Sunday, March 12, 2006

Jana Tylova, a 31-year-old Czech woman, came from behind to win the inaugural Sudoku world championships to become the top sudoku player in the world. Tylova works as an accountant for a construction company in the Czech city of Most, and she beat 85 players from 22 countries.

A graduate student from Harvard University, Thomas Snyder, who had been leading, came in second and Wei-Ha Huang, a 30-year-old Google software engineer in California, came third.

Tylova, the only woman in the top 18, finished only ninth after the first round before passing all the men to claim the championship. She is already being called “Queen Jana of Sudoku”.

“There is no difference between men and women, and I tried to prove that even in logic, men and women are on the same level”, said Tylova as people cheered loudly. Jana smiled shyly while accepting her trophy from Wayne Gould who came upon Sudoku in Japan and popularised the game worldwide.

Jana told reporters: “I find it very difficult to give advice at all, but I can advise people to practice every day and to follow websites where there are a lot of games available.” Tylova revealed that before competitions she played sudoku two hours per day. “It will probably be more now”, she said. She showjumps with her horse Impulse during the rest of her spare time.

Austria, Belgium, Britain, Czech Republic, Croatia, Denmark, France, Germany, Poland, Hungary, the Netherlands, India, Italy, Japan, Venezuela, Switzerland, the United States, the Philippines, Estonia, Slovakia and Turkey were the countries represented in the championship contest.