Speed Puzzling - With a Twist!

Speed Puzzling With a Twist: A Weekend in St. Paul, Minnesota

Hey everyone, welcome back to the blog for an exciting one about a speed puzzling competition I went to! I’m so excited to share my experience at Winter Carnival in St. Paul, Minnesota. It was a fantastic action-packed weekend full of puzzles, new friends, and lots of fun. 

Now, I’ll give you a little heads-up: if you’re not into spoilers, this blog might not be for you. The puzzles here are puzzle twist puzzles, meaning the images on the boxes don’t always match the actual puzzle you’ll be working on. So if you’re looking to keep things spoiler-free, you might want to skip this post.

Day 1: Arrival & Getting Settled

Cosmo, Leslie, and I landed on Friday and met up with our teammate Krystal who came all the way from Baltimore. Leslie, Cosmo and I have puzzled together a little bit but all four of us had never puzzled together. After a quick dinner, we did some practice.

Our first puzzle of the weekend was Cycling Cities. This 500-piece jigsaw puzzle from PuzzleTwist was collage-style puzzle featuring altered images of bustling city streets. The twists weren’t too crazy in this puzzle, the areas of the puzzle were just mixed around with little changes here and there. 

The second puzzle of the evening was Fresh Fruit. It was good to practice a 1000 piece together. It helped us come up with a few strategies and to see what everyone’s strengths were. Leslie was good at doing the edge pieces, Cosmo was really good at words, Krystal could do really busy areas while I was best at large sections of a similar thing. In general we were pretty happy with our times and we seemed right on par with people who have been practicing for a while. 

Day 2: Event Day

The puzzle event is hosted in the Union Depot. This is an active train station which is a really nice big event space with lots of good lighting. 

Saturday was the big day for our team’s first events. We were set to compete in two separate team challenges: a 500-piece puzzle and a 1,000-piece puzzle, back to back. We hadn’t done much practice as a group, but we were feeling pretty confident after a quick run-through the night before.

After running to our tables and getting set up, it was time to get excited!!! Our first event was the 500 piece challenge. You don’t know what the puzzle is until they say go, but one that happened everyone threw the bags onto the floor and broke open the boxes. The first puzzle was called Heart of St. Paul. This one had some changes, like the direction of the building, the words, colors, and locations of items in the puzzle. 

I quickly focused on the yellow and blue building, while Leslie worked on the edges, Cosmo tackled the words at the top, and Krystal started filling in different areas of the puzzle. The image was really fun to piece together, and we were thrilled with our time of 22 minutes and 35 seconds! That placed us 9th out of 159 teams! The team that took first place (Becca, Alice, Sammy, and Kelly) set a blistering pace, finishing the puzzle in just 16 minutes and 38 seconds.

Next up was the 1,000-piece puzzle, and while we didn’t break any speed records, we managed to complete it in 1 hour, 1 minute, and 34 seconds, earning us 15th place. The puzzle was called Land that I Love. We were aiming to finish in under an hour, but we just missed the mark.

Looking back, I think one thing that might have helped us was referencing the box more. Normally, we avoid using the box for Puzzle Twist puzzles because there are often noticeable differences—colors, placements, and details can vary. We’ve trained ourselves to not rely on it too much. However, for this puzzle, it would have been beneficial to glance at the box, as we would have noticed that the sections we were working on—such as the states—were positioned fairly close to their locations on a U.S. map. If we had seen that, we likely could’ve moved a bit faster.

It was a tough but fun competition, and I was so proud of how our team performed.

Between the two events, we had some time to explore and mingle. There were sponsor booths, a swap table full of puzzles, and lots of casual puzzling going on. We didn’t take anything from the swap table (no room in my bag!), but it was fun to see what others were trading and taking home.

Social Time and Puzzle Practice

Later that evening, we joined other puzzle enthusiasts at a social event organized by the USA JPA. There were raffles, snacks, and plenty of practice puzzles. Leslie and Cosmo were really focused on their training since they’re prepping for Nationals. They were puzzling non-stop, while I relaxed and caught up with friends I only see at these kinds of events. However we did end up doing a bunch of puzzles… well specifically Paul Bunyan Puzzles. This was not our original plan but for some reason the images just kept calling out to us.

First, we did Wander. This was a bright image that was a bit tricky for us. This was the first time Krystal and I tried to speed as a pair. We had a very small space to work with. This playful take on Paul Bunyan and Babe the Blue Ox, was fun and had a few unexpected twists, and additions to the puzzle image.

Next, we did Paul Bunyan and Babe the Blue Ox.This is from the “What’s Up” line of Puzzle Twist which we were told was a bit more challenging. There were a lot of big changes and unexpected twists within this puzzle. Between the colors in the sky, icicles, and changes to the lettering, it was full of surprises. We were just casually puzzling with friends and I really enjoyed this puzzle.

Finally we did MN Abbey Road which was by the artist Adam Turman. He is well known for his bold, colorful and eye-catching illustrations of Minnesota landmarks.  Adam originally created this image for the Minnesota Beatle Project – an album by Minnesota musicians covering Beatles songs to benefit music education.  

Day 3: The Final Day of Puzzling

Sunday was our final day, and it was cold! The temperature had dropped to 7°F (feels like 0°F).

Our first event was pairs. The puzzle was another 500-piece twist puzzle, and this time, I had a blast solving it with Krystal. Our puzzle was called Free Parking, and it was a cute 1950s diner from St. Paul. I loved how we paired up—Krystal worked on the bottom while I focused on the top section, and we met in the middle.

We finished in 42nd place out of close to 300 pairs, with a time of 42 minutes and 43 seconds. Not too bad, especially considering the stiff competition. Becca and Alice took first place again with an amazing time of 25 minutes and 5 seconds.

After the pair event, it was time for the solo competition. Although I didn’t compete, it was fascinating to watch the chaos as people scrambled to get good seats. Many were practically running to their tables as the event started. The solo puzzle looked challenging, but I did buy a copy of it to try later on my own. The puzzle was called Ice Cream Dreams.

Leslie and Cosmo did well in solos, with Leslie finishing 34th and Cosmo right behind her in 41st. They were both so close to the top 30!

Wrapping Up

It was such a fantastic weekend full of puzzles, camaraderie, and a little bit of chaos. Even though I wasn’t initially excited about heading to Minnesota in the middle of winter (I was hoping for a warm destination like Florida or San Diego!), I had an amazing time. The vibe at the event was just great, and I’ll definitely be back for future puzzle events.

Now that the Winter Carnival is over, we’re gearing up for Nationals, Jigsaw Masters in Portland, and several local events. Stay tuned for more puzzle adventures—I’ll be sharing them here! If you want to see a video I made about the event, you can watch it here!

Thanks for reading, and I’ll see you in the next one!

Emilee @thecasuapuzzler