Welcome to our Speed Puzzler Spotlight, where we showcase some of our local Calgary speed puzzlers. For our first spotlight, we have Victoria Argue, who will be jetting off to Valladolid, Spain later this month to compete at the 2026 World Jigsaw Puzzle Championships. Good luck, Victoria!
How and when did you get into speed puzzling?
I have been doing puzzles as long as I can remember. I had an old, slightly flexible Formica tabletop that got separated from its table. I used to set it up on my lap, all propped up with cushions, to puzzle on. I did pretty much only 1,000-piece puzzles when I was a teenager, and I would turn that board around at different angles and puzzle every which way. I always puzzled out of the box. I never dumped the pieces and sorted first. I would just fish a handful out, assemble them, then go back and look for more.
I found out about speed puzzling about three years ago. I was at a friend’s house, and they had about a quarter of a puzzle left to complete on their table, all sunflowers. I finished it up really quickly, and my friend’s partner was shocked that I had done it so fast! He sent me a link to a documentary movie called Wicker Kittens, which followed a bunch of people getting ready to compete in Winter Carnival in Minnesota in the ’90s, I think.
After I watched that, I took to Facebook to find out if speed puzzle competitions were a common thing now and how I could get involved locally. One of my current teammates had just put out a message looking to put a team together to compete at the Hexagon Board Game Cafe. That was the beginning of our team, The Puzzle Killerz, with Tamara, Shawna, Stephanie, and me.
What do you enjoy most about speed puzzling?
I love the time-challenge aspect of speed puzzling. How fast can your hands move? Can you get better and faster with little tweaks? Can I see colour and shape? Can I puzzle right-side up and upside down? How much does the image contribute to how fast you can be?
With pairs and teams, I really love having the team encourage and lift each other up, make each other laugh, and find out what we are all good at so we can let each other shine with our natural talents. There are some puzzles I would never get through without my team!
You will be attending the upcoming World Jigsaw Puzzle Championship in Spain, which is very exciting! What are you looking forward to?
As Worlds quickly approaches, I am very excited to meet other people who love puzzling as much as I do! I am looking forward to getting the chance to talk “shop,” compare strategies, puzzle with new people, and push myself in a very large arena with people from all over the world.
Meeting as many puzzle people as I can and doing as many puzzles as I can are both top priorities for me in Spain! My goal is to try to qualify in all three categories, individual, pairs, and teams, and, if I am able to do that, to finish the final puzzles in the time allotted!
Do you have a tip or trick you can share with new speed puzzlers?
For new speed puzzlers, I would say: join and help build the community. Talking to other puzzlers is the best way to learn new strategies and find out where your resources are.
YouTube has some great channels: CanadaPuzzles with Adam Gray, a Canadian; Karen Puzzles; Jeanette and Her Puzzles; and The Puzzling Canadian, to name a few. The podcast Piece Talks is a favourite of mine!
Do lots of puzzles, all sizes. Try different brands, talk to puzzle people, and have so much fun! No matter how fast you are, at the end you got to put a puzzle together, and the sense of accomplishment from that alone is worth it!
Thank you for reading our Speed Puzzler Spotlight. We hope you enjoyed it. Until next time, happy puzzling! 🧩