Zsolt Kiss

Solving puzzles was always my duty as a pentester but I think getting addicted to these kinds started in this manner. I even more so when I heard about a Jigsaw Puzzle Competition locally at Székesfehérvár. The simplified rules are:
- In the individual categories, everybody receives the same 500-piece puzzle.
- Nobody can touch or see the puzzle before the competition starts.
- Everybody will try to solve it at the same time.
- In the Pairs category, the contestants must solve a 1000-piece puzzle in a similar condition.
- The teams of 4 people must choose 2 out of 4 1000-piece puzzles and solve them in time, of course, all teams have the same 4 selection of puzzles.

For the unprepared people, the solving times of around 1 hour can be shocking and might frightened me as well, but you simply don't give up a puzzle so I continued to prepare for such an event. I met my teammates during multiple country-wide competitions, Parties, and Marathons and we achieved third place at a competition. Some events are rather for fun. A party will involve ca. 80-200 different puzzles and everybody will start assembling one, switch places after a few minutes, continue working on another picture, and make some new friends. The marathons usually last for 26-27 hours and the puzzlers will work at one of the 80-100 available tables at every single second. During these events I noticed some people were talking about the World Championships hosted by the World Jigsaw Puzzle Federation in Valladolid, Spain. The Millenium Dome has hosted this event for years now and thus the former capital city is not only known because it was the city where Cristobal Colon died, but Cervantes also lived and the first Scuba diving suit was born. This was my second year participating in the championship in individual, pair, and team categories as well. Furthermore, as the opening event this year the Federation allowed every nation and association to try and beat the official Guinness World Record of solving the GWR puzzle under the time of 1:24:04".

Sadly we were off 4 minutes from the last record but we were happy to complete it. Additionally, we can start to prepare to beat the new record. We learned and experienced a lot during the competition, thanks to the fabulous city and the always-smiling contestants. We got new friends from Columbia through Honduras, Germany, and everywhere. Additionally, we are still sharpening our skills with smaller and also 9000-42000 pieces puzzles.