Beijing, China (Oct. 18, 2013) For the second time in three years, the preliminary rounds seeded three Americas into the 10-person playoffs. Former champion, Palmer Mebane, earned an intimidating 5-minute head-start on the field for the one-hour semi-finals, and easily moved on to the two-person finals. Fourth-seeded Thomas Snyder quickly moved into second place, and held onto a 1-2 minute lead over German Ulrich Voigt until the last puzzle, where an ill-timed stumble cost Thomas the final spot. William Blatt also made the semi-finals as the 10th seed, and did well to move up to 7th in the final rankings.

The finals were a best-of-five match between Palmer and Ulrich. The puzzles used were taken from a pool of ten, where the two competitors took turns selecting and eliminating puzzles. Palmer won the first round, but then lost three straight, giving Ulrich his 9th individual title.

There was no such drama in the team competition. With no team playoffs, the strong U.S. Team, including Jonathan Rivet, led wire-to-wire throughout the preliminary rounds to wins it's 14th WPC title.

The 8th World Sudoku Championship was held earlier in the week. The team title went to host China, led by the individual champion Jin Ce. The 9th place U.S. Team included Jason Zuffranieri, William Blatt, Wei-Hwa Huang, and Chris Narrikkattu.

Full results for both championships are available at the host WPC22/WSC8 site.