May 2026: Arch Madness

Well, my run of being fairly terrible at the grid-based Jane Street puzzles continues. Sure, I placed relatively highly, but the amount of time I had to spend on the puzzle disqualifies me from any pride, and I was losing my mind so much that I had to ask Fred Vu to confirm parts of my grid and tell me which other parts had mistakes. One positive I can take away from this month’s puzzle was that I remained convinced that solving by hand was the best strategy, and never became tempted to try and brute-force the puzzle with code as I sometimes used to do. However, I once again fell victim to letting little mistakes go unnoticed for too long, and letting myself become so convinced of certain decisions that I couldn’t see clear alternatives sitting in plain sight. Looking forward to the next grid-based puzzle so I can challenge myself to learn from these mistakes and improve at this style of puzzle.

Stats:

Difficulty: 6/10

Enjoyability: 4/10

Leaderboard Placing: 25/?

The approach:

Notes to come in June!