Eros – Dr. Volker Latussek

Note: This post went out with a typo in the title. Auto correct didn’t like Volker and changed it to Booker. I didn’t catch it before publishing. I’ve corrected it.

Here’s yet another selection from the expansive shelf of the unsolved. This is one I’m a bit ashamed of. From what I’ve read, lots and lots of people solved this one rather quickly. After all, it’s reminiscent of Casino – and I’ve solved that one plenty of times. But for some reason, this one never clicked for me despite hours of puzzling.

I remember feeling like I was close. I remember a few times where I thought I had it all figured out, if only I could do this one thing, but then I’d run out of time and forget all about the solution that I had in my head.

Funny how that works. How many times, I just know that I’m getting close. Things are starting to feel close to the solution, there’s a nebulous feeling telling me that the solution is almost at hand. There’s not always a disctint reason for this feeling, a lot of times its intuition – a hunch, something just feels different in the air. This is especially true with TICs for me. I kind of use the Jedi force on those puzzles. I just sort of use will power to get them to come together. I don’t always know what I’m doing or why, it just feels right and so I do it and magically it works!

I was determined to solve Eros this time. And so, I started working on it. I quickly remembered where I had left off and a nice little trick that seemed like it had to be a part of the solution. But, I was still stuck. I could swear that I knew how the last piece would go in, but it was the second to last piece that was giving me trouble.

So, once again, I spent hours doing the same thing over and over. And then I decided to try something different. It didn’t work. I tried as many different ideas as I could, but it still didn’t work. So back to the original idea I went.

I’m embarrassed to say that I spent many, many hours trying to solve this damn thing. My kids tried to help, but none of us could figure it out. I mean, there’s only so many pieces and options with this puzzle. What was I missing? Why couldn’t I figure it out?

Then, today, it happened. I figured out a new move, similar to the little trick I had been trying earlier, but this trick moved things in a different direction. I didn’t immediately solve the puzzle, but I was sure I was getting close. What did this move accomplish? How could it help? And then it became clear. And sure enough I found the configuration I wanted which allowed the last piece to go in like I thought it would.

And there you have it. The years long struggle to solve this puzzle. And I have to say, it’s pretty awesome. It has a fantastic ah ha moment that is clever and once again I find myself asking how Dr. Volkar Latussek does it. I don’t know who this man is, or anything about him, except that his puzzle designs are extraordinary. They all seem to have a single clever trick that is hidden but attainable. Clever but logical. Any time I see a new Latussek puzzle, it’s an immediate purchase.

Thanks for reading.