IPP38 Puzzle Exchange – 11 August 2018, San Diego, California, USA

This year’s IPP38 Puzzle Exchange took place (the day before the Puzzle Party) on 11 August 2018. It was held at the Wyndham Bayside Hotel in San Diego, California along with the rest of the festivities.

Typically, an Exchange participant (pre-registered and approved) is required to produce 100 copies of a puzzle of an original design.The design can either be his or her own or from some other designer. These puzzles must also not be commercially available elsewhere. Out of the 100 puzzles, one copy is donated to the IPP. during IPP, this is displayed on a large round table for all attendees to view. The remaining 99 are used for the exchange.

However, it is only on rare occasions where all 99 exchange participants exchange their puzzles. The number is usually less than 99. There have even been several times where there were more than 100 exchangers. In the latter case, each exchanger will exchange up to the limit of 99 puzzles. More often than not the average number varies between 85 – 95. This year at San Diego, it was a low year with only 78 exchangers. Hence I came home with 77 new and different puzzles. Below are the photos of the puzzling folks from around the world I exchanged with.