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Sudoku puzzle enchants British problem-solvers

Solving crosswords and puzzles regularly is a proven brain-upkeep method ...

MSNBC - Sudoku puzzle enchants British problem-solvers

Sudoku puzzle enchants British problem-solvers

LONDON - Britain has a new addiction.

Hunched over newspapers on crowded subway trains, sneaking secret peeks in the office, a puzzle-crazy nation is trying to slot numbers into small checkerboard grids.

It"s Sudoku � a sort of crossword without words that has consumed the country.

�There"s something about that grid with its empty squares � it�s just crying out to be filled in,� said Wayne Gould, a retired judge and puzzle aficionado who helped spark Britain�s love affair with the game.

A Japanese brainteaser that has quietly appeared in puzzle magazines in Asia and North America for years, Sudoku hit Britain in the pages of The Times newspaper in November. It now has thousands of avid followers, a host of Web sites and books, and runs daily in eight national newspapers, which compete fiercely to offer their readers the best puzzle.

Newspapers go Sudoku crazy
The Independent offers four a day, of varying levels of difficulty. The Guardian boasts that its puzzle is �hand-crafted by its Japanese inventors,� rather than spawned by a computer like the others. The Times is offering a version for mobile phones. The Daily Telegraph promises a 3-D �ultimate Sudoku� version.

The name, which translates roughly as �the number that is alone,� has become a handy catch-phrase. A Times columnist wrote dismissively about Prime Minister Tony Blair"s recent Cabinet shuffle: �It is not exactly Sudoku, is it?�

Sudoku consists of a grid of nine rows of nine boxes, which must be filled in so the numbers one through nine appear just once in each column, row and three-by-three square.

It looks like arithmetic, but requires the application of logic. It can be fairly straightforward or fiendishly difficult.

�I think the attraction is that you can definitely get it right,� said Anton Viesel, a 23-year-old London bookseller. �It"s very satisfying.�

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