Sudoku Puzzler Syndication
Super Easy | Easy | Medium | Hard | Diabolical | PDF
Free Sudoku Web Feature
Free interactive Sudoku web feature for your newspaper's Sudoku web page. Even if you don't subscribe to Sudoku Puzzler's daily print puzzles, you are still welcome to use this Sudoku web feature for your web site. All we ask is that you retain the link to Sudoku Puzzler.
Copy and paste the code above to get the embedded page below.
Sudoku Puzzler
Sudoku Puzzler's schedule:
- Sunday - Diabolical
- Monday - Easy
- Tuesday - Super Easy
- Wednesday - Medium
- Thursday - Hard
- Friday - Medium
- Saturday - Hard
All are 1200 dpi, ready for print, with solutions. For samples, please see the PDF below; for more information, please email: ian@sudokupuzzler.com.
As you can see from the plot below, most Sudoku puzzles appearing in newspapers don't present a significant challenge. Universal Uclick is the only one that matches the caliber of Sudoku Puzzler. King Features and Creators Syndicate offer barely a freshman-level challenge, and United Features doesn't even show up anymore since they merged with Universal Uclick. The New York Times goes with PZZL and they're one of the worst.
Samples from each vendor were entered into the third party solver referenced in the plot, and the number next to each graph is the time (in seconds) it took for the program to solve that puzzle. Typically, the shorter the solution time, the more elementary the Sudoku puzzle.
These results suggest that most of the syndicates signed with Sudoku vendors without performing due diligence to ensure they had the best of the best.
Reader takes extra step for his favorite puzzle
This story can be found at:
http://www.thenewstribune.com/2011/01/30/1523282/reader-takes-extra-step-for-his.html#storylink=misearch
From the Tacoma News Tribune, 1/30/11, by Karen Peterson:
Sudoku man, meet your No. 1 fan. And when it comes to Sudoku puzzles, TNT reader James Lee knows what he’s talking about.
Our managing editor, Dale Phelps, and a number of staffers serving as reader representative got to know Lee two years ago during what amounted to The Great Sudoku Wars.
Early in 2009, our original puzzle vendor imposed an outrageous price increase, so we switched to one with a more reasonable price. Readers – Lee the most prolific among them – began calling the reader rep to say the new puzzles were too easy. Lee declared them “distressingly easy,” “defective” and “kindergarten stuff.”
We petitioned the new Sudoku vendor to toughen up the puzzles, but the upgrade did not impress Lee.
“If they were eggs they would be graded F,” he told us. Later, he called to say, “Today’s puzzle, it was pathetic.” Another day it was “a real letdown.” Thankfully, on the rare occasion we met his tough standard, Lee also called to thank us.
Next, Phelps collected Sudoku puzzles from other vendors and appointed a reader panel – including Lee – to test them. Lee even applied his own complicated scoring method. Still, we couldn’t find a suitable Sudoku.
Finally, we found Ian Riensche, a Gig Harbor man who had written a book of Sudoku puzzles and was willing to sell us one a day. Lee tested his puzzles and found them suitable, which played a role in our choosing Riensche as our new Sudoku vendor.
We considered the Sudoku Wars over, and we hadn’t heard from Lee for more than a year.
Until Friday.
That’s when the bundled stack of completed puzzles (see photo) 
arrived in a manila envelope. Each puzzle is marked with the time it took Lee to finish and other notations that apparently lead to a circled numerical score.
In the envelope was this note: “Mr. Phelps, All of 2010 enclosed – Ian Riensche is averaging 5.7 on a 1-to-10 scale of difficulty. He’s right down the pipe and well on, on his estimates. Still a winner. Hang on to him. Sincerely, James Lee.”
Readers often are quick to criticize, but rarely do they go to the lengths of James Lee to make this paper better. For that, we offer our thanks. And we’ll keep trying to measure up.
Below are the results of James Lee's assessments, in graph format. The first graph shows the solution times, as recorded by Mr. Lee. The second graph shows his assigned difficulty level, based on his own formulation.
