IPP33 - Day 2 - Sunday 4 August (Puzzle Party & Awards Dinner)

What: IPP33 (International Puzzle Party 2013)

Where: Tokyo, Japan. Held at the Hilton Narita, Tokyo

Day 2 - Sunday 4 August 2013 - Puzzle Party

The Puzzle Party is the one item on the agenda that every IPP participant looks forward to (maybe even more than the Puzzle Exchange). Today is the day where participants "set up shop" and sell their puzzles for other participants to buy, be it brand new ones, pre-loved ones or leftover puzzles from the previous day's Exchange.

Not all IPP participants have puzzles to sell. Me for instance; I had wanted to bring several copies of my Ball In Cylinder No 1s to the IPP but my fabricator could not finish making them in time for this trip. So like many other participants, I was quite happy to see what I could pick up at the party. The sale started at 9am sharp but by 8:45am, there were already quite a number of folks milling around the entrance, all eager to spend their cash.

Like the Puzzle Exchange, rows of tables were reserved for the puzzle sellers who laid out all their wares. When the doors opened at 9am, I sauntered in with the rest and scanned the entire room looking to see if there are any rare puzzles not available on the market. As this was my first IPP, perhaps I didn't have enough experience. I should have strategized my approach a bit more to make sure I covered all the necessary ground so that I didn't miss out on something that I really wanted. Yes, the veteran IPP members somehow knew which tables to head for and where the gems were to be found.

Over the course of the next four hours or so, I visited row after row of puzzles on display, bought puzzles that I fancied and chatted with different puzzle sellers and designers along the way. The Puzzle Party is like a upscale flea market. What a wonderful way to spend a Sunday morning and money!

One very valuable lesson I learnt from this IPP is to bring enough cash to pay for the puzzles, particularly the local currency, in this case, Japanese Yen. By enough cash I mean bring lots of it! Halfway through, I had run out of Yen but thankfully Roxanne Wong was kind enough to loan me some (from her huge stash) to continue my shopping spree (thanks Rox!)

Tom van der Zanden

Vinco Obsivac of Vin & Co Puzzles

The folks from Torito

Jerry Slocum talking to a puzzler seller.
The lady seated on the left in red is Roxanne Wong

Oskar van Deventer & JinHoo Ahn (winner of the IPP32 Grand Jury Prize for the
Double G, now the Hanayama Cast G&G)

Robert Sandfield (in the foreground are money puzzles)

Koshi & Yuko Arai (Koshi was the winner of the IPP32
Jury Honorable Mention for his Heptagon 48)

Hendrik Haak

Gennady Yarkovoy

Me and Marcel Gillen 

Left: Timo Jokitalo; Right: Vesa Timonen & Jo Traynor

Left: Rene Dawir; Right: Carlo Gitt

Naoki Shibuya

By about 1:30pm in the afternoon, the Puzzle Party was almost over and most sellers had packed up their leftover puzzles and were leaving. Here's my haul from the Puzzle Party with several from the previous day's Exchange.

Judging the Design Entries

For me it was off to the adjacent room to continue with the judging of the puzzle design competition entries which had started on Friday evening. All the entry puzzle designs are laid out on tables with instruction and solution sheets. IPP33 participants get to play/puzzle with them and vote for their favourite designs. Below are some of the pictures of the judging (and puzzling) in progress over the course of the three days.

Mark Pawliger trying to figure out my Ball In Cylinder No1

From Left: Roxanne Wong, Allard Walker & Steven Chin

Judging ended at 3pm on Sunday 4 August and votes were cast and collated. Next, to pass the time until the Awards Dinner, I headed to the side of the hall where there was an exhibition of puzzles from Hanayama. These were not your usual off-the-shelf Hanayama puzzles but the displays included prototypes, early models, gold puzzles, impossible objects made from Hanayama puzzles etc, the majority of which most puzzlers have never seen before.

Impossible Object; 7 Cast Loops in a bottle

My favourite; 4 Cast Boxes linked together

The Lectures

Sunday afternoon also saw several lectures on Hanayama Cast Puzzles including one by Oskar van Deventer on how the Cooksey Maze inspired his many future puzzle designs for which he is famous for today.

The lectures ended around 5:45pm and I took an hour's nap before washing up and heading for the Awards Dinner. A Powerpoint show was set up in the dining hall to display all the various puzzle design competition entries. There were a total of 60 designs entered for IPP33 this year. Here are the list of entries and award winners. The Puzzler's Award went to fellow Singaporean Goh Pit Khiam for his Dancing Shoes puzzle.

My 15 seconds of fame during the Awards Dinner

Future IPP participant on the lower right!

Me with George Bell, Brian Pletcher, Allard Walker & Stephen Chin

The Renegades Forum members
Back Row From Left: Stephen Chin, Oskar van Deventer
Scott Elliot, George Bell, Brian Pletcher, Nick Baxter
Front Row From Left: Brian Young, Roxanne Wong, Allard Walker

Iwahiro Iwasawa, Chairman of the IPP33 Organising Committee with
his Appreciation Puzzle by Wayne Daniels