UK Puzzle Association

Hello!

Just signed up looking to up my sudoku game, but I also stumbled across Hanjie recently and, although not being much good at them yet, can't help but find them good fun.

I suspect I'm nowhere near a competitive level yet (I'd barely heard of any of the variants of puzzles that appear in the past competitions section of the site), but would be nice to have something to aim for. I was wondering what resources people use to start to level up their puzzling skills. I know The Times churn out loads of Sudoku books of varying difficulty levels and have their own annual competition. Are these any good?

Cheers,
Gav

Hi Gav,

Sorry to see nobody has replied to you yet...
First, welcome!

If you are prepared to challenge yourself, and start exploring the myriad of puzzle types in existence, then a very good starting point would be past competitions, perhaps search for 'beginners' so as not to be too overwhelmed at first.

As for puzzle books, there are some good ones out there, that cover several types, to get you into them. eg, Beyond Sudoku can be found in many magazine sections, and not a bad place to start.

If you just want dozens of the same type of puzzle, (eg, sudoku) there are loads of regularly published titles. The problem with these, apart from being relatively monotonous, is they are often computer generated, so limited in their ability to lay out 'nice tricks' for you to find, solve, and derive satisfaction from. For that latter element, the sooner you dive into the competitive puzzles you'll find via this site, the better. (You don't need to treat them competitively!)

Whatever your leaning, enjoy puzzling!
Alan