Organizers
Matúš Demiger
Director of organizing team and WPF directorThis year will be 20 years since he has been involved in sudoku and puzzles. He has represented Slovakia since 2008. His best results are two 11th places in WSC and WPC individual ranking, and he finished 4th with the team multiple times. Since he could not otherwise reach the Top 10 and win a team medal, he invented the European Sudoku Championship. He was one of the main organizers of the World Sudoku and Puzzle Championship in Senec 2016. He likes classic sudoku, pub quizzes, Valencia and maté. He works as a news editor in a newspaper and has been the director of the World Puzzle Federation since 2021.
Veronika Koľveková
Member of organizing team and volunteers coordinatorVeronika has been interested in various logic puzzles since childhood, and has been attending Slovak sudoku and puzzles tournaments since 2012. She has participated in three world championships, and was a volunteer in Senec 2016. She also regularly participates in online competitions, and has been leading a logic puzzle workshop for two years.
Ján Farkaš
Member of organizing team and president of SZHKHe has been the chairman of the Slovak Association of Puzzle and Crossword Players since 1997. During these almost 30 years, he managed to establish the Slovak championship in puzzles and sudoku, organized hundreds of other regional tournaments, the World Sudoku Championship in Žilina in 2009, and was in the organizing committee of the World Championship in Senec in 2016. He also represented Slovakia as a competitor and later as a captain at the WSC and WPC from 1994 to 2019. He is a passionate traveler, railwayman, promoter of logical thinking, and organizer of various events.
Blanka Lehotská
Vice president of SZHK and coach of the Slovak puzzle representationShe works at the Faculty of Natural Sciences of Comenius University and is one of the leading Slovak experts in the bats research and rescue; she discovered one of the species herself. She is also involved in the protection of migratory frogs at Bratislava's Železná studnička. She has been involved in logic puzzles for many years, is a multiple time medalist from the Slovak championships, and also has a medal from the 2nd Slovak Sudoku Championship. As a coach of the national team, she is also credited with discovering many talents; in recent years she has also become the captain of the Slovak team.
Diana Škrhová
Main puzzle authorDiana has been part of the Slovak Sudoku scene since she was a teenager. She has experience from regional tournaments, Slovak championships, and also World championships—making her debut in London in 2014. Currently, while on maternity leave, she spends her time creating various Sudoku variants. She is a regular author for the Sudoku GPs and has twice been the lead author for the Czech Sudoku Championships.
Bastien Vial-Jaime
Puzzle author, WSC 2018 silver medalistBastien is an experienced sudoku author and has been a member of the French national team since 2011. His greatest achievements include a 2nd place in the 2018 World Sudoku Championship, a 2nd place in the 2019 Sudoku Grand Prix, and a 3rd place in the team competition at the 2017 World Sudoku Championship. In his free time, he enjoys reading, going outdoors and playing challenging video games.
Martina Prinerová
Puzzle authorShe is a computer science and physics teacher at an elementary school. In her free time, she likes to go hiking or do jigsaw puzzles. She likes unconventional sudoku, new types, preferably mathematical ones or those using parity. Her greatest achievement is 98th place at WSC 2022.
Matej Uher
Puzzle author, more into puzzles than sudokuHe has been involved in logic puzzles and sudoku since 2010. He is the Slovak champion in puzzles and his best result at the World Championship is 11th place in 2022. He loves climbing, chess, hiking and mathematics. He works as a teacher at a mathematics high school and organizes the LUPAR sudoku and puzzle competition for students from all over Slovakia.
Marek Pápay
Puzzle authorAn author of sudoku and puzzles with a passion for blending East Asian culture and food into his creations. He occacionally shares his new puzzles on his blog Puzzle Cake.
Viktória Dubcová & Simona Furková
Sudoku influencersMarketing communication students who manage the championship's social media. If you spot them, they might just pull you into one of our videos. They will be busy capturing the overall atmosphere, key moments, and behind-the-scenes insights to keep our online followers in the loop. If they come up to you with a question or a camera, don't hesitate to join in—you might end up on our social media pages!
About SZHK
Slovak Riddlers' Association (SZHaK) unites enthusiasts, authors and solvers of logical puzzles, crosswords and riddles in Slovakia. It was officially founded in 1990, but the tradition goes back much further, when people were mainly gathering in group meetings and magazine editorial offices. The chairman of SZHaK since 1997 has been Ján Farkaš.
During the year, SZHaK members organize a dozen of events, including Slovak individual and team championships, junior and regional tournaments, and qualifying tournaments in sudoku and puzzles, for the world championships.
SZHaK is a member of the World Puzzle Federation (WPF) and each year sends a representative team to the World championships, where Slovaks regularly compete for the highest ranks. The greatest success is 1st place in the team competition at the 2009 Sudoku World Championship, puzzler Peter Hudák is also the holder of three individual medals, including silver from the 2009 World Championship in puzzles.
SZHaK also organized the 2009 World Sudoku Championship in Žilina and the 2016 World Sudoku and Puzzle Championship in Senec.
About WPF
World Puzzle Federation (World Puzzle Federation – WPF) was established in 1992 in New York, which also hosted the first World Puzzle Championship. In 2006, the inaugural World Sudoku Championship was held in Lucca, Italy, also under the WPF's auspices.
The WPF is a non-profit organization based in the Netherlands, bringing together puzzle and sudoku enthusiasts from all over the world. It consists of more than 30 member countries and dozens of individual members. The federation is currently chaired by Helen Arnold from Australia, with Matúš Demiger from Slovakia serving as Executive Director.
Each year, the WPF also organizes the Grand Prix series full of online sudoku and puzzle competitions. Don’t be afraid to join!"