Whoa! Check out this lineup of the Saturday workshops at the Silicon Valley Puzzle Fest that’s coming up in a few weeks. (Assorted crossword and sudoku contests will take place on Sunday.)
- Doug Gardner, Introducing Octo Puzzles: A new kind of math and logic puzzle devised by Gardner
- Thomas Snyder, All About TomTom: Themed calcu-doku puzzles invented by Snyder, perhaps the country’s leading sudoku solver and creator of numerous sudoku variants
- Dave Holmstrom, Sudoku for Beginners (kids and adults): Great for novices looking to learn how to tackle sudoku puzzles (workshop held in the Teen Study Room, ergo not merely a half hour long)
- Jordan Chodorow, Mastering Hard Crosswords: 2011 champion of California crossword tournaments provides his tips for solving tough crosswords
- Andrea Carla Michaels and David Steinberg, Meet the Constructors: One a seasoned pro, the other a high school freshman with five NYT puzzles published in the past 7 months
- Dave Holmstrom, Word Puzzles for Kids: Crosswords and other word puzzles give kids a good warm-up for the Sunday kids’ tournament
- Mark Diehl, Getting a Clue to Getting Your Fill of Crosswords: Constructor Diehl reviews cluing conventions and, if time permits, leads the workshop through constructing a themeless
- Tyler Hinman, Puzzle Trends 2012: Tyler gives the lowdown on the latest trends in puzzling as well as sharing puzzle web sites and resources
Looks like it’ll be a great weekend for California puzzle junkies and for puzzle newbies alike. Even if you’re not interested in competing in the Sunday tournaments, you can still partake of the Saturday workshops. To my knowledge, there is nothing like this day of puzzle workshops anywhere else—you see the occasional single-topic class or workshop, but this full slate of interactive lessons in word and logic puzzles stands alone. Kudos to SVPF founders Emily Shem-Tov and Lisa Pampuch for organizing a cool event.