Jalaj P. Jha Technical & Miscellaneous Ramblings

Will there be a National Sudoku Championship 2009?

Last year I had a few posts on National Sudoku Championship 2008 (India) and the 3rd World Sudoku Championship that was held at Goa in India. I already have started receiving comments on these pages whether I know when will National Sudoku Championship be held this year?

Let’s look at the happenings at the previous two National Sudoku Championships.

2007 – Quixy/Novax media partnered with Times Group to hold the National Sudoku Championship. Puzzles for the 1st round qualification appeared on Times of India on four separate dates at Delhi, Kolkata, Bangalore & Mumbai. 1200 successful candidates from each of these rounds were called in these cities and selected ones were called to Mumbai where the winners were declared. The championship got a lot of publicity though Times Group’s newspapers and net portals.

2008 – Till mid of February there was no news of National Sudoku Championship. India was also to host the3rd World Sudoku Championship 2008. 19th of February Championship was declared, and registration openedin March. Qualification rounds were conducted online, 25 qualified candidates were called for finals in Bangalore who were joined by 6 others who topped National Sudoku Championship 2007 and represented India in the 2nd World Sudoku Championship (2007). The winners of the National Sudoku Championship were undoubtedly those from the last years championship.

A few other facts for 2008’s championship

• Qualification round was pushed one week ahead as the online application was not ready
• While qualification round was carried online, the application, not thoroughly tested, did not allow answering to a few puzzles.
• Did I mention Times Group was no where involved? Perhaps Quixy decided to do all on its own.
• National Sudoku Championship online screening attracted only 462 participants and thus this year’s championship failed to bring up more Champions and was a failure.

And for his year Announcement for National Sudoku Championship 2009 is nowhere to be heard till now. We cannot compare this year with previous as this time we are not the host for 4th World Sudoku Championship and that the registration for the same have already started.

So if you ask me when will be National Sudoku Championship 2009 be held, my guess is that the championship will not be held this year and to represent India in 4th World Sudoku Championship the toppers from Previous years’ championship would be called by personally contacting them.

What’s your thought?

Update 22.02.2009:

Just noticed that domain sudokumasters.in where the online National Sudoku Championship 2008 was held has expired two days ago. So if you were still hopeful that there would be a championship this year this is an eye opener.