Our journey has taken us across Universities, Halls, Supermarkets, Associations and even Countries. Through our journey, we have met some of the most talented Sudoku individuals in the country.

Over the past years we have received numerous requests to help and facilitate Sudoku competitions in Malaysia. We have gladly accepted most of these requests to help and promote Sudoku in Malaysia.

In this new year, we have resolved to providing a form for those of you who are interested in organizing your own Sudoku competition be it in your campus, schools, workplace, supermarkets, associations and so on.

You can fill up the form and submit your details to us and we will contact you and discuss with you how you can successfully organize your very own Sudoku competition!

To access the form, kindly click here.

Wishing everyone a very happy and prosperous new year 2011! Wishing you more Sudoku this year than the previous one!

Mental agility expert, Tim Forrester, from the Brain Training website Canny Minds said that “giving the brain a workout burns calories in the same way that giving the body a workout does”.

He said that “When we do something challenging such as a puzzle or a quiz we burn through 1.5 calories every minute.

Source: www.cannyminds.com and www.telegraph.co.uk

Sudoku is a Numbers Puzzle played by millions of children and adults, world-wide, from below age 7 to above age 70. The History of Sudoku is posted elsewhere in the website under Articles.

The Classic Sudoku Puzzle, which is the most popular, has a 9 x 9 grid with nine rows, nine columns and nine 3 x 3 sub-grids, containing a total of 81 cells with about 25 to 35 given numbers. To solve the puzzle, the player is required to complete all the remaining blank cells based on one simple rule.

Rule: Complete all the blank cells in the 9 x 9 Grid so that each row, each column and each 3 x 3 box (sub-grid) contains all the digits 1 to 9 without repetition.

Sudoku puzzle solving does not require any mathematical or language skills, or general knowledge; just logic, and lots of patience for the puzzles graded difficult. It is fun, challenging and good for a mental workout. It will enhance the development of Logic and Deductive ability in children and has been acclaimed to be beneficial in delaying the onset of Alzheimer’s among the elders, if prone.

Solving a simple sudoku puzzle – A Step By Step Guide – Part One

In the Sudoku Grid below, the nine rows and nine columns are indicated by R1 to R9 (row 1 to row 9) and C1 to C9 (column 1 to column 9). The nine sub-grids are designated as Box 1 to Box 9 from left to right.

Please print the Demo Puzzle, below, or copy the given numbers on to a Blank Grid. (You can download and print an A4-size blank grid on this website)

As you follow the Steps One to Eight, fill in the blank cells on the Demo Puzzle to give you a hands-on feeling of solving the puzzle. As you go through the Steps, read C1 as Column 1 and R2 as Row 2 and so on.

The following Steps are illustrated with arrows showing the Rows or Columns in which a particular digit cannot be placed because the digit is already present in that Row, Column or Box (Sudoku Rule). You will observe that it is partly a process of elimination. To determine where a particular digit can be placed, we have to first identify in which cells in a Row, Column or Box the digit cannot be placed.

The Blank Cells solved are added progressively in each subsequent Step. The original given numbers are in Black. In each Step below, all previously solved cells are in Red and the current solved cell(s) is [boxed in Red]

To solve a sudoku puzzle, we first scan the puzzle to identify the digits that occur more frequently. In this puzzle, there are more of the digits 1,4,5,7 and 9 than the others, within the given numbers.

We will scan three rows or three columns of three boxes at a time, (horizontally or vertically).

Step One: Taking the first three boxes, there is a 7 in Row 3 of Box 1 and a 7 in Row 2 of Box 2 as shown by the arrows. There is no digit 7 in Box 3. Digit 7 cannot be in Row 2 or Row 3 as per the sudoku rule. It can then only be in Row 1. There is only one blank cell left in Row 1 of Box 3, i.e. position R1-C8, (between the digits 9 and 4).

So we are sure that the digit 7 can only be placed in R1-C8 in Box 3. You can now write the digit 7 in your Demo Puzzle as in Step One above.

Congratulations! You have placed your first digit.

Step Two: We now look at Columns 1, 2 and 3. We observe that the digit 9 appears in Boxes 4 and 7 but not in Box 1. The digit 9 cannot be in Columns 1 and 2 of Box 1 as shown by the arrows.

It can only be placed in Column 3. There is a blank cell R2-C3 between the digits 8 and 3. So this is the only location for the digit 9 in Box 1. Now you can put the digit 9 in R2-C3 on your Demo Puzzle.

(Note that the same result would have been derived, as above, for digit 9 if Rows 1, 2 and 3 had been scanned as shown by the arrows in Row 1 and 3.

Step Three: As in Step 2, we observe that the digit 4 appears in Boxes 4 and 7 but not in Box 1. The digit 4 cannot be in Column 1 or 3 of Box 1. It can only be placed in Column 2.

There are two blank cells in Column 2 of Box 1. Now the digit 4 could possibly be in either of these cells (R1-C2 and R2-C2). Now we have to see if the digit 4 appears anywhere along R1 and R2. There is a digit 4 in R1-C9; so it cannot be placed in R1-C2. Therefore the only position for digit 4 is in R2-C2 in Box 1.

We have now completed three of the blank cells. As each additional cell is completed, we will find it easier in our progress in solving this puzzle.

Step Four: Having completed Step 3 for the digit 4, we can find the cell for digit 4 in Box 2. We can see that R3-C4 is the correct blank cell for the digit 4 as it cannot be in R1, R2, C5 and C6.

Step Five: The digit 5 is placed in R4-C6 of Box 5, as it is the only blank cell in Column 6 in Box 5 for the digit 5, as indicated by the arrows from the digit 5 in Boxes 2, 6 and 8.

Step Six: Having solved Step 5, it is now easy to place the digit 5 in R5-C2 in Box 4, as it cannot be in Row 4 or Row 6 or in Boxes 5 and 6 as indicated by the arrows from the digit 5 in Boxes 5 and 6.

Step Seven: Based on the previous steps, try to deduce the positions of the digits 4 and 7 as shown. The arrows from the digit 4 in Boxes 3 and 4, and the digit 7 from Boxes 4 and 5 will fix the placement of 4 and 7.

Step Eight: The digits 9 and 4 are shown solved in Boxes 8 and 9. The digit 9 in Box 8 is solved here with the placement of 9 in Boxes 2, 5 and 7 as indicated by the arrows. Similarly the digit 4 in Box 9 is solved with the help of the arrows from the digit 4 in Boxes 3, 7 and 8.

By now, you should have a pretty good idea of solving a simple Sudoku Puzzle (classified as “Easy”). Try solving the rest of the puzzle and you can check your progress against the Solved Puzzle.

The Sudoku rule is so simple. All you have to do in the initial stages is to remember that every Row, Column and Box must have the digits 1 to 9. The rule itself is the clue to solving Sudoku Puzzles.

We would greatly appreciate any constructive feedback on whether the guide is clear and easy to follow, and suggestions on how to improve the presentation.

Please email to balasingam@sudoku.com.my or use the ‘Contact Us’ link to submit your comments

Have Fun.

There is a new game combined from the principles of the popular Sudoku puzzle and the simple, yet deceiving, 15 puzzle of the 1880s. As such, the game is called Sudo15 (for the 4 by 4 size) but in general is called SudoSlide.

SudoSlide was invented by Kung-Ming Tiong, a lecturer at Universiti Malaysia Sabah, and its dynamics were analyzed together with a student, Yen-Peng Lee.

The idea for SudoSlide began around April 2006 and its analysis was completed in October 2006. The publication of the academic article on SudoSlide, which describes its game characteristics and some methods of play appeared in March, 2008 in the Game Journal http://www.gamejournal.org/game_journal_index_2008.php.

SudoSlide was also briefly introduced at a Science Carnival held at the School of Science and Technology, Universiti Malaysia Sabah in March 2008. And recently, one of the authors (Kung-Ming Tiong) talked to Mr. Balasingam of sudoku.com.my and was invited to write this short description on SudoSlide.

The SudoSlide provides ample opportunities for challenging casual as well as expert Sudoku players. It offers a whole new perspective of Sudoku. While Sudoku involves logical thinking, SudoSlide introduces the element of spatial intelligence. Players need to change the permutation (the arrangement) of the numbers by sliding the numbers (horizontally and vertically) to obtain a required Sudoku pattern. Sounds simple, but not quite.

Try it. You?ll be amazed how fun (and challenging) it is.

The 4 by 4 SudoSlide is suitable for young children aged perhaps from 4-7 years old. Adults will be challenged by the 9 by 9 SudoSlide.

Tell us if you like SudoSlide. There may be plans to have a SudoSlide competition sometime in the near future. You may convey your interest and comments to info@sudoku.com.my.

NOTE from Sudoku.com.my: We were privileged to meet Mr Kung-Ming Tiong and pleased to be introduced to this variation of Sudoku. Congratulations to Mr Tiong and his student, Yen-Peng Lee on this invention. We believe that they have come up with an interesting and innovative invention, particularly the 4 x 4 SudoSlide for the age group 4 to 7, which would develop their Spatial Intelligence. The 9 x 9 SudoSlide will definitely be another variation to interest the 7 to 70 age group who will have the added benefit of grappling with Logic and Spatial Intelligence in the same puzzle.

The fact that the Game Journal has published the article on this invention merits the attention of Sudoku Enthusiasts. We look forward to your comments.

A short introduction to the Game Journal below:

The Game Journal aims to provide new insights, opinions and applications into key issues and subjects that are emerging and are of contemporary interest. The Game Journal encourages publishing articles that point out time honored ideas for games & game theory, as well as modern thoughts and concepts.

We are pleased to review this book written by another Malaysian. The Author, popularly known as Tee Gee, is Mr Lim Teck Guan, an Electrical Engineer, retired recently, having served in the LLN and subsequently in the privatised TNB. His entire career was with this one establishment.

He was introduced to Sudoku Puzzles two years ago and found himself with lots of time to engage in this new-found pursuit which, in his own words, he got ?hooked? to. He talked to all his friends about Sudoku and introduced many to the game.

Scouting around for books on Sudoku, to hone his Sudoku solving skills, he was not satisfied with what was available. This prompted him to consider writing a book, as suggested by his friends, to come up with a simple book to introduce the game for beginners.

Now, his focus was not only solving puzzles but also formulating his ideas for a book that will give beginners a jump start to Sudoku. This was the start of a new project, unlike the high tech (and High Tension) Engineering job at which he was adept. Having scoured the internet for more information and Sudoku solving techniques, he finally came up with his own system and proceeded to publish the Art of Sudoku ? A Step By Step Solution.

True to the title, he has actually taken the reader through the complete solution for the selected puzzle, instead of leaving him/her stranded after the initial steps to illustrate Sudoku solving methods. He has endeavoured to use the various techniques to enable the reader to solve an ?easy to medium? puzzle avoiding the confusion of introducing more advanced techniques to solve any puzzle.

Any beginner will find this book helpful to get him started on Sudoku puzzle solving and it will lay the foundation for more advanced puzzles, if the remaining 30 puzzles provided are solved, using the book as a reference. Once the reader gets a hang of the basic techniques, it will be easier to take on the more difficult puzzles. It may be of help for those who already play sudoku by trial and error, as a primer, but it is particularly recommended for the beginner.

The Malay Version

The pocket size of the book makes it convenient to carry it in the pocket or handbag. The prize is reasonable, compared to the books with lots of puzzles but with just some tips and techniques. Puzzles are freely available in the daily newspapers and the internet. The book retails at RM 19.90 and is available at MPH and myNEWS.com. A Bahasa Malaysia translation is now available.

Editor?s Note: Congratulation to TeeGee on publishing this book to help the thousands of would-be Sudoku Enthusiasts in Malaysia, who have not experienced the wonderful world of Sudoku. We hope that he continues to follow up with advanced versions of this book, which we believe his readers will look forward to. Those who have used his book are invited to leave your comments below.

Note from Sudoku.com.my: We have developed our own Sudoku software and will publish free online puzzles from July 2008.

Sudoku in Japanese can be translated to ?single number?. This was the name given to the puzzle when it was abbreviated from ?Suji wa dokushin ni kagiru?, which stood for ?the number must be single?. Kaji Maki the president of Nikoli introduced the puzzle in Japan in April 1984 in the Monthly Nikolist.

However, the origins of Sudoku have been traced back to the 18th century. Leonhard Euler, born in Basle, Switzerland in 1707, was a mathematical genius who had authored numerous books and papers. He became blind in his later years but continued his work with mathematics and in 1783 introduced ?Latin Squares? which is considered the precursor to Number Place.

The person credited with the current worldwide popularity of Sudoku is Wayne Gould, a New Zealander and retired Hong Kong High Court Judge, who spotted the Sudoku puzzle in a Japanese bookshop in 1997. He developed a computer program over the next six years and in October 2004 offered to supply The Times in Britain, daily puzzles. The Times published the first Sudoku puzzle on 12th Nov. 2004. Three days later the The Daily Mail launched the puzzle with the name ?Codenumber?. This was the starting point of the current Sudoku craze sweeping across the world

In Malaysia, The Malay Mail and The Star started publishing Sudoku puzzles daily from June 2005. This was followed by Sin Chew Daily in Nov. and The New Straits Times in Dec. 2005, both have introduced competitions. Subsequently, in 2006 the Sun started publishing puzzles on Mondays with book prizes.

The first Malaysian Sudoku Competition was organised by Sudoku Event Management on 18th Sept. 2005 with the YMCA of KL as Sponsor and co-organiser. This was followed by a second competition held on 20th Nov. 2005 at the same venue.

Sudoku can help develop math skills because players are encouraged to use logic and skill that normal math classes may not exercise, said Tracy Roberts, who is an assistant registrar for research at Murray State. Often times, it’s not solely the math principles that students misunderstand, but it’s the logic and reasoning involved in using the math principles to solve p

Be prepared for the ultimate brain exercise!

Sudoku-Ball extends the 2 dimensional samurai Sudoku to closed 3 dimensional objects such as cubes, spheres and other geometric shapes. This adds a challenging new dimension to the Sudoku puzzle as not only you have to solve each individual Sudoku by its inter Sudoku logic but also you have to take the neighbouring and adjacent Sudokus into account to solve the entire object.

Please visit http://www.sudoku-ball.com for more information and to play online.

Congratulations to Mr. Jeff H.S.Keow, a Malaysian, on the launch of his book on Sudoku. The book entitled ?Think out of the Block with SUDOKU? is a complete manual on how to solve Sudoku puzzles, unlike most of the books published which give a few pages of tips with hundreds of puzzles. We tend to agree with the writers of the Foreword that this could be ?the first book of its kind in the world?, and definitely a first for Malaysia. A person who is just beginning to solve Sudoku puzzles, and willing to spend a few days to study his book, will get off to a running start to solving these puzzles with relative ease. If this person continues to refer to the book like one refers to a manual or handbook he/she will be attempting the most difficult puzzles within a month or two. Compare this with many of us who spent months to arrive at the Techniques, Procedures and Solving Strategies, which he has laid out in great detail, fully illustrated with worked examples.

This book will help one to avoid the months of trial and error, and wondering how to handle pure and locked twins and triplets referred to in the puzzle books, and much more.

Jeff Keow has used an empirical approach to Sudoku puzzle solving, deriving the techniques etc. based on the rules of Sudoku. He has used space repetition to emphasise the basic concepts and steps, so that these will be firmly entrenched in the beginners? mind. The methodology has been systematically developed from the basic to the more complex steps in three parts: Knowing, Applying and Solving Sudoku. The author completes the book with a fourth part called Thinking with Sudoku, an insight on critical and creative thinking, drawing from his vast experience in teaching, lecturing and experience in the corporate sector.

The book is well-written, in a smooth flow of English which makes it easy to comprehend the step by step progress to the more complex situations in Sudoku solving. A word of caution; do not expect to breeze through the book like a novel and start solving puzzles. One has to browse through and subsequently study it like a manual or handbook, and put in lots of practice.

We are pleased to highly recommend ?Think out of the Block with SUDOKU? for beginners and also for experienced players to consolidate and formalise their solving strategies. We are proud of Jeff?s work which was a labour of love and a valuable contribution to the world of Sudoku. We wish him world-wide sales of this book.

Note: We would be pleased to review any other book by a Malaysian Author, if any.

He didn’t even know what it was when he first laid eyes on it. It was an unusual nine-by-nine box of numbers. But now, he has written a book on how to solve the puzzle. Jeff Keow?s book, Think Out of the Block with Sudoku, offers the tools, techniques, strategies and processes for solving sudoku puzzles. Sudoku puzzles have been the latest craze around the world, and many people will attest to being infuriated, frustrated and befuddled by the number puzzle, created by American Howard Garns and which became a hit in Japan in the early 1980s.

Now Jeff Keow has claimed to have created a formula that is also a one-stop solution for every type of published sudoku puzzle. Keow, who is the chief executive and principal consultant of his own management training and consultancy company, admitted that he did not know what a sudoku puzzle was when he first saw it on his wife?s computer in December 2005, but once he got into it, he became addicted to the game. Now, a year later, he has published a book, Think Out of the Block with Sudoku , which he calls a ?sudoku handbook and manual.? His formula is named the ?KHS Formula 3 Plus 2.? In the book, Keow offers the tools, techniques, strategies and processes for solving sudoku puzzles, with step-by-step worked examples.

Keow said he initially researched sudoku on the Internet, and got the hang of the rules of the game and the solution tips. It looked simple enough. With what he thought were solid tips and strategies, he tried his hand at The Star ?s sudoku puzzles. Inevitably, he got stuck at some of the puzzles and didn?t know what to do. He realised that by relying on those tips and strategies, he could only go so far. The only way left to go was to take guesses. But he thought the solution must be obtained by logical means. ?I searched high and low for all the tools and techniques,? said Keow. ?There are all sorts of funny systems but I couldn?t make head or tail of them. And the tips available don?t tell you very much. From my knowledge and experience, I knew that I needed analytical tools and techniques to solve the puzzles. And that?s how it started for me.? He said he sometimes spent an entire day, starting at 5am and finishing at 2am, working on finding the formula to solve the puzzles. He said after he had worked out much of the formula, he found that there was still a missing element, and it wasn?t until he came across an extremely difficult puzzle that took him months to solve, that he managed to complete the formula.

The fundamentals of the book were completed in June 2006. It took him another six months to correct, enhance and fine-tune the book, leading to rewrites, rediscoveries, additions and omissions. ?I wanted to make sure that the technology was correct and sound, and capable of solving any sudoku puzzle published so far,? Keow explained. ?I tested it out by solving all the sudoku puzzles that I could lay my hands on. I found that I could solve them within 25 minutes without difficulty. When you have practised, you will be able to recognise the various patterns and strategies.? But he said one must practise in order to absorb and understand the technology, and then develop the expertise in applying it. ?I want to caution here that there are many different sudoku puzzles and each puzzle requires a different approach and a different mindset,? said Keow. ?It is a very fascinating exercise.? But doesn?t a one-stop solution take away all the fun of trying to solve a puzzle? ?The fun is from a different perspective,? said Keow. ?It is in solving the difficult puzzles in a short period of time, and in managing to unlock the secret of the puzzle. And it?s also in being able to solve the puzzles in shorter and shorter periods of time.? Keow has a background in mathematical sciences, and had taught Mathematics and Physics at Johor English College and the former Mara Institute of Technology. He said those at the intermediate level of sudoku-solving would find the book most useful, but anyone at any level can also use the book.

Asked how his book is different from all the other books available that also claim to provide solutions to sudoku, Keow replied: ?From my knowledge, they provide tips but do not give fully worked out examples from beginning to end. They do not provide a conceptual framework and tools and techniques that you can apply every time. We?re talking about sudoku technology and knowledge, and this is what this book hypothesises.? He said he believes that there is more to sudoku than just a game, as it requires critical and creative thinking, logical reasoning, and other mental skills essential to everyday life. ?If a person is able to solve any type of sudoku puzzle using the tools and techniques in the book, that person would have acquired a level of thinking ability that will facilitate the acquisition of knowledge in any discipline,? he said. Think Out of the Block with Sudoku is now available in Malaysia and Singapore, and Keow plans to get it published internationally.