The World Puzzle Championship (WPC), first organized in 1992 in New York City by Will Shortz, is an annual competition featuring language- and culture-neutral puzzles, primarily puzzles involving logic and reasoning, to allow puzzlers from around the globe to compete on equal footing. The three day event features hundreds of puzzles, organized into both individual and team rounds, to challenge the world’s best puzzle solvers. Hosts come from the different member nations of the World Puzzle Federation.
In 2006, the World Sudoku Championship (WSC) became a second annual competition organized with the World Puzzle Federation, focused on Sudoku puzzles and their common variations with a similar competition structure to the WPC. Currently, the two events are held together in a puzzle-packed week with two days for the WSC, a break/excursion day, and then three days for the WPC.
Anyone with an interest in solving sudoku and/or logic puzzles for several days straight is welcome to attend one or both of the championships. The main thing to note is that, following the Olympics tradition, there is a maximum for how many competitors each country can have on their “official” team which is 4 competitors for the WSC and 4 competitors for the WPC. What does this mean:
Many online puzzle competitions are held throughout the year which resemble the WSC/WPC in format and puzzle types (but not in overall length). The WPF Sudoku/Puzzle Grand Prix series are good examples of these competitions, as are national competitions like the US Puzzle Championship. For this year’s event, with Thomas Snyder (WSC) and Serkan Yürekli (WPC) as the competition directors, some of their past Grand Prix rounds will serve as good practice:
The venue for the WSPC is the Don Valley Hotel and Suites, in the North York district of Toronto. It is nicely located 21 minutes from Lester Pearson International Airport and 15 minutes from the heart of the city.
As part of registration, the organizers will help provide transfer to and from the airport if your travel happens on official arrival and departure days (WSC only: October 15th arrival and October 18th departure; WPC only: October 18th arrival and October 22nd departure).
This location should allow for easy access to different sites in the Toronto area around the event for those extending their stay, and some different excursion options will be offered on October 18th.
No. To provide the best rates for the event including the competition space we have made some minimum reservations with the hotel including room and food. Except for very unusual circumstances (e.g., a competitor already lives in Toronto), we do not expect that we can accommodate other rooming requests. If the overall cost of the event might impact your ability to compete as part of an official team, please reach out to us to discuss potential assistance.
If you have other questions about the event, please reach out to us at organizers@wspc2023.com and we will try to answer your question and may add it to this FAQ here as well.