Greeley Junior Captures Consecutive KenKen Crown
When Molly Olonoff decided again this fall to enter Robert Fuhrer’s KenKen tournament, she didn’t set her expectations too high. Despite winning last year’s inaugural event at the Chappaqua Public Library, Olonoff had no thoughts of repeating, especially with a field of some 85 KenKen enthusiasts, about 30 more than in 2010, ready to stake their claim as the top supersolver in the area.
Her approach worked well again on Saturday as the Horace Greeley High School junior finished in the top three in all three qualifying rounds and raced through a championship round 7×7 KenKen grid in three minutes, 19 seconds, to successfully defend her title. She defeated Martin Eiger, a Montville, N.J., telecommunications researcher and a finalist for the second straight year, who clocked in at five minutes flat, and 24-year-old recent college graduate Adam Marcus of New Rochelle.
“It’s always surprising to win these things,” said Olonoff, who to no one’s surprise listed math as her favorite subject. “I don’t expect it. I always go in fresh minded.”
Fuhrer, a Chappaqua resident who brought KenKen to the United States from Japan through his Pleasantville toy company, Nextoy, launched the competition last year, which he billed as the first tournament of its kind in the world. KenKen is a numbers puzzle where no digit can appear more than once in any row. The square grids are divided into groups of boxes, sometimes called “cages,” and the numbers in the boxes within each cage must produce a certain number when using addition, subtraction, multiplication or division.
Although he could have likely doubled the number of entrants, Fuhrer said he’s content for now to keep its popularity in check and to stage the event in his home community. If it does get bigger, Fuhrer said he would have to move the tournament to a larger venue.
“I just want it to be a friendly, local event right now,” he said. “It’s easy for me, it’s easy for them, it’s nice for the community.”
The event was spiced up by appearances from New York Times crossword puzzle editor Will Shortz and 12-year-old “mathemagician” Ethan Brown of Bethel, Conn. Between rounds Brown entertained the crowd by solving outrageous math problems in his head in seconds without the aid of a calculator. If you need to know the square root of 12,544 (112), 13 divided by 91 carried out to seven places (0.1428571), or the day of the week anyone was born, Brown can get you the answers.
“I can guess anybody’s birthday within three days,” Fuhrer joked. “I say Wednesday and I’m always right.”
The competition’s three rounds featured the contestants trying to solve three puzzles, each with increasing difficulty. Rounds 1 and 2, 15 and 18 minutes respectively, each contained a 4×4, 5×5 and 6×6 grid, while the 20-minute third round contained a 5×5 and two 6×6 grids. Olonoff won the opening round, followed by Marcus taking the next two. Eiger was a close second behind Marcus to secure spots in the final.
While the qualifying rounds were done at a series of long tables, the championship puzzle was on stage with oversized boards propped up on easels. Marcus said he found the setting a bit distracting as he struggled at first to complete the puzzle, but was pleased with his performance. A sudoku player, Marcus discovered KenKen after The New York Times began carrying it nearly three years ago.
“I said ‘Hey, I should try this out. I’m very good,'” Marcus said of entering the tournament. “I guess I was proven right.”
Eiger discovered early on in the championship round he had made a mistake, had to erase the numbers he had entered and still managed to finish within five minutes. However, he had too much ground to make up to catch Olonoff.
“I find you can’t come into this thing expecting really anything,” Eiger said. “I don’t know these people, I don’t know who’s better than I am, who’s not. I came here last year expecting to be middle of the pack and look what happened.”
Although Olonoff hasn’t been able to play as much as she did last year, she said the technique comes to her immediately once she starts a puzzle.
“I avoid the stuff that I’m not sure of and do the stuff I can eliminate,” Olonoff said. “Once I get to the hard stuff, it’s easier to do.”
For those who can’t get their fill, Fuhrer said by spring there will be online tournaments where competitors can match skills against other KenKen enthusiasts.
Martin has more than 30 years experience covering local news in Westchester and Putnam counties, including a frequent focus on zoning and planning issues. He has been editor-in-chief of The Examiner since its inception in 2007. Read more from Martin’s editor-author bio here. Read Martin’s archived work here: https://www.theexaminernews.com/author/martin-wilbur2007/