Sudoku fever

Do you remember the first time you heard the term sudoku? For me it was Christmas 2004 when dear Virginia in Bury St Edmunds sent me a clipping from the Times of London. Her family had gone mad for this number puzzle. Our family had recently repatriated to New York from London at the time and I was in no mood to pick up a pencil. Two months later, when I asked my editor at Dummies if I could do a book on the subject, they had it in the hopper. Curses!

The fever started thanks to a Mr. Gould who approached the Times of London. His puzzle journey began in 1997 after retiring his wig as a judge in Hong Kong. In Tokyo Judge Gould discovered the Nikoli puzzle magazines on a vacation. He observed other old geezers clutching their sudoku magazines, and he followed suit. But he took it to the limit: He devoted the next six years to developing a program that could spit out sudoku puzzles. Such is the depth of devotion sudoku inspires.

Much like Marilyn Monroe (nee Norma Jean Baker) this puzzle started life as plain Jane "Number Place." Those in the know believe that a retired architect from Indiana invented the little 9 x 9 pencil game. That puzzle appeared in Dell Puzzle magazines, the competitor of my former employer, the Kappa Puzzle Group.

The sexy term popped out of Maki Kaji's tousled head in 1984. He told me that he admired the Number Place puzzle and decided to try it in the Nikoli magazines. As the magazine was being pasted up his staff asked: "What are we going to call the new puzzle?" In a flash he answered suji wa dokushin ni kagiru (digits must be single). Since Japanese like to use abbreviated terms in conversation (like air-kon for air-conditioning) within months the puzzle acquired its sexier nickname.

Just five years after sudoku fever swept the globe here I sit in Tokyo, stoking the flame for local solvers with the guys who started it all. Small world, desu ne.