Thomas Snyder wears a collared shirt, khakis, and sneakers, looking like any other postdoc on the Stanford University campus. He confesses, though, that he has a very different wardrobe in his closet at home—one devoted to sudoku.

His puzzle-based attire—bowling shirts, jackets, t-shirts—is a perk of being on the U.S. sudoku team and the reigning World Sudoku Champion. In April, he successfully defended his title at the 2008 World Sudoku Championship in Goa, India, adding yet another t-shirt and a couple of trophies to his stash.

Snyder can whip through an easy puzzle in less than one minute; the hard ones might take all of three. He has won prize money—$10,000 in the U.S. National Sudoku Championship last October. Companies like Google and the Philadelphia Inquirer sponsor his travel to competitions. He gets hired to test puzzles and he also creates them; his first book, published this spring, features sudokus based on the classic board game Battleship.

Illustration: Peter Arkle

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