No matter how much you love speed puzzling, the competition puzzle is not always a pleasant surprise. Sometimes it's struggle from the very beginning all the way to the end. It's good to remember that generally speaking a hard puzzle is hard for everyone. This may not make you feel any better in the moment though.
I have had my fair share of nightmare puzzles in competitions. Sometimes I have felt like I want to give up. Sometimes I haven't even been able to finish the puzzle in the maximum time limit.
There have been cases where circumstances and a puzzle didn't go hand in hand. Like a nice dark-toned puzzle that would have been great in natural light but your competition was at night with bad artificial light. No can do - except to keep on pushing.
These are my nightmare puzzles from various speed puzzling competitions.
Boston 2189 - WJPC 2023, Pairs Final
The only puzzle ever that I have started but not finished. And it doesn't make me feel any better to know that only nine pairs finished this puzzle in maximum time limit of two hours. And there were 99 pairs in total who had qualified from classification rounds.
I honestly hate this puzzle. The moment I saw it, I knew it is going to be big trouble. I was still hopeful that we will get it done. Actually it never really even occurred to me that we may NOT finish it. Until they announced that there are like ten minutes left. Game over.
Other than the bottom part of the puzzle, nothing else was easy to split with a pair. It was so random. I think after an hour, you could feel the speed puzzling mode turn into slow puzzling mode. That puzzle was mentally tough more than anything.
I still have never finished this puzzle. I have had plans to do it at home but I'm still annoyed. Recently, I suggested that we do it as a practise with my team for the World Jigsaw Puzzle Championship 2024.
The First 151! - Puzzle Competition in Finland
This is a very different type of puzzle. And it's Pokemon. I should have treated as any other puzzles but I failed miserably. When I first saw the puzzle, I panicked. I thought that I'm screwed because I have never really been a fan of Pokemon as a kid (yet alone as an adult).
I should have done this puzzle like any other. Hypothetically, these Pokemons could have been just any other creatures. But I stumbled over the fact that I haven't seen Pokemon, and I threw my default strategy out of the window. That has been my biggest mistake ever.
For some odd reason, instead of starting with putting colors together (which I always do), I started sorting the little numbers I saw on the image. I never sort ANYTHING. And it was painful to first find all pieces with numbers because those are not very visible.
After I had all pieces with numbers, I started sorting them 1-10, 20-29, 30-39 and so on. It's good to notice that the rows in the image did not follow that logic but were more like 1-13, 14-27, 28-41 and so on. So then I sorted for the third time by the rows.
I spent most of my time sorting, and it didn't even help me too much. My time was 1h 21mins which is one of my worst ever in a competition. I have done this puzzle with my "normal style" later at home and I got it easily under an hour. Talk about bad strategy choices...
Finnish Summer Cottage - Palapelimestarit 2024
This was my first serious team speed puzzling competition. The sponsor of the event was Tactic, so we new already beforehand that this is not going to be good. I'm not saying that Tactic is not great brand but they do have quality issues and their images... not really meant for puzzles.
I was excepting a not-so-good image because there isn't too many good ones in their selection. But of course we got the worst of the worst. Finnish Summer Cottage, 1000 pieces. Not funny.
This took us 1h 31mins to finish. And we were the first ones to finish, even though some team had easier puzzles. Yes, in this competition teams have different puzzles. Not all but there are three puzzles given to teams randomly. We got the short end of the stick.
The only good thing about this was that we indeed were able to finish first on this classification round. So it was kind of like a mental victory looking forward to final. Which we also won but it was only a 500 piece puzzle and not this terrible.
I was keeping up a facade for my team, trying to keep everyone motivated to keep going. But inside I was mentally dying myself. This one did not even feel good after finishing. Never again, thanks!
Helsinki city plan 1876 - Ropecon Team Competition
This was my first ever competition. Also sponsored by a brand I know for having... let's say challenging images. I had a team for this competition but the person who was supposed to register us was too late and the event was already fully booked.
So I went there anyway - to see if anyone has last minute cancellation or missing team member. In the end I found one team that had only two team members so I joined them with my other puzzle friend. I think I was the only speed puzzler on that team.
The only easy parts in this 1000 piece puzzle are the colorful little sections in the middle. But let's be honest, even those parts are hard for someone who doesn't do that much puzzles. This puzzle wasn't my favorite at all. I took us almost three hours to finish.
And we were not a good team. Nothing bad about that, just a fact. We didn't know each others and the puzzle was hard. What can you do. With an easy puzzle this would have probably been more fun. I don't think I will ever participate again other than with my own team.
Little Sun: Change - Vienna Jigsaw Puzzle Club
This was my first international online speed puzzling competition. Even the organizer admitted they they had chosen a tricky puzzle. Somehow I actually like this puzzle but then also maybe not.
I did one puzzle from this same series a day earlier, Little Sun: Feel. It fooled me because it was much easier so I thought this would be easy too. It wasn't. Again, one of my worst times in competition, 1h 20 mins (or maybe it was even more).
It was also my first competition on night time after the sun set. That did not help. And round puzzles are not my cup of a tea anyway. I'm still confused. I look at the image and it still looks easy. I know it's not.
It's good to fail, lose and struggle. You learn a lot. If you would only get nice puzzles and low level competition, you wouldn't develop as much as you could. We can only reach our potential and find our limits if we keep pushing for them.
I have to admit that the pair final puzzle in WJPC 2023 was very humbling experience. I never thought that I would be in a situation where I cannot finish a puzzle in a competition. Now I know it's a possibility too. And I want to do my best to avoid it in the future.
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