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One of the World's Most Difficult Jigsaw Puzzles Contains Just 9 Pieces

If you wanted to while away a winter's afternoon by challenging yourself to complete an extra-difficult jigsaw, your first choice would be to pick a giant one with lots of tiny pieces, right? And while you would be correct in assuming that the more the pieces, the longer a <a href="https://www.menshealth.com/entertainment/a27214351/wheel-of-fortune-viral-solve-the-puzzle/" id="14264e8a-34ca-3e60-af41-c147320aa7a6"> puzzle </a> will take to finish, that doesn't necessarily increase the diffic...
The World's Hardest Jigsaw Contains Just 9 Pieces
The World's Hardest Jigsaw Contains Just 9 Pieces

As it happens, one of the hardest jigsaw puzzles in the world looks pretty simple on the surface: it's fairly small, and consists of just nine pieces. But as YouTuber Chris Ramsay found when he attempted it, the "Ice 9" is a mind-boggling exercise in frustration.

Designed by Yuu Asaka, the Ice 9 comprises a small board and nine pieces consisting of an array of right angles and curved edges, many of which fit together in a number of combinations, much like a real life game of Tetris but getting all nine to fit together on the board is quite the challenge.

Ramsay manages to fill in the board a number of times, but it always comes down to the ninth and final piece, which refuses to fit. "We're always going to have a piece missing because of how these are angled," he says.

Something which makes the Ice 9 even trickier is that the shape of the pieces mean it is impossible to completely fill the board: some small spaces will always be left, but as long as all nine pieces sit locked in place, that counts as a win.

After two hours and nine minutes, Ramsay finally solves the puzzle but we won't reveal how he did it here, just in case you feel like putting your brain through its paces with the Ice 9 at some point in the future. The way Ramsay sees it, it takes more than just logical thinking to complete a puzzle like this: "It's about finding that one thing, and following your gut," he says.

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