The World Sudoku Championship: History, Champions and How It Works

Most of us solve Sudoku with a cup of tea and no clock. But every year more than a hundred of the world’s best solvers sit down in one hall, pencils ready, to find out who is fastest and most accurate of all. This is the World Sudoku Championship. Here is how it started, who runs it, how the rounds work, who has won it most often, and how an ordinary player can take a first step into competitive Sudoku.

What is the World Sudoku Championship?

The championship at a glance

How the championship began

Sudoku became a worldwide craze in 2005, after years as a quiet puzzle in American and Japanese magazines. (Our history of Sudoku tells that story, from Euler to The Times.) Puzzle competitions already existed: the World Puzzle Championship, for all kinds of logic puzzles, had been running since 1992. So it didn’t take long for Sudoku to get a world championship of its own.

The first World Sudoku Championship took place in Lucca, Italy, in 2006. It was won by Jana Tylová of the Czech Republic. A year later, in Prague, the championship added a team competition, so countries could compete as well as individuals.

Since then it has travelled widely: India, Slovakia, the United States, Hungary, Croatia, China, the United Kingdom, Bulgaria, the Czech Republic, Germany, Poland and Canada have all hosted. From 2013, extra titles were added for the best solvers under 18 and over 50, which says a lot about the game: you can compete at the top level at almost any age.

There was no championship in 2020 or 2021. The 2021 edition, planned for Shanghai, was cancelled because of the COVID-19 pandemic. The championship returned in 2022 in Kraków, Poland, and has been held every year since. At the time of writing, the most recent edition was the 19th, held in Kolkata, India, in October 2026, alongside the World Puzzle Championship. According to the World Puzzle Federation, it drew 153 competitors.

The World Puzzle Federation

The World Puzzle Federation is the international body behind competitive puzzle solving. It describes itself as an association of organisations with an interest in puzzles, and it supervises both the World Puzzle Championship (WPC) and the World Sudoku Championship (WSC), along with other WPF events.

The WPF works through national members. Only one organisation per country can belong, and members have the right to send a team to the world championships. In return, they are expected to run open national qualifying tournaments to pick their team, and to promote puzzling at home. If your country has a member, that organisation is your route to the WSC.

The WPF’s main events for Sudoku fans are:

• The World Sudoku Championship, held in person each year, often in the same week and city as the World Puzzle Championship.
• The WPF Sudoku Grand Prix, a series of online rounds through the year that anyone can enter for free (more on this below).
• A Puzzle Grand Prix, the same idea for other logic puzzles.

How the championship works

Each championship is set by the host country’s puzzle authors, so the details change from year to year. The broad shape stays the same, though.

Timed rounds and lots of puzzles

Over a couple of days, every competitor solves 100 or more puzzles in a series of timed rounds. Each puzzle is worth points, usually more for harder ones. You can’t solve everything in the time, so a big part of the skill is choosing which puzzles to attack and which to skip. Points come only for correct solutions, so speed only helps if you stay accurate.

Classic Sudoku and many variants

Some rounds are pure classic Sudoku. Many others use variants: extra rules such as diagonals, cages with sums, odd and even cells, or irregular box shapes. Some puzzles are completely new types invented for that year’s event. That is why top competitors know far more than the standard 9×9 rules. If you want a tour of the most common types, our guide to Sudoku variants covers twelve of them, and Killer Sudoku gets a full guide of its own.

Playoffs for the title

After the main rounds, the top qualifiers usually meet in a playoff to decide the champion. It is a short, tense final in which everyone has already proved they can solve fast, so tiny margins decide the title.

The team competition

Since 2007, countries have also competed as teams for a separate team title. Each host can add its own special rounds. One memorable format is the relay, where the answer to one puzzle supplies digits that start the next, so a single slip early on affects everything after it.

Champions and records

Only a handful of people have won the individual title more than once. These results come from the published championship lists (see the sources below), up to and including 2026.

A few things stand out:

• Kota Morinishi holds the record with four individual titles. He was still near the top in 2026, finishing third in Kolkata, according to a report of the results.
• The early years belonged to two players. Thomas Snyder and Jan Mrozowski won five of the six titles between 2007 and 2012 between them.
• China has been very strong lately. Chinese solvers won the individual title every year from 2023 to 2026, and China won the team title in 2024, 2025 and 2026.
• Japan and China lead the team table. By our count from the results lists, each has won the team title six times, with the Czech Republic next on three.

Who are the fastest Sudoku solvers?

People often ask for “the fastest Sudoku time ever”, but there is no single official record for one classic puzzle. Times depend completely on the puzzle: an easy newspaper grid and a hard competition grid are different tasks. The WSC measures something more useful: speed and accuracy across a hundred very different puzzles, under pressure. By that measure, the champions in the table above are the fastest solvers in the world.

How to get into competitive Sudoku

You don’t need an invitation to start. Competitive Sudoku has a clear ladder, and the first rungs are free and online.

1. Enter the WPF Sudoku Grand Prix

The WPF Sudoku Grand Prix (GP) is the easiest way in. At the time of writing it has eight online rounds a year, each set by a different country. You register for free on the GP website with your name, email and country. Each round is open for several days, and once you start you have 90 minutes to solve as much as you can. Your six best rounds count towards the yearly ranking, and the top ten are invited to a playoff at the next World Sudoku Championship.

Don’t worry about the ranking at first. Most entrants will never reach the playoffs, and that’s fine. The GP is a wonderful way to meet new variants, see how competition puzzles are scored, and compare yourself with solvers all over the world.

2. Find your national qualifier

To compete at the WSC itself, you usually need a place on your country’s team. WPF members run open national qualifying tournaments for this. The format is up to each country. In India, for example, Logic Masters India picked its 2025 team through a series of online rounds followed by an in-person Indian Sudoku Championship for the top players. Search for your country’s WPF member and check its website for the next qualifier.

3. Try other online contests

Several puzzle communities run their own online Sudoku tests through the year, often written by the same authors who set championship puzzles. They’re good practice for the GP and a friendly place to ask questions.

How competitors train

There is no secret method, but serious solvers tend to share a few habits. You can borrow all of them, even if you never plan to enter a contest.

1. Master the basics until they are automatic. Competition speed comes mostly from simple moves done fast: scanning for hidden singles, spotting naked singles and using pairs. Our guide on how to solve Sudoku faster covers the scanning habits that save the most time.
2. Know the advanced patterns. Harder competition puzzles may need techniques such as the X-Wing. Learn to recognise them quickly, not just to understand them.
3. Practise variants. Since so many rounds use extra rules, competitors practise a wide range of variants, so that a new rule doesn’t slow them down on the day.
4. Solve past competition rounds. Old GP and championship puzzles are a realistic way to practise choosing which puzzles to solve first when time is short.
5. Train under a clock, then review. Timed sessions build composure. Afterwards, look at where you lost time or made an error, and work on that.
6. Value accuracy. In the Grand Prix, for example, a wrong answer earns no points. Many solvers would rather check a finished grid than lose all its points.

Start your own Sudoku journey

Every world champion once solved their first easy grid. You don’t need to dream of a medal to enjoy the same puzzle they do: a clean grid, nine digits and one logical answer. If you’d like to test yourself, set a timer and see how your times change over a month. If not, just enjoy the quiet pleasure of a good deduction.

New to the game? Start with how to play. Ready for more? Our 10 Sudoku strategies show the techniques serious solvers use every day.

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