NEW EPISODE! Link in Piece Talks bio EB and Rob are joined by several of the competitors that made a splash at this year's US Nationals. The theme that kept coming up over and over? How much everyone loved this year's event. Joining us are: Alice Rowe Jessa Douglas Josh Trauger Lewis Dracobly-Helsel

🌏 I have never had so much FOMO. Mark my words - I’m going next year. 🙌🏼 If you haven’t heard about @speedpuzzle yet, it’s brand new this year. Two of the loveliest Aussie speed puzzlers came together and planned a new World Series of Speed Puzzling on the other side of the world from them! @loujackett and @meltownsend_ truly thought of everything. (There will even be trading cards of the competitors!) The competition is this weekend in Munich Germany and will consist of 6 individual competitions over two days. Such a fun selection with 3 unreleased @ravensburgerglobal 500 piece puzzles (each with their own challenge), an unreleased mystery puzzle with no box or image & two unreleased 500 piece @gibsons_puzzles . Each competitor’s individual times on Friday and Saturday will be added together and the competitor who gets the fastest cumulative time is the winner! 🏆 The entire competition will be livestreamed on @speedpuzzle YouTube channel, starting Friday at 3:30am EsT. (I’ll post the link in my stories or you can find it on their page.) 📺 And if you want to learn more about @speedpuzzle , you can check out the recent @piece_talks episode featuring @loujackett . She gives all the inside scoop to host Rob Shields @the_puzzling_rob 🎧

What do elite speed puzzlers have in common? After talking to 30-40 people on his @piece_talks podcast, host Rob Shields (@the_puzzling_rob ) says a few key things stand out. He shared about those and more in an interview with us, where he also talked about being a commentator on speed puzzling livestreams and shared some behind the scenes stories. Check out the full interview on our YouTube channel (link in bio)! Puzzlers, commentators and organizations mentioned during our conversation: @penguins_puzzle @worldjigsawpuzzle @usajigsawpuzzle @puzzled_blog @kristin_puzzles @portlandjigsawmasters @puzzlefreeordie @nerd_puzzle @marilovespuzzles @puzzle.michelle @speedpuzzle.eu @hannahkaypuzzle @valcoit Thanks for a fun conversation, Rob! #speedpuzzling #puzzlepeople #puzzlecommunity

Check it out! /article/2026/04/24/portland-podcaster-and-puzzle-enthusiast-explains-what-is-speed-puzzling/

New Episode! Link in Piece Talks bio LOU JACKETT!!!! 🇦🇺 The Speed Puzzling World Series exists because Lou Jackett, along with fellow Aussie Melissa Townsend, had an idea and decided to make it happen. Lou has been doing that since she showed up to her first competition, found her tribe, and immediately started volunteering. Now she's the president of the Australian Jigsaw Puzzle Association and co-founder of the SPWS, and in this episode we follow her puzzling arc and dig into what the Speed Puzzling World Series is all about.

👕👕👕 SHIRTS AT US NATIONALS! 👕👕👕 We're bringing a very limited number of Piece Talks shirts to US Nationals!! If you want one for $10, DM me to reserve one. They went fast at Carnival, so be quick!

Trigger Alert! THIS EPISODE CONTAINS NEARLY NO STATS! We wanted to explore a different way of talking about the upcoming US National Championships in Atlanta. To help us out, we brought back some former guests, and a new one you might recognize.

NEW EPISODE! link in Piece Talks bio Thomas Kaeppeler has been at Ravensburger pretty much his entire working life. From working on the factory floor at Ravensburger headquarters in Germany, to becoming the President of Ravensburger North America. In this episode, we get a whole DIFFERENT kind of nerdy.

NEW EPISODE link in Piece Talks bio Hannah Doyle really didn’t think about jigsaw puzzles much until a fateful night where she was looking for something to do. Suddenly she was obsessed, and within a year she was finishing second in the California state competition, live streaming puzzles on Twitch, and gearing up for US Nationals and Worlds. And that was just the beginning!

NEW EPISODE! LINK IN PIECE TALKS BIO If you think that being a competition judge is primarily about taking down times, well…you’re right. But international judges Daphne Harmsen and William Shandling show us that it’s also about innovation, empathy, and a deep sense of fairness.

NEW EPISODE! LINK IN PIECE TALKS BIO What happens when you combine the analytical mind of a physics educator with the precision of a world-class violinist? You get a partnership that shares a single competitive brain to deconstruct jigsaw puzzles at a cellular level. In this episode, Jim and Mari break down their unique roles: Mari provides the world-class "hands" while Jim serves as the analytical "eye in the sky," spotting patterns and pieces from a distance that you just can't see when your hands are on the board. We dive into Mari’s "Type A Plus" competitive spirit and their shared pedagogical approach to mastering the table.