A Sudoku Proposal for GMPuzzles

Summary and Schedule:
Starting tomorrow, we are going to return to having daily posts here, focused on Sudoku. This will begin with content prepared for the first-ever SudokuCon in Boston and then expand out in other ways as we explore some different opportunities in this remarkable number placement genre.

Over three weeks we will have ~40 Just One Cell Sudoku puzzles prepared for a competition at SudokuCon that was organized by Clover and Thomas Snyder, with at least two “puzzles” a day:

  • May 19-24: 12 classic sudoku JOC grids from the qualification test
  • May 26-31: 12 variant sudoku JOC grids from the qualification test
  • June 1-6: Playoff puzzles and other extra puzzles (classics and variant JOCs)

On May 25th, we’ll also have a link to a 2.5+ hour video on “How to Solve Sudoku Like a World Champion”. Here is a summary for this curious and entertaining talk:

  • Thomas Snyder, aka Dr. Sudoku, won three world sudoku championships (’07, ’08, ’11) in the early years of the Sudoku craze. In this video you’ll hear stories from many years of competing, including what different sudoku championships entail, how to identify your strengths and weaknesses in solving sudoku, and ultimately train to get faster at solving under pressure. From tales of catching a sudoku cheater to the origins of Snyder’s own solving notation, this talk will take you deep inside the world of speed-solving and how top competitors think.

After that, we have additional ideas to continue to showcase the best that Sudoku has to offer, including more than just puzzles. Sudoku will stay our focus for awhile here on the blog as we continue to work with our partners on other logic puzzles.

A message from Thomas (Dr. Sudoku):
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Message to the GMPuzzles Community

After twelve years and over three thousand puzzles worth of free entertainment, the GMPuzzles team has made the hard decision to bring the “blog era” of this site to a close. Despite many attempts through the years, we have not been able to make either the community or the business model work in a blog format to unlock the best from our puzzles. There might still be some posts here from time to time with bonus puzzles, and we intend to maintain this website indefinitely given the incredible library of puzzles here. But there should be no expectation of new “daily content” again in the future.

For 2025, GMPuzzles will focus on several of our partner projects bringing daily puzzles to hundreds of thousands of solvers on other platforms. We will also explore alternate ways to package our content for new audiences. In future years, we might find ways to radically redesign this website and launch a new puzzle platform, but our current ambitions are mostly to be the world’s best puzzle designers and to publish through other platforms where they work for our goals.

While our founder, Thomas Snyder, found an unusual way to say goodbye, he hopes the spirit of beautiful puzzles and pushing the limits of sudoku and other puzzle construction continue in those who were drawn to the site. Thomas will be starting a new place for his own blogging, and we the team echo his thoughts that it has been a great 12 years and we’re still excited for the future of Grandmaster Puzzles in whatever shape that takes.

Thanks to all who have been fans, and we hope you run into our puzzles again in the future.