Thomas Snyder (born c. 1980) is an American puzzle creator and world-champion

sudoku Sudoku (; ; originally called Number Place) is a logic puzzle, logic-based, combinatorics, combinatorial number-placement puzzle. In classic Sudoku, the objective is to fill a 9 × 9 grid with digits so that each column, each row, and ...

and logic puzzle solver. He is the first person to win both the World Sudoku Championship (3 times) and the World Puzzle Championship. Snyder writes a puzzle blog as Dr. Sudoku.

Early life and education

Thomas Snyder grew up in the suburbs of

Buffalo, New York Buffalo is a Administrative divisions of New York (state), city in the U.S. state of New York (state), New York and county seat of Erie County, New York, Erie County. It lies in Western New York at the eastern end of Lake Erie, at the head of ...

. He attended Amherst Central High School before getting chemistry degrees from the

California Institute of Technology The California Institute of Technology (branded as Caltech) is a private research university in Pasadena, California, United States. The university is responsible for many modern scientific advancements and is among a small group of institutes ...

and

Harvard University Harvard University is a Private university, private Ivy League research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts, United States. Founded in 1636 and named for its first benefactor, the History of the Puritans in North America, Puritan clergyma ...

and doing post-doctoral work at

Stanford University Leland Stanford Junior University, commonly referred to as Stanford University, is a Private university, private research university in Stanford, California, United States. It was founded in 1885 by railroad magnate Leland Stanford (the eighth ...

bioengineering Biological engineering or bioengineering is the application of principles of biology and the tools of engineering to create usable, tangible, economically viable products. Biological engineering employs knowledge and expertise from a number ...

department.

Puzzle-related work

Thomas Snyder has contributed puzzles to various puzzle-related publications including

GAMES Magazine ''Games World of Puzzles'' is an American games and puzzle magazine. Originally the merger of two other puzzle magazines spun off from its parent publication ''Games'' magazine in the early 1990s, ''Games World of Puzzles'' was reunited with ''Ga ...

and

Wired Wired may refer to: Arts, entertainment, and media Music * ''Wired'' (Jeff Beck album), 1976 * ''Wired'' (Hugh Cornwell album), 1993 * ''Wired'' (Mallory Knox album), 2017 * "Wired", a song by Prism from their album '' Beat Street'' * "Wired ...

. He has also written puzzles for events including the World Sudoku Championship, U.S. Puzzle Championship, the

MIT Mystery Hunt The MIT Mystery Hunt is an annual puzzle hunt competition at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in Cambridge, Massachusetts. It is one of the oldest and most complex puzzle hunts in the world and attracts roughly 120 teams and 3,000 contesta ...

Gen Con Gen Con is the largest tabletop game convention in North America by both attendance and number of events. It features traditional pen-and-paper, board, and card games, including role-playing games, miniatures wargames, live action role-playing ...

, and the Microsoft Puzzle Picnic. In early 2012, Snyder founded his publishing company ''Grandmaster Puzzles''. On April 9, 2012, he began selling his first title from the newly formed company, ''The Art of Sudoku''. On December 31, 2012, Snyder began the newest version of his puzzle blog ''The Art of Puzzles'' coinciding with the relaunch of his ''Grandmaster Puzzles'' web site."Welcome to Grandmaster Puzzles!"
Retrieved August 13, 2013. Snyder holds several puzzle-solving titles as well, with his 2006 U.S. Puzzle Championship win being the earliest. Snyder has represented the

United States The United States of America (USA), also known as the United States (U.S.) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It is a federal republic of 50 U.S. state, states and a federal capital district, Washington, D.C. The 48 ...

ten times at the World Puzzle Championship, including six times when the US won the team competition (2006-8, 2010–11, 2013). He was the top individual at the 27th World Puzzle Championship held in

Prague Prague ( ; ) is the capital and List of cities and towns in the Czech Republic, largest city of the Czech Republic and the historical capital of Bohemia. Prague, located on the Vltava River, has a population of about 1.4 million, while its P ...

in November 2018.

Puzzle championships

*World Sudoku Champion 2007, 2008 & 2011 *World Puzzle Champion 2018 *U.S. Sudoku Champion 2007 *U.S. Puzzle Champion 2006–2010, 2012, 2017, 2019, 2024

References

Living people Puzzle designers 1980s births Artists from Buffalo, New York California Institute of Technology alumni Harvard University alumni Stanford University alumni Sudoku solvers Place of birth missing (living people) Amherst Central High School alumni Year of birth missing (living people) {{US-bio-stub