What I learned from watching the World Jigsaw Puzzle Championship (2025)
From September 15 to 21, 2025, in toasty Valladolid, Spain, some of the best speed puzzlers from around the world gathered for the World Jigsaw Puzzle Championship (WJPC). Through heat waves, and power outages, and the occasional puzzle mixup, these brave puzzlers would demonstrate the very best of their ability for viewers on site and the hundreds of friends, family, puzzling fans and random bystanders watching live on YouTube. As I’ve only recently become aware of this competition, this year was my first time watching it live and I had an absolute blast.
There are 3 main events in the WJPC; individual, pairs, and teams. In each category, participants had to complete one or several puzzles within the allowed time. For individuals and pairs, participants had to finish high enough in both a qualifying and semi-final round to make it to the final. For teams, the qualifying round was directly followed by the final. The event was sponsored in part by Ravensburger and all the puzzles used in the event were from that brand, which is why you’ll see it mentioned often in this blog post.
You can find full rundowns of the event through the many vlogs that have been posted on the topic since the end of the competition. I enjoyed watching a few different ones, noticing which elements were mentioned each time, like the incredible heat and impressive rainstorm. Instead of going over the event itself, what I’ll focus on here are the things I learned and how I want to incorporate this viewing experience into my training.
Training and Strategy
To say that I have a training strategy is a bit of a stretch, but I am training, and I do try to be strategic about it. One of the great things about watching the WJPC is seeing all the different types of puzzles that are used in the competition, and noticing which kinds I’ve done very little of, or never tried at all. Here’s what I’m keeping in mind:
Practice circular puzzles
For the very first time this year, puzzlers in the individual competition had to choose between 2 puzzles for their qualifying round. In each group, one of the options was a circular puzzle, many of which were from the Ravensburger “Circle of Colors” collection. I had no idea circular puzzles could be included in a competition, and have definitely never tried one. They’re now firmly on my to-do list.
Practice solid colours
A few of the puzzles in the competition had large areas of a single colour. In such cases, there wasn’t much one could do to make it easier except sorting the pieces by shape and being very good at shape recognition, or the ability to quickly spot a very specific shape among a variety of pieces. There are such things as monochromatic puzzles (perhaps most famously the Ravensburger “Krypt” collection), but I think I’ll stick with less challenging options to practice this specific skill.
Practice landscapes
Although there were surprisingly few landscape puzzles in this year’s competition, it is a type of image that Ravensburger is known for and something that many puzzlers practice extensively. I can’t say they’re my favorite type of image to puzzle, but I’ll be adding a few to my wish list.
Practice the same puzzle over and over
In the qualifying and final rounds of the competition, all participants were given brand new never-before-seen puzzles to complete. However, in the qualifying rounds, the competition puzzles could be something that a participant has completed before, perhaps even multiple times. It’s important to be comfortable in both contexts; completing a puzzle for the very first time and practicing a puzzle over and over again to get faster. This one won’t be an issue for me as I plan to repeat puzzles a lot, but now I feel like there’s some solid reasoning behind my approach.
During the event livestreams, the hosts would talk about the puzzles, competitors and their achievements, and the different strategies seen during the competition. Through this commentary, and by watching so many talented puzzlers, I’ve come away with a few key ideas that I think will always be beneficial when attempting a new (or repeat) puzzle:
You don’t have to start with the border
The very first step for all speed puzzlers when faced with a mountain of pieces, is to flip them all right-side up and start sorting. For the majority of competitors, this involved setting aside all the edge pieces, but not everyone actually assembled the border right from the start. Depending on the image, and individual preference, some will begin by isolating a specific part of the image, like a bright yellow t-shirt or a clearly defined sky, and start assembling the puzzle from there. I always used to be a border-first type of puzzler, but since diving into speed puzzling I’m really beginning to understand why this isn’t always the best option. That being said, I think it’s always a good idea (at least for me), to set the edge pieces to the side when sorting. If nothing else, it removes pieces from the main pile and is something I can easily come back to when the rest of the puzzle leaves me stuck.
Keep your pieces close
If all the empty spaces remaining on your puzzle are in the top-left corner of the frame, but all your pieces are on the bottom-right, then you’re going to waste a lot of time looking from one area to the next and moving the pieces over. There’s more than one solution though; you can either move the pieces themselves, or rotate the puzzle to bring the empty spaces closer to the remaining pieces. This is easiest with a circular puzzle, which rotates freely and is easy to reposition, but even rectangular puzzles can be flipped on the side or even placed upside down to minimize the distance between remaining pieces and where they want to go.
Clear your view
It can be very distracting to have pieces “floating” in the middle of your puzzle and many competitors prefer to have a clear field to work with. It’s not unanimous though, and someone who’s very good at placing pieces where they’ll eventually go can quickly end up with a tidy pile that’s ready to be assembled at a moment's notice. I’m certainly someone who likes the idea of a clear puzzling area, but in practice I tend not to be as tidy as I’d like. Oftentimes I’ll reach a point in my puzzle where enough is enough and I clear absolutely everything that isn’t attached. It takes a bit of time, but on average I’ll be able to speed up afterwards as I can more clearly see where pieces need to go.
Studying the grid
During one of the individual qualifiers, there was a discussion on the livestream about studying the cut of a Ravensburger puzzle. Unsurprisingly perhaps (although it was news to me), all 500-piece Ravensburger puzzles are cut from the same template. As a consequence, it is possible to draw out the grid and study the placement of unique pieces. The most common case in which this would be deemed useful seemed to be the construction of the border. In a 500-piece puzzle, the border takes up 86 pieces, which is more than 17% of the entire puzzle. If a puzzler is able to quickly assemble a border, they’ve set themselves up for success by creating anchor points from which they can expand the image, and also by reducing the pile of pieces to sort through. As intrigued as I am by this approach, studying a piece grid sounds like an extra layer of complexity I’m not ready to add to my puzzling experience. It’s also something that’s only useful in a very specific context, as any brand other than Ravensburger will be using a different template, and not all competitions use the same brand of puzzles.
As a final thought, let’s just say I’m now more excited than ever at the prospect of competing in speed puzzling events. I know I still have a long way to go, but the more I learn and the more I practice the more convinced I am that this is something I can do. One puzzle at a time, and one piece at a time, I’m working my way to the world championships and even if it takes me a few years, I know I’ll get there someday.
