THE PUZZLER

Rohan RAO, 21 years
Girls are a minority in the puzzle world. “I don’t see a girl winning the world championship in the next five years,” says Rao. Prove him wrong, ladies! LOCATION: Mumbai DAY JOB: Post-graduation Statistics student at IIT Bombay
CLAIM TO FAME: Winner of the Indian Sudoku Championship in 2010, 2011 and 2012; Indian Puzzle Championship winner 2010, 2011 and 2012; currently ranks 12 on the World Sudoku circuit and 34 in the World Puzzle stakes.
Rohan Rao has always been fascinated by numbers. “Growing up, I’d count everything; even school buses on the way home,” he says. So it wasn’t a surprise that in 2006, at the height of India’s Sudoku craze, he found himself winning a local contest. What surprised him, and ended up becoming a wake-up call to puzzle greatness, was when he lost the next year. “I screwed up,” he says simply. “It made me realise that I wanted to do this better.”
So Rao kept practising and solved various other puzzles until he got better. He climbed steadily in the rankings for the annual Indian Sudoku and Indian Puzzle Championships until he won both in 2010, repeating his successes in 2011 and 2012. The wins have opened the doors to an even bigger, tougher battle: The World Puzzle Championship (WPC) and the World Sudoku Championship.

It’s puzzling paradise. Brain teaser addicts from across the world pit their strategy and problem-solving skills in two annual events organised by the World Puzzle Federation (Yes, there is such a thing). In addition to Sudoku, contestants take a crack at 15 super-tough grid-based logic puzzles, from the familiar Kakuro, to ones with intimidating names such as Slitherlink, Battleship, Hitori, Masyu and Tapa. There’s also one called Easy As ABC. Do not be misled by the name. This year’s edition will be held in Croatia in October and as a 20-something Indian, the odds are stacked against Rao. “Japan, the USA and east Europe are the biggest competition,” he says. The average age there is 32, and the most successful contestant (seven titles since 2000) is a 46year-old German. It doesn’t worry Rao. He was 17 the first time he made it to the WPC, and his rankings show that he’s been getting better every year.
Success doesn’t come to those who curl up with the leisure section of the paper on Sunday mornings. “It’s is all about practice,” Rao explains. “You need to keep at it through the year to be good. Stop practising and your rankings drop.” You also need absolute focus and concentration to beat the clock (and your competitors). “But the best thing is that it’s convenient. Unlike tennis, you don’t need a venue. You can solve puzzles any time, any place.”
And Rao assures that anyone can
Photo: PRASAD GORI do it. For logic tests, you don’t need to be good at Maths, or even English. “Puzzles have no language. At WPC, you could be sitting next to a guy who’s never spoken a word of English. You’d communicate with a thumbs-up or thumbs-down. But he’s cracked a puzzle you couldn’t.”
The experience is its own reward. The championships offer no prize money. Even Rao’s foreign trips come at his father’s expense. But for puzzlers, it’s actually forged a sense of brotherhood rather than competition. Of the world’s top 10 puzzle geniuses, six share new strategies on their blogs. Rao himself contributes puzzles of his own making to AkilOyunlari, a Turkish puzzle magazine, and organises several contests in India.
Rao believes he has miles to go before he’s conquered puzzles entirely. “I’ve won six titles but I want to reach 50,” he says. It won’t be easy and that’s why he’s looking forward to it. “I like it when someone beats me. It makes me push myself. Somewhere along the line, another Rohan will want to beat me. That’s when the fun will start!”

CAN YOU CRACK THEM? 

Easy As ABC (below left): Enter each letter once, in all rows and columns. Letters outside the grid show which comes first from that direction. Masyu: Pass through every white circle, turn at each black. Draw a closed loop that doesn’t cross itself

 

THE SOLUTION