Sometimes old friends will climb over mountains to catch up, but for a bunch of former law school mates, the preference was to enter a world puzzle competition in Bangalore, India.

Jordan Hamel is a legal advisor for the Broadcasting Standards Authority in Wellington.

He and six other university friends including four from law school took on some of the brightest puzzle brains at the 12th World Sudoku Championships last month.

But it wasn’t because they were experts in this field, as Jordan explains.

“It was the first time New Zealand has sent a team ever. We stumbled across the World Puzzle Federation on the internet and saw it as an excuse to represent the country in a sport somewhere overseas,” he says.

The young men had also come to the belief that their chances of making the All Blacks were now unlikely and this could be a way of impressing their fathers.

The men formed a company called Aotearoa Puzzles Ltd and that enabled them to enter the competition.

“None of us were particularly good or interested in Sudoku but here was the chance to go to India and represent New Zealand,” he says.

The team also included Matthew Russell, Henry Taylor (lawyer) Simon O'Donnell (lawyer), George Meale (lawyer), Finbarr Noble (lawyer) and Sam Shilson.

They managed to do some fundraising by holding a quiz night along with sponsorship to pay for uniforms, so they would look every bit an intellectual force on the puzzle world stage.

The two day event held last month included ten hours of deciphering puzzles each day.

“We were expecting your stock standard Sudoku from the newspaper but it was intense. We missed the introductory meeting as we were having beers so eventually we turned up without pen or paper, managed to find an instruction booklet and it was a sort of learn as you drive experience,” he says.

So the team came last in the world but considering their only ambition was to represent New Zealand, they feel closer to the top than bottom of the heap.

“We are the world’s worst Sudoku team but it was about putting on the silver fern for us and we did that,” he says.

There were people there aged from 10 to 70 and in the end it was actually a team of 12-year olds from China who won the competition.

Next years’ 2018 event will be held in Prague and the team is undecided as to whether they will enter.