World Sudoku Championship 2009 Journey with Team India

World Sudoku Championship 2009 Experience

Ritesh, Rohan and Gaurav during WSC 2009

I, Ritesh Gupta, represented India for the 4th World Sudoku Championship (WSC) 2009 along with 5 other participants. This was the 4th Sudoku Championship in which I participated, and I had a great time there in Zilina, Slovakia.

I finished 15th in the championship to qualify for the semi-finals. However, couldn't perfwellgood enough to reach top 8 for the finals.

It seemed to me the championship was well organized & good Sudokus to solve; however, I was a bit disappointed by the point system, the way Semi-finalists moved to the finals (many by Luck), and many great solvers like Snyder, Gaurav (from India) couldn't reach the finals. Also, the team rounds were not as good as expected, as the time given for them was either not enough or was too much that every team was able to complete. It involved a lot of guess work/ Hit-n-Trial to complete the Sudokus, which acted as a result decider for the team rounds.

From India, Gaurav Korde performed great and was one of the best solvers among all participants from the World; however, he couldn't make it to the finals.

Rest all seemed well organized by the organizers. They closing ceremony at the end was great. It also involved one Indian dance on the song of movie: Om Shanti Om by Slovakian girls. The Organizers arranged many things for participants' entertainment like Ms. & Mr. Sudoku, Slovak Contemporary Dance, 4D Sudoku, etc. However, all Indian Participants faced vegetarian food problem. As usual in the World Championship their were only a few options we had to eat. We had to survive on Salads, Drinks & food we brought from India. Luckily, the 4 hostesses called for the participants' convenience (basically language translation) were also vegetarian & they tried their best to arrange veg. meal for us. They also took us to the City Center and explained bit about their culture & history.

After the Championship got over 5 of the Indian participants, ie. Gaurav, Rohan, Himanshu, Puneet & Me went to Vienna, Austria to spend a day. Daniella, an Austrian participant, guided us a bit regarding the places to visit in Vienna & traveling in Vienna otherwise, it would have been difficult to tour the city as the language was a big problem. After the hectic WSC, we didn't had much energy left & our body too needed some sleep. So instead of roaming around in the city, we spent many hours in an Amusement park near the hotel & returned to the hotel in time to catch some sleep before the flight the next morning.

We enjoyed our sleep so much to the extent that we got up late & hence reached Vienna Airport at 9:30 a.m. to catch a flight at 10:00 a.m. We nearly missed our flight as initially we were refused Boarding passes. We even started searching for alternate options for traveling back. However, after around 5 minutes, we were called by Turkish Airlines & were allowed to board the flight, with Immigration, Security Check, etc being done on a priority basis. On reaching India, it was found that Himanshu's & Gaurav's luggage was left behind at Istanbul and it couldn't reach their respective cities, i.e., Delhi & Mumbai.

Overall, our experience during the championship was great & we had a lot of fun before, during & after the championship. Hope to make it to the team in 2010 & go for the 5th World Sudoku Championship to be held at Philadelphia, USA.