Did you know that Jan. 29 is National Puzzle Day? It’s celebrated annually to honor all the great puzzles we love, including Sudoku and crossword puzzles. There’s no better way to celebrate than by taking the whole family to the second annual Silicon Valley Puzzle Day, being held on Sunday, Feb. 3, at the new Morgan Hill Library.
Join us to celebrate word, number and logic puzzles of all kinds for all ages and skill levels. The highlight of the event is tournaments for Sudoku and crossword puzzle enthusiasts.
Youth tournaments
This year, we’ve added a youth division for each tournament, open to kids and teens ages 8 to 15. The youth division Sudoku puzzles are being hand-crafted by US and world Sudoku champion Thomas Snyder. The crossword puzzles for the youth tournament are specially constructed for the event by noted puzzle constructors Mark Diehl and Jan Buckner Walker.
Adult tournaments
Adults aged 16 and older will complete yet-to-be-published crosswords provided by famed New York Times crossword editor Will Shortz and Sudoku. Snyder is providing the adult tournament Sudoku puzzles.
Non-competitive puzzle fun
In addition to the tournaments, a full day of puzzle-themed workshops and presentations are planned, ranging from a crossword warm-up in the morning to a Sudoku tips-and-tricks sharing forum, to workshops about tackling particularly tough crosswords and Killer Sudoku puzzles. A variety of other games and puzzles, including three giant crosswords for people to solve as a group, will be available. Puzzle Day also features a marketplace with local vendors and organizations selling puzzle-related books, toys and offering information about their services. Drinks and light snacks are being sold in the Crossword Café.
About youth tournament puzzle constructors
Mark Diehl has been a staff dentist with the Veterans Affairs Hospital in Palo Alto for the last 30 years. He creates crosswords that have been published in the New York Times, New York Sun, and Los Angeles Times, and has loved reading and wordplay since he was a kid. He lives in San Jose.
Jan Buckner Walker is the President and Executive Editor of Kids Across Parents Down (KADP) and author of a new series of family crossword puzzle books that debuted in July 2007 (Running Press Kids, paperback original, Crazy Critters, ISBN: 978-0762429301 and On the Go, ISBN: 978-0762429318; $4.95 each). Her books feature age-appropriate across clues for children and humorous down hints for grown-ups, the books have been praised by New York Times crossword editor Will Shortz as “simultaneously whimsical and educational.” Conceived in July 1999 by the labor lawyer-turned-puzzle maker, KAPD (dubbed “The Original Crossword Puzzle for Kids and their Favorite Adults”) was first widely published in The Washington Post in April 2003, followed by newspaper syndication via Tribune Media Services (TMS) in September 2003. A year later, Nick Jr. began offering a KAPD puzzle and quickly moved the popular feature to the inside back page of its Noodle insert. The puzzles, which focus on humor and wordplay over traditional intellectual rigor, bring youngsters shoulder-to-shoulder with parents, teachers, mentors and other caring adults. The shoulder-to-shoulder one-on-one time promotes literacy and intergenerational conversation. Today, KAPD puzzles have a total circulation in the millions KAPD and its creator have been featured on TV, radio, magazine and online outlets.
US and world Sudoku champion Thomas Snyder is hand-crafting both adult- and youth-level puzzles for the event’s Sudoku tournament and is presenting a workshop on The Art of Sudoku. Snyder, from Palo Alto, was the winner of the first Philadelphia Inquirer National Sudoku Championship and a member of the six-person U.S. World Sudoku Team that will compete at the Third Annual World Sudoku Championship next year in Goa, India. He is a postdoctoral student in bioengineering at Stanford and has a Ph.D. in Chemistry from Harvard University. He strives to make an artistic statement with his puzzles, and his first book of puzzles, Battleship Sudoku, a new variation that combines elements from existing Battleship and Sudoku puzzle types, will be published by Sterling in April 2008. Additional puzzle projects and books are in the works.
Event details
Silicon Valley Puzzle Day will be held at the Morgan Hill Public Library at 660 West Main Avenue in Morgan Hill, CA, on Sunday, February 3, 2008, between 11 a.m and 5 p.m.
Admittance to the event to watch is free to the public. A $5 donation is suggested for tournament participants.
A marketplace, puzzle-themed workshops and non-competitive puzzle fun will be available to spectators all day.
Tournament participants can register at the event starting at 11 a.m. Competition starts at noon.
For more information, visit www.svpuzzle.org.
