Try beating Rachel Roth's Su Doku winning time here

MIXED Su Doku is an unfair fight. That is the only possible conclusion from the second Times National Su Doku Championships held in Cheltenham yesterday, which was won once again by a woman.

Rachel Roth, 32, beat 116 other puzzle solvers — 72 of them men — in a knock-out competition to win a cheque for £1,000 and the right to represent Great Britain at the World Su Doku Championships in Prague next year.

Hopefully the Su Doku authorities will look kindly on Mrs Roth, a management consultant who was born and brought up in Zurich and moved to London only two years ago, representing her adopted country.

She arrived in the final as the narrow favourite, having swept all before her in the opening round and the semi-final but having been beaten in the second round and the quarter- finals.

One-on-one against David McNeill in the final, Mrs Roth completed the decisive extra fiendish puzzle in a quicksilver time of 11 minutes 7 seconds.

Mr McNeill, 43, a lecturer in electrical engineering from Queens University Belfast, completed his puzzle correctly two minutes later.

Speaking afterwards, the new champion said that she took up Su Doku a year ago after her husband George gave her one of the Times bestselling books.

At the time she was working for a multinational company in Sunbury and spent two hours a day commuting to her home near Paddington in London.

“My job was not stretching my brain enough so I really felt at the end of each day that I needed some brain food. I always loved puzzles as a child but Su Doku just really makes sense with the way I think.

“I see a mixture of numbers and pictures (when I’m solving a puzzle). Usually the first number just pops into your eye and I never guess. There’s always a hint. Sometimes you don’t find it straight away, but there’s always a logical way to put the numbers together.”

Presenting the prizes, Michael Harvey, features editor of The Times, described Mrs Roth’s performance as phenomenally fast.

He added that in the two years since The Times introduced the puzzle to Western audiences, it has become a phenomenon with half a billion devotees around the world.

“The search continues for the new Su Doku but in the meantime The Times will be introducing a new super fiendish category from next month.”

Mrs Roth, who describes herself as “medium competitive”, is currently out of work but had no idea last night what she would spend her winnings on.

“I’m sure my husband and I will go out and have a nice dinner, or maybe a weekend away together . . . without Su Doku. I can do that.”

Mr McNeill said that he had no regrets about finishing second but admitted that he had been intimidated by his opponent’s times.

“I got about a quarter of the way through by logic and then felt obliged to guess because Rachel had been going so fast in the heats. Once I did that it started going pear-shaped.

“Hopefully my wife will forgive me, because I spent over £100 getting here.”

Mrs Roth’s win continued a spectacular run of success for women in The Times national puzzle championships.

In last week’s crossword championship, Helen Ougham, a plant scientist from Aberystwyth, became the 31st national champion.

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