How I reached sub-40 min times

Part 2: How to take your speed puzzling to next level

Last spring I took a leap to next level in speed puzzling. The question I’ve gotten often is “how?” This is the second part of my attempt to explain it in detail. I’ll reveal my practice routine and reveal what I’ve done in order to reach those sub-40 min first attempts and sub-30 minute repeat times. To name a few, I’ve focused on owning he mental game, have used music as a successful tool in my practice, and found a way to tackle those busy puzzles (finally!!) Perhaps you’ll find some ideas to implement onto your training.

In the first part last week, I shared my analysis on what makes a top-tier speed puzzler, so if you’re curious to know what characteristics and skills world-class speed puzzlers have and what we could learn from them, I recommend reading that part one first.

Making sense of the piece cut

I have to admit, that at first I didn’t see a point in doing the same puzzle multiple times. Now I’ve jumped ship. In addition to being great speed practice and confidence booster, repetition has helped me to learn some areas of Ravensburger’s piece cut. So a bit surprisingly, speed runs have been the best way to familiarize myself with the piece cut. Especially while speed running Puzzling Emotions I learned to identify the location of quite a few pieces. What was especially helpful with that puzzle, were the different background colors which divide the puzzle nicely into eight sections. Thanks to that, I now know which pieces belong to the “dark blue upper right corner” or “green bottom middle section” no matter which Ravensburger puzzle I’m assembling. At the moment I’m mostly able to identify pieces near the frame and the cut in the middle of the puzzle remains still a mystery.