Yes, I know Sudoku isn’t really maths, but anyone interested in puzzles might want to know about this event, held in Manchester next week.
The UK Puzzle Association is a non-profit organisation that selects the UK teams for the World Puzzle Championships and World Sudoku Championships, which this year will be held in Kraljevica, Croatia in October. The UKPA’s website is here, and they clearly know their puzzles, since they had nice things to say about PuzzleBomb.
The UK teams for the two events are selected in part based on the results of the UK Open Sudoku and Puzzle Tournaments, which will be held at the Chill Factore indoor snow centre near Manchester on Saturday 28th April and Sunday 29th April. The weekend involves Sudoku and puzzle competitions, both individual and team, as well as a solving workshop. It sounds pretty intense:
The price of participation in the UK Open Sudoku and Puzzle Tournaments is £39 per person. This covers participation in a five-round four-hour puzzle competition, a three-round three-hour sudoku competition, two team puzzle competitions and solving workshops. It also includes the cost of two buffet lunches and refreshments throughout the competitions. Instruction booklets will be published on the UK Puzzle Association web site at http://www.ukpuzzles.org/ in the coming week.
The UKPA is keen to ensure that the puzzles in the test are culture-fair, language-neutral problems, including of course Sudoku, as well as other ‘Japanese’ puzzles such as Kakuro and Hitori. Other puzzles are based on games such as Battleships, Mastermind and Minesweeper.
For more information, see http://www.ukpuzzles.org/news.php.