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In sudoku scandal, something doesn't add up
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OK, it's not as earth-shattering as the Bay Bridge repairs falling apart already, but the puzzle world is in a tizzy about the mysterious outsider who came out of nowhere to place third on Saturday in the Philadelphia Inquirer National Sudoku Championship. The hooded stranger, seen out of focus behind eventual first-place finisher Tammy McLeod in this picture, turned in a qualifying-round performance in world-class time, but failed utterly when he had to complete the final-round puzzle on stage.
Second-place finisher Thomas Snyder, coauthor of the new book Monster Sudoku, noticed that the man, who registered under the name Eugene Varshavsky, was acting suspiciously from the moment he turned in his qualifying-round paper. But the clincher came when Varshavsky gave up in the final round, after 8 minutes, with only 3 squares filled in. I took a crack at this puzzle, as shown on Snyder's blog, and within a couple minutes had 5 squares -- and I suck at sudoku. Either Varshavsky is a monumental choke artist or Snyder was right to call shenanigans.
Deepening the shenanigans, Eugene Varshavsky is also the name of a fellow suspected of cheating in a 2006 chess tournament in (bah buh bahhh!) Philadelphia, but nobody seems to be able to hunt him down. Varshavsky's first mistake might have been to game a contest he sucked at, but his second was to embarrass tournament host and famed puzzlemaster Will Shortz -- all to win $3000. It's like counterfeiting $5 bills.
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