Information about the WPC & WSC

Overview

The World Puzzle Championship (WPC) and World Sudoku Championship (WSC) are held annually.

The first WPC was held in 1992 in New York, USA, organised by Will Shortz and Games magazine, with 52 puzzle enthusiasts from 13 countries competing for the title of 1st World Puzzle Champion.

In 1999 the World Puzzle Federation (WPF) was founded by a group of previous WPC organizers to oversee the annual championship, as well as to further innovation and quality in puzzles worldwide.

Although sudoku was, and still is, just one type of puzzle within the WPC, its significant global popularity led to the first separate WSC being held in 2006 in Lucca, Italy

Together, the WPC and WSC have naturally grown in popularity, with nearly 200 competitors from over 25 countries now regularly attending each year. In some countries, there are hundreds of serious puzzlers contending for the four main team places, with mainstream media providing extensive exposure to these events.

Puzzles

There are many types of puzzles in the world, falling broadly into the categories: logic; language; mathematical; observational and manipulative. To make a global puzzle championship fair, only puzzles which are language and culture neutral are permitted, hence the absence of common language-based puzzles, riddles and crosswords.

There can't be many people in the world who have not enjoyed solving puzzles at some point in their lives.
For example: Sudoku, Kakuro, Mastermind, Battleships, Complex Mazes, Word search, etc.
At the world championship, you will find all these, and many more besides, at a level to challenge the most ardent puzzle enthusiast. A few samples from past WPCs can be found in this PDF.

There are many puzzle sites on the internet, and regular puzzle competitions of WPC & WSC standard. Most of these can be found through the UKPA's discussion forums: forum.ukpuzzles.org. In particular, the Puzzle Links and Puzzle Competitions areas, which serve as excellent gateways into the exciting world of world-class puzzles!

UK Puzzle Association (UKPA)

The UKPA is a non-profit organisation, founded in 2010 by former British WPC & WSC competitors, representing British puzzlers on the world stage. It is the UK's official puzzle and sudoku authority, and is the UK member of the WPF.

WPC & WSC History