Odd News

Trying to kill your boredom? Do you want something entertaining to do during your flight or bus trip? Well don't worry, now you have Sudoku, a logic-based number placement puzzle. It's easy to play; you just have to fill a 9×9 grid so that each column, each row, and each of the nine 3×3 boxes contains numbers from 1 to 9 only once. Now take one and give it a try. For its existence we thank Howard Garns, an American architect, while for its name we thank Nikoli, Japanese who published it in 1986 under this name that means single number. Beyond this petty commercial, the truth is that many people enjoy it and it's a worldwide hit since 2005. Furthermore, there are even competitions and the prizes are not negligible. The first US championship was on Saturday in Philadelphia and gathered more than 800 people from far distances like California and British Columbia. Many US newspapers use it since The Times of London began popularizing it in 2004. According to a Philadelphia Inquirer survey more than 56 percent of Americans have played this game. The winner, Thomas Snyder, is 27 years-old and a postdoctoral student of bioengineering at Stanford University in Palo Alto, California, and a Harvard University PhD. in chemistry. He succeeded to complete the advanced section in seven minutes and eight seconds; that is 3 minutes before his nearest rival. He returned home with $10000 in his pocket and with the desire to defend his world title in India next year. Although he played this game as a hobby, he now looks at it like at something meaningful. However, not everyone came for winning the prize; some came for the sake of the game like Alicia Leshner, 46, an intensive care nurse from Lafayette Hill, Pennsylvania or Jennifer Maienza, 49, a kindergarten teacher from Laurel Springs, New Jersey. All the 857 contest sat for 30 minutes in silence, while other 300 people watched them filling three rounds of Sudoku. Jay Devine, a spokesman of the event, said they did not expect so many people to attend and this game reunites people of all ages. Try it, who knows you might even like it.

related story: http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20071020/us_nm/usa_sudoku_dc;_ylt=AhbamOZEsoZrdvsTkltx9oCs0NUE

by Claudia Sonea for PocketNews (http://pocketnews.tv)

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