Caltech Student Has All the Answers to Mind Games

By MAYRAV SAAR

Dec. 2, 1995 12 AM PT

SPECIAL TO THE TIMES

In the Olympics of the analytical, Wei-Hwa Huang is pure gold.

The youngest member of the U.S. team to compete in the World Puzzle Competition in Brasov, Romania, in October, Huang outsolved, outsmarted and--when all else failed--outguessed enigma enthusiasts from 13 countries to clinch the title of Individual World Puzzle Champion, the highest kudos in the contest.

Beating out more than 40 puzzle aficionados for the honor, the 20-year-old Caltech junior topped his previous scores from the last two championships and used his deduction dexterity to help the U.S. team garner its first No. 1 ranking in the four-year history of the event.

Which, Huang guesses, is nice.

“I’m really happy that we won,” the computer-science major said. “But I’m more happy that I got to see new forms of puzzles.”

For Huang, puzzles are an obsession. He has a Web Page on the Internet linking visitors to several math and logic puzzles, and one look around his cluttered Caltech dorm room reveals an infatuation with all forms of mind games.

While he owns only a handful of schoolbooks, Huang has crammed four bookshelves with such esoteric volumes as “Games and Decisions,” “The Winning Ways” and “The Joy of Lex.”

These books have helped improve Huang’s gaming strategy, but much of his success can be attributed to practice and, like many worldwide winners, a strict diet. His last bookshelf is stuffed with packages of Ramen noodles: the individually wrapped, chicken-flavored food product of champions.

Below that shelf is a drawer filled with mechanical puzzles, all reminiscent of Rubik’s Cubes--except much more difficult.

“I’m not that good at mechanical puzzles,” said Huang, while solving one. “I’m better at math and logic puzzles.”

Scrap papers, booklets of brain teasers and a few puzzles Huang is writing on his own fill a filing cabinet by a mattress on his floor. Huang opens one of the cabinet drawers, and from among the folders of scattered logic, he pulls out his prized possessions: the four booklets of puzzles used in the last international competition.

Huang received a trophy when he won the championship. But, he said, “that’s not what I consider the prize. These booklets are what I consider the prize.”

The trophy, a white and gold porcelain urn, became a puzzle itself after shattering into dozens of pieces on the plane ride home. It sits in a cardboard box, awaiting some glue.

But it may be a while before the urn is repaired: Huang missed a week’s worth of classes for the competition, and he still has a lot of catching up to do. Besides, he says he didn’t enter for the prize; he entered for the challenge.

Huang’s love of challenges and his penchant for figuring things out makes him a natural puzzle champion, said Will Shortz, team captain and New York Times puzzle editor. But it doesn’t always make him the best party guest. “In previous years, Wei-Hwa would get bored at some of the social events,” Shortz said. “Sometimes he’d just get out a puzzle and start working at it while the hosts were trying to entertain us.

“Some brilliant people get along and do well in society,” Shortz continued. “Some people who devote all their time to abstract thinking can’t drive a car. I think Wei-Hwa straddles the line.”

Shortz met Huang three years ago, when the Maryland native breezed through a nationwide faxed puzzle exam and joined the team. Since then, Huang has been to the Czech Republic, Germany and Romania for the roving competition.

This year’s team will most likely stay together for next year’s competition in Amsterdam, said teammate Nick Baxter, who works full time at a San Francisco software company. And the members have been keeping in touch with each other through e-mail.

“Sometimes I get e-mail from Wei-Hwa at 3 in the morning,” Baxter said. “I don’t think he sleeps much.”

Baxter’s theory is that little sleep and a college lifestyle gave Huang an edge at the competition. He had the gaming hours necessary to hone his talents.

“I don’t have the time to be as active as he is,” Baxter said. “Wei-Hwa is a student. He’s got way too much free time on his hands.”