Tierney made the announcement yesterday at a news conference at the company's Broad Street headquarters, with Mayor Nutter and puzzle master Will Shortz, who emceed last fall's national competition here and will do so again Oct. 25 at the Convention Center.
The first competition drew more than 1,100 contestants and spectators from 35 states (and one from Canada), and awarded $18,000 in prize money. In addition to the main competitions in easy, intermediate and advanced puzzles, entrants also vied in age categories. The youngest competitor was 6, the oldest, 87. Shortz called it the largest live puzzle tournament ever held in the United States.
"We loved when we saw in the research the broad range of people who enjoy this game," said Tierney, who also laid out details for this year's national contest, which will feature additional Sudoku puzzles and $20,000 in prize money.
It will also feature a special guest: Maki Kaji, president of Nikoli, a major Japanese publisher of puzzles. Kaji is the man who gave Sudoku its name, taking pieces from the bland Japanese title - "Only Single Numbers Allowed." Sudoku actually was born in the United States in 1979, in Dell Pencil Puzzles & Word Games, under the name "Number Place."
Last year's big winner was Thomas Snyder, 27, from Palo Alto, Calif., a postdoctoral student in bioengineering at Stanford University, who pocketed $10,000. He had already won the world championship in Prague, and he captured this year's world title in India.
Sudoku, which employs logic but requires no skill in mathematics, has spread across parts of the world in the past decade, so wildly popular that it became a staple of newspapers here and in Europe within months. It's among a package of six puzzles The Inquirer runs in the daily Magazine section on weekdays and Saturdays.
