All things Sudoku

It happened at work, awhile back. For years my chosen drug(as addictive puzzles go)was the crosswords, getting my daily fix from the newspaper. Then one day, a co-worker introduced me to Sudoku. I've never been the same since.

At first it was all but incomprehensible. Couldn't get a lock on it to save my hide. After some practice, I can now do the Level 4(or "Evil")puzzles with some dispatch. I still get stumped from time to time, or(worse)get most of the puzzle only with a duplication someplace- but if the wind is with me can solve it in about 20-25 minutes on the average. If the wind is with me.

Sudoko is, of course, the game where you fill in the missing numbers so that each row, vertically and horizontally(not, thank goodness, diagonally as well)and within each of the nine grids, contain numbers 1 through 9. It's not a numbers game as such--you could use any set of characters just so long as there were nine different ones--but rather one of logic, of deductive reasoning.

Where it gets fun(as in tricky)is in the integral interrelation of every number to every other number on the board. Getting all the rows as well as all the grids to add up to 9 with no duplications means that every number is where it is(or should be at any rate)because of every other number being where it should be. So if one number is out of whack, you'll at least have a puzzle that doesn't quite solve or a total mess.

But where it gets fun(as in genuinely enjoyable)is when you start to see the patterns, the contingencies that make each number in its "necessary" place. When you start to 'get it'. The aha moments, which for me usually come after a prolonged duhhhh period of staring at the board and not having a clue.

So, Sudoku has become an enjoyable pastime for me. I do the puzzles at home and at work, and have been sharing them with a few of my co-workers. "You're a sadist", I've been told. "Yeah, well I'm doing it to myself too, so I'm a masochist as well" was my reply. So we all pull our hair out on trying to solve these nasty-ass Evil Sudoku puzzles.

Soduku is a Japanese word(meaning 'single number' or 'single digit') but the game itself was developed by an American- one Howard Gams, a retired architect from Indiana, who was a regular contributor to Dell for word and number games. It was first published in 1979, by Dell, as Number Place. Gams died in 1989, and thus never lived to see the game he invented achieve world-wide popularity.

Thanks for the game, Howard. It's one of the things that makes my life fun. Well, bearable at any rate..