My First Puzzling Competition

Every couple has faced the same problem - you’re both off work, mentally disengaged, bored, and neither of you knows what to do. Yet, you both know you want to do something together.

Last Wednesday, July 8, 2026, Austin and I fell into that trap. Neither of us wanted to commit to continue watching Spider-Noir. A longer episode of a show seemed like too much. Austin suggested we watch something random on YouTube. I vetoed the first two videos the algorithm suggested, but the third caught my interest: Why Ravensburger is the Gold Standard of Jigsaw Puzzles.

I grew up doing puzzles. Ravensburger has made my favorite puzzles, including a 3000 piece puzzle of World Famous Buildings, which I have completed solo for fun more than once. I’ve been to Germany multiple times and always wanted to go to Ravensburger due to the puzzles. I love their blue-backed pieces and the nice click that happens when you connect pieces.

We watched the video, and I nerded out. I brought out a Ravensburger puzzle piece and a Clementoni puzzle piece for Austin to compare, as well as showed him how two pieces connected differently in those brands. But the nagging thought in my head after the video was that it mentioned competitive puzzling competitions.

“That’s a thing?” I said in disbelief.

“It’s no different than cubing.” (Austin wasn’t phased.)

“Well, I’m good at puzzles. I bet I could be good at it.”

Immediately, I picked up my phone and Googled potential local puzzling competitions. The first result was Puzzle Palooza at Puzzle Warehouse….on July 11, just three days and a 15 minute drive away. So, within 30 minutes of learning that competitive puzzling existed, I signed up for an individual 500-piece puzzling event in just a few days. I was confident I could do well - after all, just how many people would compete in puzzling?

Lead Up

My confidence started to wane in the few days before the competition. I pulled out a 1000-piece puzzle to practice, but I kept getting distracted and ultimately gave up on timing myself during that puzzle after I hit over an hour on my timer. I realized that most of my friends did not live under the same rock I do, and had actually heard of comeptitive puzzling before. To top it off, I realized that Puzzle Palooza had a hotel block and people actually traveled to St. Louis for the event.

My sorry attempt at practice, a 1000-piece puzzle that I lost interest in quickly.

Maybe, this was more serious than I’d thought. Maybe I was overestimating my skills. After all, I probably hadn’t completed a puzzle solo in 6-8 years. The only one I could think of finishing since moving to St. Louis in 2019 was a quilt-themed puzzle I work on with my friend Melissa. The 1000-piece puzzle I’d taken out to sharpen my skills was going nowhere and felt more like a chore than fun.

So, by the time Friday night rolled around, I’d already readjusted my expectations: my goals were to have fun and not finish last. I was in the first heat at 10:00 am on Saturday morning. I decided I would arrive early, check in, and situate myself before we began.

Round 1: The 1st Heat

By 8:50 am, a line had formed outside of Puzzle Warehouse. I came early with an energy drink. It felt awkward to wait alone, but the other people in line were both friendly and chatty. Eventually we were let in and I checked in for my event. I received a contestant lanyard, a t-shirt, and a goodie bag. My nerves were getting worse through a combination of caffeine and the horrible realization that many attendees were wearing t-shirts from other speed puzzling events, such as US Jigsaw Puzzle Association Nationals.

Because I signed up late, I had a generic contestant badge - I ended up wring my name on it in Sharpie.

That’s it, I thought, I’m boned. These people are super serious.

I reminded myself of the two goals I had. I decided to check out the vendors and wander around until it was time for my event. I met a few other experienced puzzlers who imparted some tips for puzzling, and my table partner, Anna (middle name Marie!), who had come up from Florida. It was her first event, too, and we bonded over our similar names and it being our first time.

The tables you sit at for puzzling - we were in pairs.

Finally, they explained the rules and the 10 second countdown began. We would have 2 hours to complete the puzzle. As soon as it was time I pulled out the puzzle and ripped into the bag. It looked like it was a beach scene. I flipped over all the pieces as quickly as I could, and decided to focus on the big swaths of color first - red for the beach bar, white for the sand, and blue for the sky. I didn’t care about edges and just sorted and matched by color. The puzzle brand, SunsOut, had unusual pieces and I kept feeling frustrated the things didn’t match in a logical way. I heard a few people finish, and that coincided with when the puzzle got super difficult for me.

The upper right palm trees were hell. I had about 20-30 pieces left for the last 10-15 minutes of my run. I was struggling to place the pieces by color and pattern. I felt like I was starting to go cross-eyed. I began looking at puzzle piece shapes instead to finish the puzzle. As I worked on the last pieces, volunteers hovered around me to record my exact time.

Final time: 1:42:37.

And shockingly, I finished 3rd.

I was in disbelief. I hadn’t practiced, I hadn’t done a puzzle in years, and I took third!? I was slightly shocked as the adrenaline started to wear off and my sweat began to dry.

Round 2: The Finals

I was feeling myself a bit going into the second day. Saturday was such a confidence boost. I also learned the only two people who finished ahead of me in my heat, Tammy and Ashley, were the founder of the USA Jigsaw Puzzle Association and Puzzle Palooza 2025’s individual 500-pieces winner, respectively. I knew that it would be tough with Heat 2’s participants mixed in as well.

I was partnered at a table with Dan, who had placed 4th in my heat and was also local to St. Louis. We chatted a little bit before - he had been practicing a lot, and shared with me some local puzzling events I could check out.

My goal today was more ambitious: no matter what, I wanted to complete my puzzle in the strict 1:30 time and finish in the top half. I was pretty confident I could do it, but as soon as we started and the puzzle was revealed, my heart plummeted. The only swatch of color that was consistent in the puzzle was the sky.

I tried the tactic that had worked the day before: focus on colors, ignore edges, and go as quickly as I could. However, I kept fixating on the sky pieces which was slowing me down. I also realized about an hour in that I probably should have done the edges first, as with the chaotic image it would have allowed me to work inwards. Dan was blitzing through his puzzle, and as he got to the end, I started cheering him on with encouragement. If I couldn’t place, I was hoping he would. ( He ended up 3rd, missing 2nd by 2 seconds!!)

When we hit 10 minutes left, I made peace with not being able to finish, and just matched as many pieces I could to the puzzle. I knew that connecting 2 or more pieces meant they would not be counted against my score, but I was having a hard time matching duos with this puzzle. Instead I focused on individual pieces being added to the whole puzzle.

At time, my hands went up, and I counted what I had left: 127 pieces. I had completed about 75% of the puzzle, but I didn’t meet either of the day’s goals. I ended up 37 out of 59 in the finals. There were a 100 total participants between both heats - so overall, I placed 37 out of 100 puzzlers.

My incomplete puzzle from finals.

Would I Puzzle Again?

I signed up on a total whim, and I loved it. I loved reconnecting with a hobby I loved but don’t make time for, and I loved having uninterrupted time to put together a puzzle as quickly as I could.

The fencing season and working evenings means it may be tough for me to make a bunch of puzzling competitions, but I 100% want to do it again. The people in the community are so kind, and it’s so dissimilar to fencing because you’re racing a clock vs competing against an opponent.

I already have a few puzzles I want to do that I picked up at the event, and I made an account on MySpeedPuzzling.com to try to track how I do! I’ve always been a 1000 piece puzzle snob, but I can get behind 500 piece puzzles for speed puzzling.

My complete haul from my puzzling weekend. I got two of the puzzles signed by their artists.