For the Love of Sudoku

I have always loved Sudoku — from the moment I started my first puzzle, the logic just clicked for me. Of course, like most, I enjoyed solving the easy ones because they were quick and, well, easy.

But soon I moved to intermediate, advanced, hard, challenging, and diabolical — all fun, some taking a lot of time to solve, but still I wanted more.

That’s where variants with different constraints came in.

I joined an online competition a few years ago and discovered a whole new world of puzzles. I only lasted about three rounds that first time — discouraged because I hadn’t yet learned the different strategic thinking these new constraints required.

Fast forward a few years, and now I’m in the competition purely for the joy of learning new and marvelous variations — always interesting, always something new to learn, and always keeping my brain engaged.With the competition only being one week a month for eight months, I wanted more — so here’s the big goal.

The World Puzzle Federation Sudoku Grand Prix has all their competition puzzles archived going back to 2014. Between competition weeks, I’m going to work my way through the archive and note my adventures.

Here we go!