Welcome to Vaki Puzzles
Vaki puzzles are solved by completing the grid so that there are two symbols in each cell (most commonly a letter and a number), each letter and each number appears once in each column and once in each row, and each pair appears only once in the grid.Vaki puzzles range from the small and easier (3x3) to the really quite large and very demanding (10x10 and bigger).
They are related to sudoku. Technically, sudoku are incomplete Latin squares (with a block constraint) while vaki puzzles are incomplete Graeco-Roman or Euler squares
News
May 7-8, New Zealand vaki puzzle and sudoku champsThe New Zealand vaki ® puzzle and Sudoku champs will be held online over the weekend of May 7-8. The web-site for this event is www.puzzles.kiwi.nz Entry is free and open to everyone, no matter where you live.
World School vaki ® puzzle and sudoku champs, October 14-21The world school vaki ® puzzle and Sudoku championships were held online from October 14-21. The website for this even is www.mindsportstriathlon.com The 2015 World Champion School is Bucklands Beach Intermediate from New Zealand
July 2015The NZ junior Vaki ® puzzle and Sudoku championships were held July 3-5 at the Gallagher Centre, Waikato University. See www.mindgames.nz for results. They were part of the NZ junior mindsports championships (backgammon, draughts, scrabble, vaki ® puzzle champs as well as an open junior chess tournament) held in conjunction with the 40th annual conference of the NZ Association of Gifted Children.
June 2015The NZ vaki ® puzzle and sudoku championships were held in Thames June 6-7 as part of the pentamind championship. The NZ vaki ® puzzle and Sudoku champion is Andrew Willcox from Auckland. The runner up in a very close contest was Elizabeth Challies from Christchurch. Kevin Guan, the NZ schools champion from Macleans College took out third place.
April 2015 - mobile phone version of web-site liveIt should now be much easier to play the puzzles on your mobile phone. Feedback welcome, particularly if you spot any of the bugs our developer has deliberately left in the code because he really enjoys reworking his code. Use our 'contact us' page.
February 2015Larger vaki ® puzzles (7x7 and 8x8) are available on this site. These are intended for competition use, and for those serious about their rating!
January 2015Vaki ® puzzles can be played as card games. Vaki Puzzles card games vol 1 is available from amazon sites and also from bookdepository.com The idea in the 4x4 case is to lay out the picture cards so that every picture (ace, king, queen, jack) and every suit (hearts, diamonds, clubs, spades) appears once in every row and once in every column. Puzzlers are given some clues to start with.
October 2014Competitors in the 2014 NZ schools puzzle championship could play either vaki ® puzzles or sudoku. The winning school, Bucklands Beach Intermediate concentrated on vaki ® puzzles. The 2014 NZ schools puzzle champion is Kevin Guan of Bucklands Beach Intermediate. The runner up is Thomas Ye, also from Bucklands Beach Intermediate
July 2014A mixed book of vaki ® puzzles and sudoku is published as Championship Puzzles Summer
March 2014The NZ Sudoku and vaki ® puzzle Championships were held in Thames, March 1-2, 2014. The 2014 champion was twelve year old, Alphaeus Ang. Later in the year, Alphaeus was awarded the chess title of "Candidate Master" (CM)
January 2014The online puzzles (except kal-toh at www.kal-toh.com) were recoded from JAVA applets to javascript
August 2013The first monthly book of vaki ® puzzles was published. Vaki ® puzzle books have been published each month since. They are available online from a number of sources, including amazon sites and bookdepository.com (which offers free delivery to anywhere in the world).
February 2012Our website was relaunched and puzzle sheets uploaded each week.
August 2011Vaki Puzzles 110 published. This book contains bigger puzzles (7x7, 8x8, 10x10) as well as some 6x6 puzzles. It is impossible to complete a true 6x6 vaki puzzle.
August 2011Vaki Puzzles Issue 2 published. A second edition has since been produced. It contains 3x3, 4x4, and 5x5 puzzles
December 2010A vaki ® puzzle app was released on Facebook, but withdrawn after a few months. It was buggy, and there were problems working with an external contractor