Jigsaw Puzzle, our passion.
Sunday 25 February 2018 : 1ère édition du Concours de Puzzle de Berchem-Sainte-Agathe
On Sunday the 25th of February, we participated in the first edition of the Berchem-Sainte-Agathe puzzle tournament. As this contest took place in Brussels, we proposed to non-puzzler friends to participate with us: Gaëtan and Greg.
This tournament has an unusual format for us: 6 hours with a mandatory break. There are also 2 small games during the contest that can make you win 50 and 100 pieces.
The contest starts with a first puzzle of 500 pieces (wheelbarrow of flowers) and we get the opportunity to test our two recruits: Greg is doing well but Gaëtan ... hum how to say it ... At least he is of good will when asked to sort, as long as he does not come across colors that his color blindness prevents him from distinguishing. The organizer announces the size of the puzzles that will follow: there will be a 1000 pieces, then two 500 pieces. It scares us a bit because we know that to do that, we need much less than 6 hours. We finish the puzzle in first position, not far in front of the second team.
The second puzzle comes, it is a 1000 pieces representing a map of the world covered with postcards. While we are assembling it, a first little game arrives: we have to guess the weight of a basket of fruits. We are not far from the good weight but at least one team does better than us.
Noon arrives and the break too. This is not usual in the world of puzzle competitions but we can understand the interest of it for the children in order to keep the family aspect of the event.
Moreover it allows us to discuss with other teams more than what we usually do, as we are used to not lift the nose of our puzzle. We finish this second puzzle by consolidating our first position.
The third jigsaw puzzle represents the solar system. It is not so obvious for a 500 because there are a lot of black parts. This allows us to widen the gap in the lead. Gaëtan makes me laugh not being able to complete a planet consisting of about 8 pieces 🙂
The fourth puzzle is a 500 pieces representing horses. During this puzzle, the second mini-game takes place, it's about being the fastest in a riddle of logic. We are generally not bad at this style of game but another team gives the answer faster than us. We finish the 4th puzzle almost 2 hours before the end of the competition, a bit unfortunate but we can understand for a first edition. One wonders how the organizers will manage the rankings because other teams will clearly finish within two hours, including the team that won the 100-piece bonus. From our side, since there is no other puzzle, we can not increase our total number of pieces.
We wait patiently for the end of the contest and the proclamation of the results. We have the good surprise to be declared winner, the organizers having decided that at the base it is still a puzzle competition. This is especially fun because this time we came with Gaëtan and Greg.
List of puzzles:
- Ravensburger 500 pièces – Summer bouquet
- Ravensburger 1000 pièces – World travel memories
- Ravensburger 500 pièces – Solar system
- Ravensburger 500 pièces – Horsing around
