pumpkinstrokemarrow

Puzzle 18 was the first puzzle from Schmid, presumably an entirely different outfit from the Schmidt of puzzle 3 back on 5th April.

Unusual in various ways, starting with the shape, which had the relatively high aspect ratio of about 1.519.

Started with the edge in the usual way, but finding it rather harder than usual I was diverted to the table and chairs before completing it. Table and chairs being very easy, being quite small and in very striking colours, very easy to pull out of the spread of pieces, the spread at that point being quite a large spread.

Then got back to the edge, during which I had some rather florid thoughts about missing pieces and charity shops with poor quality control. But all nonsense as all the pieces turned out to be present.

Next stop the buildings in the middle of the image, then the tree line, then the trees. Back down to the bottom to do the stones, then the water. Then the left hand green, then the right hand green. Then arch, then sky, this last being much easier than usual, being quite small in extent. This left me with two islands of blue flowers to deal with, to which end I did resort to sorting the remaining pieces by shape. Was then able to complete the puzzle with only a modest amount of trial and error, helped by the odd odd shaped pieces being scattered through the whole.

With the presence of odd shapes not detracting from the puzzle's vertexual regularity with, I think, four pieces meeting at each and every interior vertex. But there were a few continental bulges, that is to say cases where where the usual prong or hole was replaced by a bulge or a depression, something I have only come across in puzzles from mainland Europe. It was also the first puzzle in which I have noticed stretch. That is to say that the completed puzzle was firm, the pieces did not fit loosely, but one could stretch the completed puzzle by perhaps as much as half a centimetre in the long direction, rather less in the short direction. I shall have to try this again with the next one.

During all this I pondered whether puzzle solving ability was a one dimensional business. Whether one could rank puzzles and rank puzzle solving skill in persons in such a way that the two ranks matched, that is to say that a puzzler would always solve a high rank puzzle slower than a low rank puzzle. And a high rank puzzler would always solve a puzzle quicker than a low rank puzzler. I incline to an alternative theory according to which some puzzlers are good at say, 500 piece puzzles taken from purpose painted paintings, and some puzzlers are good at say, 1,000 piece puzzles taken from photographs of mountains. Rather in the way that some runners are good at the 60m dash and some are good at marathons. But one would need meaningful interaction with other puzzlers to get to the bottom of this one, a business on which I have yet to make a start.

On the other hand, I made the acquaintance yesterday of a bridge player who had been expelled from seniors' bridge game on the grounds that he had tried to claim the remaining three tricks of a hand by putting down his three cards which, as it happened, were the ace, king and queen of trumps. This proceeding was not allowed by his fellow players and one thing led to another. Maybe he does jigsaws now.