A 12-year-old from Houston just walked into one of the most competitive jigsaw puzzle tournaments in the country — and walked out with the trophy.
Conner Delaat, a sixth-grader and three-time Texas state champion, won the pairs competition at the USA Jigsaw Nationals in Atlanta, completing the puzzle in a blistering 21 minutes and 52 seconds. He did it as the youngest competitor in the field. And he did it by knocking off the most dominant duo in the sport’s recent history.
An Upset Years in the Making
The tournament, held at the Atlanta Convention Center at AmericasMart and drawing hundreds of competitors from across the country, was supposed to be another chapter in the Roiter twins’ ongoing dynasty. Cathy and Jeanne Roiter — a fixture in speed puzzling circles and reigning pairs champions — had dominated the event for years. But this time, they did something no one expected: they split up. The sisters, who had long been each other’s greatest partner and fiercest competition, decided to enter the pairs finals against one another. Jeanne finished fourth. Cathy finished tenth. And a kid from Texas finished first.
“We’ve had a friendly rivalry. We keep going back and forth… and this year, we thought — let’s mix it up. Compete against each other,” Cathy said, describing the decision with the easy confidence of someone who’s been doing this a long time. It’s a bold call. It just didn’t pay off this year.
Chief judge William Shandling didn’t mince words about what the split meant for the sport. “The Roiter sisters are an institution,” he noted. “To see them split up…it’s pretty epic.” That’s putting it mildly. In a niche but fiercely dedicated competitive world, this was the equivalent of watching a legendary doubles tennis pair take opposite sides of the net.
The Kid Who Just Does Puzzles
So who exactly is Conner Delaat? Ask him, and he’ll tell you plainly. He plays sports, sure — but “mostly,” he explained, “I do puzzles.” Three to four of them. Every single day. That kind of volume would be impressive for any competitive puzzler. For a 12-year-old, it borders on remarkable.
His win earned him a $2,000 cash prize — not a bad Sunday for someone who can’t yet drive himself to the tournament. After years of grinding through Texas state competitions and stacking up three state titles, Delaat’s reaction to the national win was characteristically understated. “We pulled it out,” he said.
His mother, Kimberly Delaat, was considerably less restrained. “We are beyond proud of him,” she told reporters. “This is a dream come true at 12 years old.” It’s hard to argue with that framing. Most kids his age are still figuring out their hobbies. Conner Delaat has already won a national championship.
Speed Puzzling’s Unlikely Moment
Still, it’s worth pausing on what this event actually represents. Speed puzzling — competitive, timed, ruthlessly precise — occupies a strange and wonderful corner of American sporting culture. It demands pattern recognition, spatial reasoning, and the kind of calm under pressure that most adults struggle to manufacture. The fact that it draws hundreds of competitors to a convention center in Atlanta, with cash prizes and chief judges and institutional dynasties, says something about how seriously its devotees take it.
And now, sitting at the top of that world — at least for this year — is a quiet kid from Houston who does three puzzles before most people finish their morning coffee.
The Roiter sisters will almost certainly be back. The question now is whether anyone in the field will be ready for Conner Delaat when he is.
