Nathan’s Puzzle Story: 

Nathan (he/him) lives in Indiana, where he works at a bookstore, selling used books, games, and of course jigsaw puzzles! He has casually puzzled for as long as he can remember, commandeering his mom’s dry-erase board as a puzzling surface. He is newer to speed puzzling, starting in August of 2024. 

Nathan sees puzzling as a hobby where each session has a definitive and achievable end goal. He gets a fulfilling feeling of satisfaction from completing a puzzle that he feels is missing from other aspects of modern life. He sees modern dopamine-producers like video games, social media, and dating apps all built around prolonging their usage and leaving you feeling unsatisfied by design. Puzzling, Nathan says, doesn’t have an agenda, making it pure and satisfying.

Many of his puzzle friends live farther away, but Nathan enjoys getting together with them whenever opportunities arise. He tracks his speed puzzling times on myspeedpuzzling.com, and posts them on Instagram. Nathan looks forward to upcoming brewery competitions, speed-puzzling at GenCon, and occasionally posting bad poetry on nathanbiberdorf.wordpress.com

Q&A Time:

What is your best advice for someone who wants to improve their speed puzzling abilities?

“The biggest thing is doing lots of different puzzles from different brands with different images--and in this economy, that means finding a way to do that cheaply. Do lots of thrift puzzles, and learn to be okay with the occasional missing piece--there will always be another puzzle. And try to find people in your area to swap with--I try to bring a few puzzles along to any competition to see if anyone wants to do swaps.”

Do you have a favorite brand, type, or style of puzzle?

“I collect donut puzzles because they’re colorful and make me hungry. For speed, I love bright colors and very organized images. As far as brands, Ravensburgers are great quality of course. I also like the random cuts from Springbok and Cobble Hill. And Galison and Re-Marks have really good images for speed puzzling. I'm also a sucker for any puzzle that promises a new puzzling experience.”

Do you have a cherished or unforgettable puzzle-related memory?

“I did these nightmarish puzzles as a kid that were images of a pile of one type of snack good--all pretzels, or popcorn or potato chips. They were basically single-color puzzles with extra visual noise. I did piece sorting and worked on them for hours. Those are imprinted on my brain, but probably mostly from trauma.”

What is the puzzle community like in your area?

“The Indiana puzzle community is a work in progress. My friend Nick, who got me into speed puzzling, lives nearby, and I'm getting to know other puzzlers in the Indy area. There are some puzzle contests popping up at local breweries as well. And my first competition was at GenCon, which happens in Indy every fall. I'll be there again this year, so if you're local and want to make connections, come say hi!”

Tell us a bit about any of your puzzling teammates.

“Nick E. is my regular pairs partner. He covers the warm colors and I cover the cool ones. We both gravitate to different things in the puzzle, which makes us work well together--although neither of us tends to go for the edge first.

At Winter Carnival, I puzzled with Jasper L., Tally K., and Margaret L., from Georgia. Margaret reached out to me through mutual friends and got me involved with them;  they're a really fun group. And at Nationals, Nick and I puzzled with Grace and Maggie B., and we had really good team cohesion. Maggie's a great sorter, and Grace excels at skies and gradients, showing that our strengths and weaknesses lined up really well.”

Connect:

Follow Nathan on Instagram: @imagi_nathan