Farmington Resident Is One Of World's Best Jigsaw Puzzlers

FARMINGTON, CT — When Farmington resident Elizabeth "EB" Caron was a child, there was nothing more enjoyable than sitting around with the family and doing a jigsaw puzzle.

But Caron, 36, currently a psychology professor at the University of Hartford, used to annoy her parents during those family get-togethers.

That's because she was way better than they were when it came to finding pieces and putting them in place.

While everyone else carefully searched for a missing piece, "EB" would methodically find several pieces at a time and quickly complete the puzzles. She was fast.

Caron, a native of New Hampshire, is a puzzle savant, so to speak. She was so good when she was younger, she said she craved the chance to show it to the world.

"Jigsaw puzzle competitions were something I daydreamed about when I was a kid puzzling with my family," Caron said.

Last month, Caron got to prove herself with the best in the world, representing the United States in the World Jigsaw Puzzle Championships in Valladolid, Spain.

Sponsored by the World Jigsaw Puzzle Federation, this event is the ultimate test for this fast-growing sport of the mind and fingers.

It is the World Cup of puzzling, with Caron to puzzles as Christian Pulisic is to men's soccer.

And Caron enjoyed a successful 2023 world championships, which were Sept. 20-24.

Competing in the team division, Caron and her three partners placed 2nd out of 159 total teams and 100 teams qualifying in the finals.

In the pairs division, Caron and her partner came in 10th out of 100 pairs competing, and in the singles division, Caron was 59th out of 180 puzzlers — not too bad for someone who, as recently as 2018, didn't even know the sport of "speed puzzling" existed.

The desire to compete arose from some time puzzling with her sister and a Google search.

"In 2018, I was doing a puzzle with my family over the holidays, and my sister and I started talking about jigsaw puzzle competitions – it turned out, she had also daydreamed about it," Caron said.

"I didn’t know if it was a real thing, so I Googled it, and it turned out that they existed – but it seemed like they were mostly in Minnesota."

After months of searching for local competitions, Caron — who has taught at UHart for two years — finally found one in Connecticut.

It was at the Silas Bronson Library in Waterbury and only three teams showed up. Caron's team, which also included her sister, won.

"The race was thrilling and I was hooked," she said.

Soon Caron and company were competing in contests from throughout New England.

In early 2020, before the pandemic took hold and forced folks to isolate, Caron was part of seven teams that won contests throughout New England out of eight events.

Then COVID struck, forcing puzzling competitions to the virtual realm.

At first, puzzlers had to submit a video of them completing puzzles and then, once Zoom was perfected, the competitions were online.

"During the pandemic, speed puzzling moved online and this put speed puzzlers all over the country in touch with each other," she said.

That's how she met the three other teammates for the 2023 World Championships: Karen Kavett from Los Angeles, Calif.; Sarah Schuler of St. Paul, Minn.; and Michaela Keener of Lexington, Ky.

Kavett may be one of the more famous puzzlers in the U.S. as she has a very successful Youtube channel called "Karen Puzzles," with 248,000 subscribers.

The personable Kavett takes viewers on a puzzling journey regularly, offering puzzle reviews, challenges and speed puzzling tips.

She said she started puzzling with Caron only this year, but their skills complement each other.

"When I met EB, we instantly clicked over our love of puzzles. We only started puzzling together this past summer, but the teamwork felt natural," Kavett said.

"We have different strengths. She's great at small details while I excel at large areas of color."

Kavett has posted a video on Instagram that has gone viral of her and Caron attacking a puzzle during the championships, as well as another viral video on TikTok.

A decade ago, the thought of puzzling being "a thing" was probably far from mainstream thought. Not anymore.

The puzzling pastime has evolved in recent years, especially post-pandemic, to become a puzzling community.

And in the case of Caron and her puzzle pals, they're a championship community, winning the 2022 U.S. Puzzling Championships.

The 2022 U.S. championship team, called "Team No Snacks," featured Caron, Schuler, Caron's husband Daniel Caron of Farmington, and Robin Decaire.

For the World Championships, the team name was "The Misfits," which Caron said was a product of the puzzling quartet's diverse home states — California, Minnesota, Connecticut and Kentucky.

As for the game of speed puzzling, it's exactly as you'd think. The goal is to put together a puzzle — all competitors get the same puzzle — the fastest. Period.

The winning individual puzzler in 2023, Alejandro Clemente Leon of Barcelona, Spain, put together a 500-piece puzzle in 37 minutes, 59 seconds. It took Caron more than an hour.

Team puzzling is, actually, fascinating to watch as each person has a job to do.

Like a NASCAR pit crew, one person is responsible for opening the box, another for cutting the plastic bag with the puzzle pieces, with all four frantically turning over pieces and sorting them by color.

Often, it takes several minutes to get pieces put together, but as the competition wears on, the pieces are put in place faster and faster.

The Misfits' second-place mark was completing two 1,000-piece puzzles in more than an hour and 33 minutes. The winning team from the Czech Republic did it in an hour and a half.

For Caron, being among the world's puzzling elite is not about titles or championships, though winning is definitely on all competitors' minds.

Rather, it's about teamwork and camaraderie, knowing you can do something better than most in the world.

And for Caron, it means quality time with her husband and other family members.

Someday, those puzzle sessions may feature their two children, one who is currently 2 and the other 6.

Caron said she hopes to introduce them to puzzling soon, adding the joy of the hobby will always be with her and her family.

She also plans to compete more and just last week won a team competition at the Big E in Springfield, Mass., finishing a 500-piece puzzle in about 16 minutes, she said.

Merging her avocation with her vocation, Caron — who is working to gain tenure status at UHart — is conducting a psychological study of speed puzzlers and what makes them tick.

She said her knowledge of psychology helps her puzzling. "I definitely try to leverage my knowledge in the field of psychology and neuroscience to be a better puzzler," Caron said.

Whatever happens, Caron said she's into puzzling for the long haul. It's who she is. It's what she does.

"It started as a family, we did our first puzzle competitions as a family," Caron said. "A lot of my good friends are now puzzlers. I feel like I'm in it because that's what my friends do now."

Next stop? The 2024 U.S. National Puzzle Championships.

For more information on the 2023 World Jigsaw Puzzling Championships, click on this link.

For more information on the World Jigsaw Puzzle Federation, click on this link.