Inside the Mind of a Sudoku Master
TIME.com was following Wei-Hwa and me at the recent Sudoku National Championship and the video piece was just released. Aside from some minor factual flaws (I turned in my final puzzle at ~4:14, not ~7:30 for example), it captures the whole championship - even Eugene - really well. (Note: I'm not getting the embedded video to play right from lj so you'll likely need to click on the link above)
ETA: Some curiousities to add to the story: this video may actually show Eugene finishing the 3rd round (which is quite a weird moment to watch as he stares at the camera instead of just handing in). While the proctor does not collect his paper immediately after writing a time on it (leading me to initially speculate this could be an earlier round), I've been told a separate runner collects the papers so its not on camera. You'll notice that Eugene was not in this seat near Wei-Hwa during the round 1 filming so he wasn't competing then or wasn't competing there then, consistent with what we've heard about mid-competition registration. Still, there is no doubting Eugene's final puzzle board, shown here quite clearly after 8 minutes, with impossibly slow progress for an advanced solver. If he wasn't cheating on paper, he was certainly throwing the competition on stage.
ETA: Some curiousities to add to the story: this video may actually show Eugene finishing the 3rd round (which is quite a weird moment to watch as he stares at the camera instead of just handing in). While the proctor does not collect his paper immediately after writing a time on it (leading me to initially speculate this could be an earlier round), I've been told a separate runner collects the papers so its not on camera. You'll notice that Eugene was not in this seat near Wei-Hwa during the round 1 filming so he wasn't competing then or wasn't competing there then, consistent with what we've heard about mid-competition registration. Still, there is no doubting Eugene's final puzzle board, shown here quite clearly after 8 minutes, with impossibly slow progress for an advanced solver. If he wasn't cheating on paper, he was certainly throwing the competition on stage.