the time would be spent looking for a pencil under the table. So hats off to Tiidu!

Antsu has an amazing ability to tell others nicely. So thank you again for your good wishes. I thought about Kraska's answer for a long time and couldn't think of much. Funding has always been in line with how much you can and have the time to organize. Of course, there were grants where part of the event was paid for, but the other part had to be paid for yourself. I also had to pay for the trip myself - I probably didn't bother to think about it enough, and the trip didn't turn out to be too expensive. Last year, when I went to the USA, a large part of the trip was paid for. All I had to do was submit an application to the right place. Thanks to the supporters, I won't go into the details here publicly. The team's travel is different every year. Some travel separately, some travel at the same time. Since there were 2 events in a row (Sudoku and LoogikaMM), many traveled completely independently and alone, as they only participated in one competition. For example, I organized the trip entirely by myself, but I also looked around a bit to see if others were moving so that I would end up in the same place at the same time. Some people came much later, however. When we went to Slovakia in 2009, we organized a minibus and we all drove there together. It probably doesn't make sense to go to Croatia by bus next year - it's too tiring and a long journey. I'll post about the Sudoku World Championship in the next post, I won't be cramming too many things into one place.

On Sunday, October 6th, there was a grand opening, where you could eat and drink and there were some speakers. But no one stayed there for long, because they needed to get a good night's sleep and start competing the next morning. The competition schedule can be found at http://www.wscwpc.ini.hu Since I got there on Saturday afternoon and had the whole of Sunday free, and there wasn't much else around, I decided to take a couple of hours of nap on Sunday afternoon, because I was a little tired. But it probably turned out to be a small mistake, because I didn't get much sleep that night (first of all, I had rested and was a little tired before the competition). As a result, I got a maximum of 4 hours of sleep at night - good that I got a lot. However, it seems that this had no effect on my competitive form. When the first round started, the competitive nerves made all the difference. Asking questions Monday started with asking questions, where the entire guide was reviewed, which is available on the above-added competition website (at the bottom of the page - WSC Booklet). There, the tasks were explained if necessary and some rules that might have been a bit unclear were clarified. 1st Round - Wrong puzzles? To my knowledge, for the first time in the history of the Sudoku World Championships, one of the rounds was to find errors in sudoku puzzles. We were given mainly classic, diagonal and special-shaped sudoku puzzles of 9x9 size, and we had to find out whether it was correct or incorrect. The numbers given were all in the same font, the numbers written on them were all in different fonts, ending with the numbers on the dice and the bear paws, where the number was written. Roman numerals were also used, and one was, for example, one where all the numbers written were at a 90-degree angle. Thomas Snyder, who became the world champion, did the same thing in one round for fun, writing a few sudokus so that all the numbers were at a 90-degree angle. This was of course accepted:) 2nd Round - Sudoku Pieces In order to get the idea of this round, I had to read the instructions at least 5 times. The idea was basically that each picture/symbol in the given squares had to move exactly 1 square (in four possible directions). A large 9x9 sudoku was given, consisting of 9 different pictures. Each picture was a well-known place in Budapest. Then 81 small pictures were handed out, which had to be placed on the sudoku according to the rules of classic sudoku. I finished 3 minutes before the end of the time. The first finisher (Snyder) finished 18 minutes before the end of the time. The total time for this round was 30 minutes. 3rd Round - Easy classics As the name suggests, it was a so-called. with simple classic sudokus. 6 6x6 sudokus and 16 9x9 sudokus, time 45 minutes. I managed to finish 5 minutes before the end of the time, which gave me a solid first place in this round. Jakub Ondroušek finished second, finishing 1 minutes before the end of the time. Thomas Snyder also finished the tasks, but did not receive a time bonus. 4th Round - Halved Squares sudoku 9 sudokus were given, 8 of which I managed to do. You can read what these sudokus look like in the instructions and also try to solve one yourself. 5th Round - Sudoku Central Clues These are sudoku variants, where each sudoku had some nuance added to it. What exactly they were, you can again see in the instructions. With all the non-classical sudoku rounds, I tended to end up at the bottom of the top ten with my result. Overall, however, I was sometimes better than one and sometimes better than another, and the overall result I believe could definitely have been worthy of the top ten. And because I got 1st place in the classic rounds, I managed to take 3rd place at the end of all the rounds. In this round, however, I again had an above-average result, but I fell short of the top teams. 6th Round - Circle sudoku (Team round) This was a very overworked team round. The German team was probably the only one who managed to complete the task within the allotted 40 minutes. We did something, but it didn't seem to branch out very easily. 7th Round - Vasarely sudoku (Team round) In this round, we finished our tasks a little ahead of schedule, which of course many teams managed to do. I believe that we all succeeded in this round. However, points were lost due to some mistake somewhere - I can't say where something went wrong, but it still happens. The second day of the competition also started with individual rounds: 8. Round - Decorated sudoku This was a round of sudoku variants, where only one competitor got more points than me - therefore a very successful round. The round itself was simply very originally structured. There were 2 sudokus for each type - one of them was one where only numbers were given, and no other additional clues, the other was one where only additional clues were given and no numbers. To make it clearer, based on the example of the "rossini sudoku" in the 4th task of this round: The first sudoku was one where only numbers were given, and no arrows: i.e. that in no possible place on the arrow could the numbers be located, neither in descending nor ascending order. The second rossini was one where no numbers were given, but only arrows were given. All sudokus in this round were made with the same principle. I enjoyed this round. 9. Round - Sprint 6 6x6 sudokus, 6 9x9 sudokus, 3 9x9 diagonals and 3 special shapes in sizes 6x6 and 8x8 and 30 minutes. I managed to finish 2 minutes before the end of the time, which put me in 2nd place in this round behind Kota Morinishi, who finished 4 minutes before the end of the time. As I recall, someone else shouted "finish", but then he had some mistake. 10th Round - Sudoku Mix This was the round that probably differed the most from the classics. It didn't go very well, but there's probably nothing to complain about. 11th Round - Not easy classics As the name suggests, something that's not easy. 14 sudokus in 45 minutes. The sudokus are quite difficult - except for maybe the first 4, which didn't give me much points either. I managed to finish 11 of them, which gave a pretty good result - 2nd-4th place I guess. 12th Round - 3D Sudoku I was given a cube glued together from paper, which had to be solved. One part came out, which resulted in a new puzzle, which also had to be solved. And then another part came out, which gave a third puzzle. Time 30 minutes, I finished 11 minutes before the end of the time. Quite a few finished in this given time. 13th Round - Weakest link (team) Since nothing much could change in the team rankings and this is one of my favorite types of tasks, which concerns non-classical Sudokus, I simply enjoyed solving them. I managed to finish my own Sudokus in 4th place overall, which is why I advanced to the team table. There I was given a task, which I somehow managed to solve, but which also took some time. At the same time, all the adjacent tables were busy with competitors and a lot of fuss began. I finished my task and then sat at the table for half an hour before my teammate came and brought another task. I managed to do it just before the time ran out. In this round, the idea of all the tasks was an inequality sudoku, where an inequality sign is placed between some of the squares to show which of the numbers is larger. Then I had to wait for the final results...

When it turned out that I managed to come in 3rd place in 2 days, the only thought in my head was that I shouldn't be nervous in the final. I directed my thoughts to the fact that if I was good enough to come in 3rd place in the preliminary rounds, then I would be able to repeat the same in the finals (although all the finalists are very tough performers). Rather, I thought that it would go as it goes - the goal has already been met, and I will be in the top ten anyway. The 10 finalists were gathered together and we were introduced to the tasks that would be in the final. The fourth task, which was a multiplication sudoku, started to bother me. This is the one where the product is given in the gray squares, where all the numbers must be different. I quickly made myself clear on 2 options, which were 1-digit x 4-digit = 4-digit, and I hoped that something similar would come in the final. At the beginning of the final, everyone was made to sit in one row at the back of the hall. There were spectators in the front of the hall, and the hall was full of tables. More precisely, there were 9 rows of tables, where all the same tasks were on the tables in one row. The competition proceeded in such a way that when you solved your sudoku, you could move on to the next table, etc. The Estonian championships also have exactly the same system (with 3 rows). After the 3rd sudoku, the number of tables in the row decreased to 7 tables, and after the 6th sudoku, the number of tables decreased to 5. So only the 5 fastest could solve the last 3 sudokus. Whoever got there on time, the competition ended for him. When the competitor finished the task, the time was fixed. Exactly one minute after the time was fixed, the task was checked, and the judge either gave the competitor back the paper so that he could correct the mistake, or signaled that he could move on to the next table. Thomas Snyder, who was then a 2-time world champion, was the first to enter the track. He beat 2x world champion Jan Mrozowski, who entered the track in second place, by more than 3 minutes. After about 4 minutes, I followed, and 4 seconds later Kota Morinishi. 8 seconds later Florian Kirch from Germany, and it was already more than 2 minutes until the next one. The first sudoku was Central False sudoku, where some numbers were added to the middle 3x3 box that shouldn't be in that box. Essentially a classic sudoku with some hints, and 1:49 for this sudoku gave him 2nd place in solving this sudoku. Kota Morinishi solved it in 1:46, and came 3 seconds closer. The second was Sudoku Odd/Even regions. The principle of Sudoku is that wherever there are at least 3 numbers of the same parity in a row, a line is drawn there. For example, if the numbers 1246875 are in a row from left to right, then a line would need to be drawn at 2468 places. The same applies to diagonally adjacent numbers. This sudoku was a classic 8x8, where 10 numbers were given, and there were no lines. So there could not be 3 numbers of the same parity in a row anywhere. I managed to solve the sudoku in 5:13, which was not the fastest time, but at the beginning I figured out how to do it at all, and until this final, this type of sudoku was a relative pain in the ass. Since this final task, I am able to solve this type quickly :) However, this same sudoku became fatal for Jan Mrozowski, who spent significantly more time on it, and who discovered after the 3rd sudoku that he would not make it into the top 7. The third was a classic, where I showed a relatively mediocre time with my 2:31. However, I made it to the 4th board in second place, because Kota had wasted more time than me on the 2nd task. Then came the fourth problem, which was a multiplication. The multiplication was 2-digit x 2-digit = 4-digit. This turned out to be my hardest sudoku, on which I spent 7:06 to my surprise, which is not the worst. I had to remember the multiplication on paper I learned in 5th grade and that's how I solved it. By that time, 5 of the remaining 7 competitors had moved from this table to the fifth table, and Snyder was already sitting at the 6th table. The fifth problem was a Small Zones sudoku, which looks a bit like a killer sudoku. The time was 3:33, which turned out to be the fastest along with Kota's time, which was also 3:33. (Snyder did it in 3:34). This helped me just enough that I passed Jan Novotny (Czech Republic) and was able to start the 6th sudoku in 5th place. The 6th was a classic. At that moment I knew that if I let either Novotny or Zivanovic from Serbia pass, my song would be sung. Snyder and Morinishi had already moved on to seventh and Jo (Japan) and Kirch (Germany) had a lead of about 2 minutes over me. Novotny was 1 minute behind, and Zivanovic was far behind. 1:54 was the second time again (Morinishi 1:37) and when I got up from the table, Novotny had even given his task to the judge for checking. So I got into the top five in fifth place, and I had also slightly reduced my gap with Jo and Kirch - the gap was probably somewhere around 1 minute and 10 seconds. Morinishi, however, had a lead of 3 minutes and Snyder 7.5 minutes. The seventh sudoku was Renban Sudoku. I was happy to get into the top five and I probably would have been satisfied if I had finished fifth too. but the sudoku branched out quickly, and 3:43 was by far the fastest time for this sudoku (second 5:15 Snyder), and that gave me a 2.5 minute lead over Jo and a 6 minute lead over Kirch when I reached the 8th board. Snyder had already finished by then. The eighth sudoku was a Palindrome sudoku where the numbers written along the line must be the same when read in both directions. The length of the line was 47 squares, and marked with the letters AZ. By 5:57, Jo came 1 minute closer, and Morinishi moved 2.5 minutes ahead. This probably also ended the chances of silver, but since Jo was still ahead by 1:32, it was quite a good lead to win bronze. The last sudoku was a classic, which was already harder than the previous ones. 2 minutes after sitting at the last board Morinishi finished and won silver. His last sudoku time was 5:29 (Snyder's was 3:00). Jo was already sitting next to him at that moment. I spent another 2 minutes, and the last sudoku time was 3:58, and then I handed my paper to the judge, who had been standing next to me (read: right behind me) the whole way. It was probably the longest minute of the entire two days. When the minute passed, Jo still hadn't handed his paper back, which would have given him a chance to correct his mistake and recheck it and still win a medal. But it was correct, and then the solving was over for everyone (because there was no one left to solve). Thanks to that, people started clapping and congratulating me - so I can say that my completion caused the liveliest (read: only) applause among the group :P Kirch hadn't reached the last board yet, so he finished 5th after Jo. But throughout the final, I managed to suppress all my emotions so much that I wasn't nervous or anything - probably that was one of the keys to success. I can't say anything about the question of which sudoku required the most brain activity. Only a sports commentator who knows nothing about this sport would be able to ask such a question. To be honest, I never thought about which sudoku wasted the most brain resources - I just enjoyed solving it. Where you had to think more, it was therefore a harder sudoku and needed a little more time. In the rounds where it seemed that I was doing worse, there were harder sudokus in those and I had to do worse. However, the more difficult for me are still the sudoku variants, because I have done more classic ones. The 42nd place I got in the USA in terms of variants was probably surpassed this time by a lot. And I wouldn't say that I thought less when doing the classic ones - concentration must be guaranteed 100% of the time, otherwise you will simply be left behind by others. I hope that someone will bother to read these posts too.

sorry Tiit, too long for me:D

The fact that I didn't lose my nerve during the solving process is amazing. Solving at the final table must have been particularly stressful, especially when you solve and see how someone has already completed their sudoku. I would have broken my pencil in half and walked away at the first mistake. In my question, I was referring to a sudoku that took my brain so seriously that I wanted it all to be over (symptoms: dizziness, body/hand tremors) - I guess that moment didn't occur, otherwise I wouldn't have gotten such a result.