SUDOKU – an addictive way to pass the time
We first heard about SUDOKU from a friend that had just got back to Joburg from a visit to London – She had purchased a SUDOKU book as a gift – she mentioned that London was abuzz with this simple Japanese puzzle.
On a recent visit to Londres we were delighted to find the phenomenon was indeed all over the place – pens out, heads bowed, Londonians bore ‘don’t disturb me I am co…
ncentrating’ looks in every tube, train and bus.
Intrigued, we gave SUDOKU a go and found it equally satisfying. It’s a great time-killer and not too much of a brain twister. It’s a brilliant stress reliever and gives ‘Puzzles’ a much-needed TREND injection.
Before we explain SUDOKU we give you one piece of advice, while there are lots of tips and tricks on how to solve SUDOKU, try to find your own method, that’s half the fun. Our method turned out to be ‘the very long way round’ but kept us engrossed and entertained. Once we’d learn’t the tips, SUDOKU lost a bit of it’s charm. If, however, you prefer cutting to the chase, try this site for basic instructions.
According to the Japanese copyright holders NIKOLI, SUDOKU originated in the States as a puzzle called ‘Number Place’ , but in 1984 some visionary Japanese puzzle peeps got hold of it and gave it an extra rapid below-the belt washaaaa kick, renaming it SUDOKU, which is an abbreviation of “Suuji wa dokushin ni kagiru” …. which means ‘a single number’… or something like that.
The rules are simple and all SUKOKU puzzles look like the picture above left, what makes SUDOKU a unique puzzle in Japan is that they are ‘hand-made’ , as opposed to computer-generated – someone actually sits and composes each puzzle! In Japan there should never be less than 25 empty squares if it’s authentic.
Here’s the rule according to SUDOKU.com (where you can find loads of puzzles) :
” Fill in the grid so that every row, every column, and every 3×3 box contains the digits 1 through 9. ”
GOOD LUCK!!!
Waaaaaaaashaaaaaaaaaaaaah!
