Puzzle gurus

Here’s some new information about the puzzles for the event and some of our featured speakers:

About the puzzles

The puzzles for the adult crossword tournament are being provided by famed crossword editor Will Shortz. The puzzles will appear soon after the tournament in the New York Times, so our competitors will get a sneak peak at them before the general public.

Shortz has been the puzzle editor of The New York Times since 1993 and prior to that spent 15 years as editor of Games magazine. In 1978 Shortz founded, and remains director of, the American Crossword Puzzle Tournament. He also founded the World Puzzle Championship in 1992. Shortz has also been the puzzle master for NPR’s Weekend Edition Sunday since the program’s start in 1987 and has published numerous books of puzzles.

The puzzles for the youth crossword tournament are being specially created for the event by published crossword constructors.

About the puzzle gurus

Byron Walden is an Associate Professor at Santa Clara University in the Department of Mathematics and Computer Science. and an acclaimed crossword puzzle constructor. While his professional research interests focus on complex analysis and discrete dynamical systems, people in the crossword world know him as the creator of challenging puzzles. In his popular crossword blog, “Rex Parker does the NYT Crossword Puzzle” (http://rexwordpuzzle.blogspot.com/), Binghamton University professor Michael Sharp, writes that he considers Mr. Walden to be “one of the greatest constructors alive … or dead.” Walden will be supervising the judging of the Puzzle Day tournaments and will be giving a talk about constructing and solving difficult crossword puzzles.

Ganesh T S, an engineer from Santa Clara, CA, will be repeating his popular workshop from last year on cryptic crosswords. In addition to having some of his own cryptic crossword puzzles published, he runs an online community on a popular social networking Web site where people from different parts of the world get together everyday in a forum discussion to wrap up puzzles from some daily Indian newspapers (one of which carries puzzles syndicated from a British publication). His Cryptic Crossword Workshop aims to introduce an audience familiar with American-style crosswords to the joys of solving British-style cryptic crosswords. Cryptic crosswords involve learning more rules compared to ordinary straight crosswords in order to appreciate them. The deciphering of the solution involves working out the straight definition as well as the wordplay involved in the clues. This workshop elucidates the difference in grid construction, as well as clue structure. Solutions to sample cryptic clues will be analyzed and the wordplay discussed. Ganesh has also created a giant Cryptic Crossword for everyone attending Puzzle Day to complete together.

Andrea Carla Michaels, who competed in last year’s tournament and returns again this year to compete in both crosswords and Sudoku, is a professional namer, has been an NPR radio panelist/commentator, television writer and online humor columnist. She is a scrabble fiend and once won a motorhome on “Wheel of Fortune.” Her crossword puzzles have been published in the New York Times and LA Times. Michaels will be facilitating a morning workshop on constructing and solving Monday/Tuesday level “easy” puzzles. At a Bay Area appearance last year, Will Shortz introduced Michaels to the crowd of 1100 people as “his favorite Monday constructor.”

Brian Conrey, another repeat Puzzle Day competitor, is the Executive Director of the American Institute of Mathematics, one of the major sponsors of the event. The American Institute of Mathematics, a nonprofit organization, was founded in 1994 by Silicon Valley businessmen John Fry and Steve Sorenson, longtime supporters of mathematical research. Conrey will be giving a talk during Puzzle Day on “killer sudoku,” a variant of the popular game that combines elements of Sudoku and kakuro (also known as Cross Sums). These puzzles depend on the solver’s skill at mental arithmetic, and while the easiest ones can be easier than regular Sudoku puzzles, the hardest ones can take hours to crack.

How the tournaments work

Each tournament will consist of three of puzzles of increasing difficulty, with a time limit for each of the puzzles. Scoring is based on the number of correct answers in the least amount of time, so both count. In the adult division of each tournament, three finalists will be chosen. Everyone can watch as finalists in each tournament complete their tournament’s final puzzle on large puzzle boards in the championship rounds. Prizes will be awarded in a number of categories.

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 and 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.