Indian Sudoku League

Mission of ISKL

• To provide a competing platform: It has always been a challenge every year, to select talents for the World Sudoku Championship. The difficulty constraints have always provided an obstacle for establishing a remarkable National wide event of a greater reach. There has always been a discussion and fruitful difference of opinion with the National Selection procedure. Easier competitions encourage newcomers while challenging competitions help us to select a worthy National team for the Annual World Championships. It was to this end that LMI began Sudoku Mahabharat, but when ISKL approached us with their own goal to have a nationwide tournament, we thought we could use this concept to go one step further in talent development, and make a system which casts a wider net on upcoming Sudoku talent in India.
• To provide a relative National Ranking system: National ranking system will go a long way in upbringing and nurturing national talent with greater emerging competition. It will give all the participants a national ranking which can be upgraded every year with sharp skills and sheer hard work.

ISKL vs ISC

View ISKL as a standalone league whose goal is to develop and build new talent by providing a training element to it. Over the years, the Sudoku community has a few regular members competing throughout the year, learning and exploring all the aspects of the competition. This has led to those few individuals becoming heavily experienced and developed and has caused a gap between them and newcomers who find it difficult to get motivated because of this gap. While ISKL will be conducting a Nation wide gung ho sudoku league and awards, LMI offers an opportunity for top 10 selected solvers to learn from the core team/experts. The top 5 Inexperienced* Above-18 participants and the top 5 Inexperienced Under-18 participants will be added to a private group where they will get training, insight and tips from India's crème de la crème talents, who have been to the World Sudoku Championships and have been among the World's top-20 Sudoku finalists. Using this learning experience, we hope to bridge the gap for some newcomers to make it to the next level. There will also be a wildcard entry for the winner (1st place only) of ISKL into the Indian B team for the World Sudoku Championship for 2017, which will be held in Bangalore and hosted by Logic Masters India.

*The criteria here for inexperienced is as follows:
- The participant has not participated in a World Sudoku Championship.
- The participant has not achieved a top-20 position in an Indian Sudoku Championship.

Format

• Update: A Sample Booklet is now available which has more details and practice material for the 3 online rounds. You can download it by clicking here.

• There will be 3 online rounds, followed by an offline final in January.
• The Online segment of the tournament will be held in December, 2016.
• There will be 3 rounds, on the weekends of 4th December, 11th December and 18th December. By 'weekends', it is meant that the contest will be open for registered participants from Friday morning ~9 AM to Monday night ~ 9 PM.
• Round 1 will have easy Classics, Round 2 will have medium Classics and a few introductory 6x6 variants, and Round 3 will have easy-medium Variants.
• Round 4 will be a combination of the types from the 3 online rounds. The top 100 or top 20% (whichever is more) participants, based on cumulative scores from the three online rounds, will qualify to this round.
• Applicants who are new to online competitions can read the F.A.Q. of the site here and attempt a demo contest here

ISKL Organizers

Jai Prakash Mishra, founder of ISKL
email id: jpm012@yahoo.com
Contact number: 7317799957

Prasanna Seshadri, LMI Content Contributor
email id: prasanna16391@gmail.com
Contact number: 9819261933

Registration

The registration process has two steps:

Participation Fee

As of 26th September, the participation fee has increased from Rs. 600. These costs are valid till the 10th of October, after which the logistics team will re-evaluate. The current fee structure is as follows:
Participation in all 4 rounds, whether round 4 is done online or offline: Rs. 900.
If an applicant likes and shares the ISKL page (below), they will receive a discount of Rs. 200, making the fee Rs. 700.
For an additional Rs. 200 on either of these options, ISKL applicants will receive content of a past National Championship held earlier this year, which will be great practice for ISKL. Existing ISKL participants can also avail of this offer. The cost for this content independently is Rs. 400. For more details on the content, check here. Please send an email to prasanna16391@gmail.com if there are any queries regarding the new fee structure.
The applicant must make a payment of the participation fee via any one of two payment options.
a) Visit the ISKL facebook page and click on 'Book Now' to pay via a PayUMoney portal.
b) Transfer to a specified bank account. Please send a mail to prasanna16391@gmail.com for account details.

Participant Details

The applicant must send the following details either to prasanna16391@gmail.com or to 9445-947-365:
- Name
- Age
- Sex
- Place
- Mobile no.
- Payment reference
- Existing LMI ID If any
- Whats app no. If any
- Time preference to receive calls

Prizes

- An invitation to participate on the India B team at the World Sudoku Championship 2017 for a top Inexperienced talent.
- There will be cash prizes on offer. Since it is a first time event, the exact prizes will be specified at a later date after better knowledge of participation numbers.
- As mentioned above, LMI will be offering training to Inexperienced solvers. The number set above is 5 from each age category but LMI reserves the right to select a few more promising talents if there are any.

International Participation

As of now ISKL is planned solely with Indians in mind, but if there is substantial interest from International participants we will think of procedures to allow for International participation.