But in the Samokov's red-carpeted dining hall, the entire British team - four contestants and one captain - are already at their table, ignoring their breakfasts, working in silence on practice puzzles. "Well," he says at last, "I think the difference is that, with the magazines, we're not trying to make people feel really bad about themselves."ĭay 1 At 8am on Monday morning, Borovets is still shrouded in fog. "I think the difference between the magazines we publish and the championships themselves is." He takes a sip of his cappuccino and thinks for a moment. Preston is the publishing director of Puzzler Media, a Surrey-based company responsible for more than half of Britain's puzzle magazines, including The Puzzler, Tough Puzzles, Puzzle Corner Special, Puzzler Collection, Puzzle Compendium, Quiz Kids and Fundoku. "The strange thing about it all is that puzzles are supposed to be a form of relaxation," says Tim Preston, over coffee at the Samokov hotel bar. There are only two prizes worth winning: best country, and best individual puzzler. Some of the puzzles bear a distant likeness to sudoku, but they are mostly extremely hard, and the atmosphere viciously competitive. If the explosion in popularity of sudoku over the past two years represents one end of the spectrum of modern puzzling, the World Puzzle Championship represents the other. The occasion was the 15th annnual World Puzzle Championships, and about 200 people, including at least four women, had travelled from more than 20 countries to spend the week locked in combat over logic puzzles. As well as smoked sausages, it sells crisps.Ī few weeks ago, however, if you'd wandered by chance into the grand lobby of the Hotel Samokov, a completely different scene would have confronted you. That is what it is actually called: The Cheapest Shop. And finally, as the fog that envelops Borovets each night begins to descend, you will probably go to bed, stopping only to pick up a smoked sausage at The Cheapest Shop. Then you might transfer to Jumping Jack's Karaoke, except that you'd be the only patron, which is never a particularly good basis for karaoke. After whiling away an afternoon staring at the deserted chairlift system, you might dine at the Harry Potter Steakhouse, spending your meal wondering if JK Rowling really did grant permission for the name to be used. In autumn, before the snows arrive, the Bulgarian ski resort of Borovets offers the casual visitor quite spectacularly little to do.
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