N.J. Techie Unseats Greeley Senior to Claim KenKen Title

You could understand if Martin Eiger had that feeling of deja vu Saturday at the Chappaqua Public Library.

In 2010 and again last year, Eiger qualified for the finals of Robert Fuhrer’s KenKen tournament during the event’s first two years only to be stopped both times by Horace Greeley’s High School’s puzzle whiz Molly Olonoff.

On Saturday, the 51-year-old technical research and development professional from Montville, N.J. turned the tables on Olonoff, completing an eight box-by-eight box grid in 8:12 to capture his first KenKen crown.

After finishing third in the inaugural tournament two years ago and coming in second last year, Eiger was all smiles as he waited for his two championship round competitors, Olonoff and New Rochelle’s Adam Marcus, to battle it out for second place.

“It’s great,” Eiger said. “I wish I had finished first in one of the qualifying rounds but you take what you can get.”

Under the tournament’s rules, the winner of each of the three qualifying rounds, each featuring three puzzles of increasing difficulty, would compete for the title on the library theater’s stage. However, since Olonoff won the second and third rounds after Marcus was victorious in the first round, the next best combined finisher would qualify for the third slot. Eiger had finished third in the first round and second in the third round, the only other of the 90 competitors besides Olonoff to twice finish in the top three during the qualifying rounds.

But in the finals, both Marcus, who was awarded second place for having more boxes filled correctly, and Olonoff struggled to unlock the puzzle’s key and could not finish within the 20-minute round. Olonoff, now a senior at Greeley, said she had completed eight-by-eight KenKen puzzles before but an early mistake did her in.

“It’s definitely frustrating because I’ve done eight-by-eights all the time,” she said. “I know I can do it. I made a little mistake and then made lots more mistakes and it went downhill from there.”

Marcus, 25, a Fairleigh Dickinson graduate, had a similar problem. An error near the top of the grid forced him to erase his work midway through the round and start over.

“I made one mistake at the top and based upon that one mistake everything crumbled beneath me,” Marcus said. “Luckily, I did the smart thing and erased the entire board and I was able to get as many done as possible before time was up.”

KenKen features square grids divided into groups of boxes, referred to as cages. The numbers in the boxes within each cage must produce a certain number when using addition, subtraction, multiplication or division. Generally, the more boxes the greater the difficulty.

Fuhrer, a Chappaqua resident who through his Pleasantville toy company, Nextoy, brought the game to the United States from Japan, said he was pleased with the increasing participation and turnout. He said the game is appealing because anyone from children to seniors can play.

He said he wasn’t sure how many would compete this year, but the event continues to grow despite minimal publicity. Two years ago, there were a little more than 50 entrants and about 80 last year.

“You’re thinking they’ll go to a party and nobody will come,” Fuhrer said. “They come. They like it, they’re addicted, they’re passionate. We’re happy.”

The tables of competitors were filled with puzzle or math lovers who have been smitten with KenKen and wanted to match their wits against other enthusiasts. In fact, most of the field came from outside the immediate area, mainly from elsewhere in Westchester, New York City, New Jersey and Connecticut.

Josh Rosen, a math specialist at Dobbs Ferry’s Springhurst Elementary School who entered the contest with two former students, has introduced the game where he works and runs a competition similar to Fuhrer’s tournament at the school. He said it promotes not only a love of math but also perseverance.

“What was nice is that the students that did well at the (school’s) KenKen Challenge weren’t necessarily all the same students that are, quote, unquote, the top students in the class or at least the way they saw themselves,” said Rosen, who has also worked with a math teacher from a rural South African village via the Internet to bring the game to her students.

Eiger, who usually enters Will Shortz’s annual crossword puzzle contest in Pleasantville and a few other competitions throughout the year, said he needs his fix of puzzles, including KenKen.

“It’s challenging, it’s fun and I guess I’m reasonably good at it,” he said.

Olonoff said she wasn’t sure if she would be back next year since she will be at a still undetermined college. However, over the last two years being KenKen champ has given her opportunities, including having worked at Fuhrer’s company last summer and being invited onto The Martha Stewart Show.

“It’s just a fun extra thing that I do but it turned into a much more important thing,” she said.