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United States10393 Posts
For those who don't know, I went to a cubing competition (Princeton Spring) yesterday. The pre-comp blog is here http://www.teamliquid.net/blogs/viewblog.php?id=405304
So obviously, as my first comp, I knew no one there. Just took a seat in the corner and started practicing. As the venue filled up, it was time for my 3x3 solves.
Solve 1: Messed up the OLL and ended up re-solving half the cube. 34.66s
Solve 2: Best solve. Pretty simple F2L and a good OLL with my favorite PLL. 18.30s
Solve 3: Good solve but I choke the end. Finish but apparently I didn't stop the timer so I ended up getting like 2 more seconds TT.TT. 20.03s
Solve 4: Didn't like the cross at all. 23.47s
Solve 5: Messed up my PLL TT.TT. 30.44s.
Total: (34.66), (18.30), 20.03, 23.47, 30.44 = 24.65 avg.
Not bad but not good either. Nervousness for a few solves but in general, pretty happy about those middle 3 solves.
Next up was my Pyraminx competition. Note that I do not practice anything other than the 3x3 xD Overall pretty boring since you always end up with only like 2 possible different situations for the final step. Got a 7.75 though, super excited about that but it was the easiest solve (solve 2) and someone got like 2.77 on it O.o
Total: 19.97, (7.75), (22.93), 21.71, 15.50 = 19.06
2x2 and 5x5 went at the same time, so I did the 2x2 first. Pretty boring stuff again, though i did get a PLL skip on my last solve.  Didn't qualify for the 5x5 so I only solved it twice xD
2x2 Total: 7.86, 13.55, 11.50, (15.66), (5.59) = 10.97
5x5 Total: 3:34.90, 3:33.05
Overall, I was really happy about this competition. I didn't end up qualifying past round 1 for anything xD but I'm fine with that. Just gives me motivation to try even harder for the next competition in Newark May 18th!
Thanks for reading!
O, and P.S., I added a megaminx, a shengshou 4x4, and what looks like a 2x2 eastsheen to my collection. :D
 
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Can I ask what the point of these competitions are? I thought to solve those cubes fast, you just memorize algorithms and hope you get a lucky initial configuration. I don't mean this in a rude way, I'm genuinely curious.
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United States10393 Posts
On April 01 2013 02:28 iamho wrote:
Can I ask what the point of these competitions are? I thought to solve those cubes fast, you just memorize algorithms and hope you get a lucky initial configuration. I don't mean this in a rude way, I'm genuinely curious.
The big competition is the 3x3, so I'll just give you the overview of the set up.
Step 1: Cross
Step 2: F2L
Step 3: OLL
Step 4: PLL
The Breakdown and why we care:
In general, everyone is competent at all 4 of these. However, what separates people is their entire memorization. First off, I don't even know half the OLLs yet (there are like 90 of them) while I've memorized all the PLLs.
When we have 15 seconds to "look ahead", the best can look ahead up to half the F2L, maybe even the entire F2L step. But people like me can only get up to the cross. Precious seconds right there to pause and look for your F2L pairings instead of intuitively going into each. F2L is a whole monster altogether. Algorithmic vs Intuitive, both are fine. People's knowledge of this step makes the difference, as F2L is the most time consuming. Each person has a different mindset to solve this section.
Yes, we want to get lucky, but that's why we have the average of 5. Get rid of your best (maybe a lucky solve), and get rid of your worst (maybe a messup solve), and take the 3 middle ones. This will give you your "true" average. So not everything is based upon luck.
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This sounds fun, but it also sounds like a competition of memory. How do people with photographic memories not constantly win these?
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Oh whoa that's an interesting format to go about it. Sounds pretty fair.
Seems like it was really good for you, glad to see you had fun!
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What do the acronyms mean? O.o
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United States10393 Posts
On April 01 2013 03:36 docvoc wrote:
This sounds fun, but it also sounds like a competition of memory. How do people with photographic memories not constantly win these?
because each situation is different and you need a ton of muscle memory as well. how confident in your ability to quickly perform the algorithm, as well as your thought time to process the next step is very hard to get good at.
On April 01 2013 06:44 im a roc wrote:
What do the acronyms mean? O.o
Cross = just the cross. simple as that.
F2L = first 2 layers. the beginner method involves solving the corner, then the 2nd layer after. f2l combines both steps into one.
OLL = orienting last layer. getting the whole yellow side (if yellow is top)
PLL = permutating last layer. solving the whole yellow side.
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EPT
