This 9 piece puzzle is harder than it looks

What’S my strategy, i honestly don’t know this. One fully does not fit there. Oh no. This really is one tough puzzle. Hi everybody welcome back to karen puzzles.

Today i am doing a nine piece puzzle. It is called one tough puzzle, so you know it should be tough, but i guess we’ll see i’m currently working on a very research heavy video right now so this week i just wanted to do something relatively quick, although with this type of like brain teaser puzzle, I really don’t know how long it’s gon na take. You know i could be here for 20 minutes. I could be here for four hours, so, let’s just open it up and see what we’re dealing with so here it is one tough puzzle and if we look at the side, it says over 300 000 wrong ways to assemble the pieces, but only one right way Can you handle just nine pieces on the back? They explain what our goal is, but before i get to that, let me take out the pieces and show them to you [, Music ], all right.

So we have these large kind of thick cardboard pieces with like playing card symbols as the ins and outs, just as they say there are nine pieces. I don’t really know what we’re meant to do with these. So let’s take a look. Okay, so we’re meant to assemble the nine pieces three across and three down when you finish, the edges should have six interlocks that extend beyond the border and six that are inside the border. There should be no holes in the middle.

This is not the solution, but you get the idea. I mean at first glance. It doesn’t seem that complicated, but i’m sure there must be some special twist or trick to it so that you know it would be worth releasing as a standalone puzzle like this. So i’m going to get my timer ready and let’s see how this goes: [, Music, ], all right. So before we get started, i just want to jump back in and this part is not a spoiler.

If you want to do this puzzle, you don’t actually need these exact puzzle pieces like the thing with this puzzle is not that they’re cut slightly differently, and so you need to you know, have the exact pieces to find the solution. So what that means is that, if you want to, you can actually puzzle along at home, along with me on screen, i’m going to have an image of all of the puzzle pieces mixed up like not anywhere near the solution, so you can go ahead and either Print that off or just draw them yourself, you don’t have to get the ins and the outs exactly right. You know it’s just one of four variables that has to match up with each other, so feel free to make one yourself pause. The video here go. Try to solve it and then come back and compare your time to mine.

Alright spoilers ahead, you have been warned major spoilers ahead back to the video [ Music ] and start all right, so i’m definitely noticing a few things number one. We do have all four suits represented, so we have spades diamonds, hearts and clubs, so that gives us four variables of how the pieces can connect to each other. Also, it’s not that each piece has one of each like you can see this one has a club out and a club in so i’m just gon na start, putting them together and see what we get to try to kind of get to know what we’re working With here so, let’s just say: i did that that wouldn’t work, because i don’t have two spades like that. Oh i got like six pieces together and we’re only two minutes in so i’m like two-thirds of the way there [ Music ]. Okay, so i mean i got a big section together, but these obviously don’t fit in here.

So what’s my strategy, i honestly don’t know. I’M really good at jigsaw, puzzles brain teasers like this, not exactly my strong suit. Maybe i should look at what the distribution is of each of the four suits so like these all have diamonds at the top. These have hearts at the top. So, okay, we only have one club going up like going out this way, but we have one two three four pieces with clubs at the bottom.

So does that mean that three of these have to be the bottom row? I mean unless we start turning the pieces. That’S an idea that might be one of the little tricky tricky tricks that they’re trying to trick us with so okay yeah. If we look at the example on the box, you can see that half of them are facing this way. This row is facing this way and then that row is facing that way again, so it looks like they don’t all have to stay in this direction.

We can turn them. I feel like that might be one of the tricks that we’re meant to explore. Okay, so keeping that in mind now, i’m just gon na count exactly how many of each suit we have all together, like not worrying about which way the pieces are oriented. So all of them have five outs in total, except for clubs, which only has three and then the ends they’re all different. So does that tell us that we’re gon na need one diamond on the outside?

No hearts, three clubs and two spades. That’S only six! So the other six, i guess, can be pulled from the ones that could theoretically be matched up. Okay, so after all of that, we are about nine and a half minutes in, and i don’t really know where to go from there. Maybe part of the solution is that these are going to be turning in different orientations.

I don’t know, i don’t know every time. I think i have a strategy, i start putting pieces in place and then it just feels completely random. Again, [ Music ] see this is my thing with brain teasers. Is that at least with a jigsaw puzzle, you can see how many pieces you’ve put in, and so you know when you’re making progress with a puzzle like this. I can just sort of put pieces in all day and i have no idea how close i’m getting to the final solution: [ Music ] – how many of this uh 300 000 wrong ways have i been through so far what like 299 994 to go?

[, Music, ], okay, okay, i got, i got eight of them together, so are we making progress, or am i just still completely off? I have no idea [, Music, ], okay. So what i’m doing right now is i’m trying to keep this one in, like the bottom right hand, corner and work my way up, because since we need at least three of these club ins on the outside, i figured one piece would knock both of them out. So maybe this one is more likely to be an edge piece, but honestly, i really don’t know i might be completely off there. [ Music ].

Oh, wait! Okay, wait! I got! I got eight together again. This one fully does not fit there.

Oh no! I thought i was getting so close: [, Music ], almost almost oh okay. This is the closest i think i’ve gotten yet because there’s only one spot that doesn’t work and it’s the spade. That’S meant to fit into a diamond, but everything else works. So can i call that, like a 95 and be good, [, Music ], i feel like there has to be something going on here, because i’m rearranging these pieces and i’m so close what if this one could fit there, that one doesn’t quite fit there again.

This really is one tough puzzle. I really didn’t know what i was getting into, but this is very tough. [, Music ] wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait! One two, three, four, five, six one, two three four five six wait is that it did. I do it.

Um wait. Let me stop the time for a sec, so about just about 20 minutes, maybe a few seconds over 20 minutes hang on, i feel like there should have been more more happening there did i do it. Let me double check the rules. Six interlocks that extend beyond the border and six that are inside the border. There should be no holes in the middle one.

Two three, four, five, six one, two, three, four, five, six. I think i did it. I had no strategy. I do not know what i just did okay, so let me check what i had written down before. I do indeed have three in clubs on the edge.

I have two well. I have three but at least two out spades and two out diamonds, and i had – and i needed at least one. So i guess that’s it. This must be the most unsatisfying puzzle, video i’ve ever made because i don’t know what i just did. I really thought there was going to be some extra little trick to it, but i guess it really was just rearranging the pieces until they all fit together like this, and i guess once i got eight of them together like i was close enough – that i just Had to rearrange a few until i fully got there yeah.

So if we look at the direction that everything’s facing these are all facing with the corner on this side same with the second row, and then the third row just has them facing the other side. I really thought it was going to be a lot more mixed up than that [ Music ] all right. Well, my final time of when i paused my timer was 20 minutes and 11 seconds. You know what i’m actually gon na do, though, i’m going to look up the one, tough puzzle solution, just to double check that i am correct. Let’S see theirs is oriented.

This way, yeah looks like looks like i got it there. We go. Oh okay, so i found somebody’s blog post where they’re making a javascript code to like to solve it. This is, i do not understand computer coding. This is too much for me literally.

I look at code and my eyes just get like blurry and i just don’t even know what i’m looking at this person is saying. I found another blog post and they’re saying that, because of the way that it’s die-cut you can tell which pieces have a little bit of resistance going in and which ones fit perfectly um the one that i have had actually been done before this was sent to Me, along with a stack of vintage, puzzles that i bought from a viewer named brian. He just threw this in, and i thought it looked interesting so because mine had been done before, i think everything was a little worn down, so i could not use that little cheat anyway. I would love to know in the comments. Did you pause the video and try it for yourself and if you did, did you beat my time?

Did it take you longer, i would love to know any strategies that any of you had, because i truly do not understand how i got to my solution. So if you watched all the way to the end, your code word will be tough sure. Let’S go with that. If you want to see my other videos where i do more of like brain teasers rather than traditional jigsaw puzzles, i will have a playlist for you right down below happy puzzling, and i will see you all in the next one.