Fast fingers to fly as puzzling pros pile on the pace

Competitive puzzling is a far cry from family jigsaw night, and today Dunedin will get a front-seat view as some of the region’s quickest hands fire away to put the pieces together quicker than the rest.

New Zealand Jigsaw Puzzle Association is hosting the city’s first ever regional speed-puzzling event at the South Dunedin Community Hall.

New Zealand Jigsaw Puzzle Association media and marketing manager, and speed-puzzler herself, Jacqui Davis, said the event sold out for competitors "months ago".

"We've had previous regionals in other areas, but this is the first time that we're coming to Dunedin, which is very, very exciting."

Ms Davis said a question she got a lot was "what even is speed-puzzling?".

"It's basically puzzling but incredibly fast," she said.

There were 20 individuals competing to complete their 500-piece puzzle the fastest, and 10 teams of either two, three or four people battling to finish a 1000-piece jigsaw.

"You've got a three-hour time limit, and it's fastest wins," Ms Davis said.

The current New Zealand champion Alison Jacobs, who is from Dunedin, is among those competing today.

"Our national champion finished in 51 minutes last year on a puzzle she had never seen before ... absolutely blew me away."

The 500 and 1000-piece puzzles were unreleased designs from eeBoo, and none of the competitors would have an opportunity to see the designs beforehand.

There would also be the opportunity to do a puzzle swap on the day for puzzlers to get some new material.