DECATUR - No one even knew what Sudoku was a few months ago, let alone how to pronounce it.

Now, more than a few people are addicted to figuring out these number puzzles.

Just ask Mary Jane Jones of Tuscola about her husband's Sudoku addiction.

"You can tell he is retired," she said and laughed about how her husband does the Sudoku puzzles every day.

"The first week that the puzzle came out, I couldn't figure it out," said Arleigh Jones, 70. "The instructions only said you can't repeat the same numbers in the rows and columns but didn't say you couldn't repeat them in the 9-square box. It didn't dawn on me until I saw the answer sheet in the following day's newspaper."

Wayne Gould, a native New Zealander who lives in Japan, created Sudoku software and has been distributing the puzzle to newspapers through his Pappocom trademark.

The puzzle first appeared in the London Times last November. Its sister paper, the New York Post, also began printing it. Soon other newspapers, including the Herald & Review, began scrambling to print the puzzle this summer.

"I first discovered the puzzle in Japan. It had been popular there for the past 20 years," Gould said. He was in the country for the first Sudoku championship event on Oct. 3. The master of Sudoku walked away with a $5,000 cash prize and trophy.

"It's different than anything else," Gould said about the puzzle. "It's a logic puzzle, not a math puzzle, and you don't need language for it. Numbers are universal and everyone around the country understands 1, 2, 3," Gould said. "It's the journey that is the fun, not the destination."

There are no particular tips for getting the numbers right in the grid. "It's a matter of working the numbers in," he said.

The game consists of nine 3-by-3 subgrid boxes placed inside a larger 9-by-9 grid. The idea is to fill in all the blank boxes with numbers in every row and column with digits one through nine only once.

Arleigh Jones has developed his own strategy. He takes the puzzle printed in the newspaper and enlarges it on a copy machine onto several sheets of paper. Those become his working sheets with extra pencils and a bottle of white-out nearby.

He studies the numbers in the boxes in the first column and what numbers are in the left and right rows.

"I just begin eliminating those numbers already in the rows. Then I figure out what numbers go in the blank boxes until it solves out. Sometimes it a hit-and-miss with the numbers," he said.

Jim Eckles, 49, of Decatur, another Sudoku puzzle fanatic, says, "It's not math, its logic."

Eckles retired from the Navy and is now a baker for Panera Bread. He goes to work from 9:30 p.m. until 5:30 a.m., waits for the paper to be delivered and has it completed before heading home.

"It's rewarding and something you feel good about doing," he said.

Eckles also has his own method for the number madness. He studies the first column of numbers in the first 9-block square grid. He then does the second column of boxes and rechecks the rows up and down.

"If you do it right, you don't need to look at the answers. And if you make a mistake it's obvious," he said.

Stephanie Idle, a special education teacher at Mount Zion Intermediate School, likes new challenges.

"I love the game. It is addicting," said Idle, who often works the puzzle with her daughters, ages 14 and 16. They often compete with each other to see who can finish it the fastest.

The puzzle is basically troubleshooting, problem solving and doesn't require a vocabulary like crossword puzzles do, Idle said. She admits her strategy is going down each column and row, checking what numbers are the same and filling in the blank boxes without repeating the same numbers.

"Sounds easy, but it does become a process of elimination," she said.

But now Idle has introduced the puzzle to her fourth- and fifth-grade students who have learning disabilities.

She went to www.edhelper.com on the Internet to find easier Sudoku puzzles to pass out to them.

"It doesn't require reading, it doesn't require any math. And I'm so proud of my students for being able to get the puzzle done," she said excitedly and is even planning to make the puzzles part of her classroom curriculum.

WHAT OTHERS SAY

- "I love working those darn things. I've always liked math and the idea of solving the numbers and finding out where they go."

Cheri Sharp

Decatur

- "My husband and I do good with the easy puzzles. But the medium and hard are really hard. We've learned to recognize each others 'yelps' which means great progress was being made until suddenly the same number showed up in two spots and the whole solution is up for grabs again. Anytime you guess, you know you're in trouble."

Judy Curry

Decatur

- "I love the Sudoku puzzles. I am so addicted to them. In addition to working the daily puzzle in the Herald & Review, I've printed every one off the Internet that I could find. The puzzle has to be approached methodically. Systematically you have to erase numbers as you put them in the rows and columns."

"I feel guilty sometimes sitting around working puzzles so much and kind of neglect doing my housework compared to how I use to clean all the time."

Jo Culver

Decatur

- "I was in London in June and read the London Times and worked a couple of puzzles after seeing how popular it was. I then bought a puzzle book and brought it back to the states.

"If you think about it¦..Sudoku crosses international lines in dealing with numbers. I just look for an easy combination and think about what becomes the deduction."

Clint Whitrock

Decatur

SUDOKU TIPS

- Don't look at the whole grid at first. Take the puzzle in sections.

- The fewer empty spaces you have in any box, row or column, the better your chances are of proving empty squares.

- Look at the most populated rows, columns and boxes. And concentrate on the middle three rows.

- A twin is a number that has proved to appear in either two squares and helps disprove its presence in another part of the grid. A matched pair can help solve other problems as the puzzle gets harder.

- The more difficult constructs and strategies are best learned by practice. The more Sudoku you solve, the easier it becomes.

Source: "Sudoku for Dummies" by Andrew Heron and Edmund James

FOR HELP

Go to www.sudoku.com and click on the forum to browse discussions with others about how to solve the harder puzzles.

Sheila Smith can be reached at sheilas@herald-review.com or 421-7963.