Jigsaw Puzzle, our passion.
Saturday 19th of March 2016 took place
the second edition of the 12 hours of Arlon.
We are puzzled ! was of course present to defend last year’s title. We knew it would be difficult this year because many strong teams were enrolled. Moreover the number of contesters went from around thirty teams to about sixty and the tournament of Arlon clearly became the second biggest tournament in Belgium (behind Hannut).
Given that the tournament is very well organized by the Kiwanis Club of Arlon and given that their building allows to welcome many more teams, I am sure that this tournament is going to continue to grow during the next editions. At least that's what I wish them.
The only thing which we regret is that the two biggest tournaments of Belgium use the same brand of puzzle: Jumbo. It reduces considerably the choice of jigsaw puzzles in order to avoid having the same as in Hannut, so there is no big variety in the puzzles. We find it all the more a pity as we do not like the puzzles Jumbo, neither for their motives (a lot of puzzles with small characters: the "Van Haasteren", "Where is Wally?" and "Pieces of history"), nor for the quality of the pieces.
I hope moreover that the tournament of Arlon is going to cultivate its differences with Hannut, first of all by keeping its format of 12 hours which makes its uniqueness, and I do not despair to see another brand there than Jumbo.
Let's speak now about the contest itself...
We begin with a 500 pieces "the brewery" of the collection Jan Van Haasteren, followed by a 1000 pieces, "The Castle" of the collection "Pieces of history". After these two puzzles which do not suit especially to our team, we are 2nd or 3rd, but already quite far from the leaders, the "Yapluka" team, that we know way stronger than us on the puzzles with small characters.
Our third puzzle is a 1500 pieces representing animals of the jungle including a lion whose head occupies two thirds of the puzzle. A brief debate begins on the use or not of the joker on this puzzle. On one side, this puzzle is apparently very difficult, especially knowing the quality of Jumbo pieces. On another one, my co-team members like this kind of puzzle and want to do something else than "small characters". The heart (and the majority ;-)) takes it on the reason and we decide not to use this joker.
While we assemble this puzzle, we notice that several other teams which used their joker on the 3rd puzzle, finish the 4th one (a 1500 pieces of the Wasgij collection) well ahead of us. When we finally finish our 3rd puzzle, we decide to use our joker on the 4th and begin the 5th, a 1000 pieces representing kittens.
At this stage, it is our neighbouring team, the "Puzzlinelles" who is in the lead with approximately half an hour lead on us. "Yapluka" made the same error as us on the jokers and went from 25 minutes in front of us to 10 minutes behind us.
On the cats, we reduce the gap with the Puzzlinelles and begin the 6th puzzle (a 2000 pieces) with about ten minutes of delay on them. This puzzle allows us to take the lead and we begin the 7th puzzle with 2 hours remaining in the contest. But there, it is another Van Haasteren 1000 pieces that awaits us! When we hear that "Yapluka" is still only 10 min behind us we know that on this type of puzzle, the chance is big that they will overtake us. And it is what happens, they finish their puzzle with a 5-10 minutes lead on us and with 15 minutes left on the last puzzle (a 1500 pieces), it is not enough to come back.
We finish thus second of the contest but we are not at all disappointed to lose our title. We are even rather satisfied with our performance because we expected to end much farther from the "Yapluka".
