Cubing Competitions I've Attended

I had just set three unofficial PRs in the past three days - 3x3 single (8.54), 3x3 average (11.94), and one-handed average (26.00), so I was feeling in pretty good shape. However, it turned out that the official PRs I set were all in events I hadn't practiced much recently: 4x4 average (1:00.67), 5x5 single (1:37.05 - first sub-1:40, both unofficial and official!), 5x5 average (1:52.58), and 3x3 fewest moves (29).

My 29-turn fewest moves solution was the most exciting thing that happened. Shortly before we started the event, I overheard Kian Barry and Dan Cohen discussing premoves, and I asked Dan, "What's a premove?" He explained the technique to me, and I said that sounded pretty cool and useful. I started my hour by quickly finding a 41-turn solution, which I wrote down as a back-up solution in case I couldn't find anything shorter. Then I figured out how to make a pseudo-2x2x3 in 7 turns. I thought more about it and figured out how to use a premove (D') to turn the pseudo-2x2x3 into a regular 2x2x3. After the 2x2x3, there were no easy blocks, so I just flipped the 2 misoriented edges Petrus style, and I ended up with a 1x1x2 block. I finished the F2L using 2-gen and had a Sune LL with some move cancellations inbetween! Pretty lucky, but pretty awesome that I got a sub-30 solution and used a technique I learned minutes before the start of the event. [In case you're interested, the scramble was: U F2 R2 D2 U R B2 R2 F2 U R2 U F R2 B2 R' U2 R' and my solution was: x F R' U2 R U R U z' y F L' U L y' U R2 U' R2 U R U R U R' U2 R U' R' U2 R U F' x' y'.]

I was also very happy about getting my second-ever official sub-10 3x3 solve - a 9.94 in the final round. Another sweet thing that happened was I didn't have to pay for registration because Macky put me on the "staff" and waived my registration fee in return for my helping out.

On my way to the Dinky station after the competition, I bumped into Mark Hansen on University Ave! What a fortuitous day! Also, I just have to say that I love the posters that the Princeton Cubing Club makes for their competitions and their creative use of the posters as award certificates. I'm definitely hanging mine up!

Despite the fact that the WR feet solver didn't come, the competition was still extremely tough, and I ended up in 4th place, behind North American Record (NAR) holder Louis Cormier of Canada, Yumu Tabuchi of Japan, and former NAR holder and 2010 feet champion Timothy Sun. I was happy to get an official sub-minute solve of 57.15. On my second feet solve, I misrecognized the R permutation as a G perm, causing me to have to do a second PLL (an N perm). However, even if I hadn't made the mistake, I still would have placed 4th.

This summer, I spent a lot of time learning new blindfolded techniques (see my blindfolded cubing history post) and solved a 5x5 blindfolded for the first time. I also succeeded at 3 cubes multiblind. One of my top goals for this competition was to get my first official 5x5 blindfolded success. My first and third solves were way off. My second attempt was so close, but I mismemorized the corners -- I had memorized (J P) instead of (J S), causing me to be off by a 3-cycle of corners. Though my best multiblind in practice was 3/3, I decided to attempt 5 cubes for my first attempt. You get 10 minutes per cube (up to a maximum of 60), so I had 50 minutes total, which I thought was plenty. I surprised myself by succeeding and getting 5/5. After the first attempt, this ranked me third, behind Stefan Pochmann who got 6/6. I didn't think I would remain third unless I attempted more, nor did I think Stefan's 6/6 would be good enough to podium. I thus attempted 7 cubes for my second attempt. I solved the first 6 cubes successfully and then as I was solving the 7th cube, I realized I had mismemorized. The reason I knew was because I ended with only a 2-cycle left (in my mind) and nothing else memorized. A single 2-cycle is not possible on a cube, so I knew I had mismemorized. I took a guess at what my error might be, but I guessed wrong and got 6/7, which is worth 6 - 1 = 5 points. Since my 5/5 is also worth 5 points but was done in less time, that was my best performance for the competition and ranked me fourth.

I also did the mosaic competition for fun with Kevin Zhou and Evan Liu.

Though our Jack of Hearts design was of good "Design Quality" and "Attractiveness", we lost points on "Creativity/Originality" and "Reflects the Theme" (Las Vegas) and came in fourth. The winning mosaic was a play on Viva Elvis and instead had the words Viva Rubik's next to a picture of Elvis.

Overall, I was pretty happy with how I did, having broken 11 PRs, and I had a great time hanging out with cubers and exchanging tips and tricks.

I also got a 4x4 success on my second attempt, with a good time for me of 15 min, 47 sec. I was surprised that I succeeded because midway through my edges, I realized I had used position H twice. That was when I realized I had mismemorized the first H, which should have been a G, so I had to undo a lot of cycles to fix the mistake. I was quite surprised that I fixed the mistake correctly. My success ranked me third, behind Timothy Sun and Chester Lian. (As a side note, Timothy Sun is also the #1 feet cuber in the US, and I'm #2. I was also surprised by Chester Lian showing up to the competition because he goes to school at Ohio State and is from Malaysia.)

One of my other goals for the event was to get my first official Clock average. (I'm trying to get official results in every event and category; the only things I'm missing now are a Clock average, a Megaminx average, and a Square-1 average.) I DNF'd the first solve because something weird happened at the end, causing one of my clocks to be off by 3 hours. After that, I went slower on the rest of my solves. However, on my third solve, I started with the clock misoriented and I ended up solving all the clocks to 3 o'clock instead of 12, thus resulting in another DNF and not giving me an average.

It was also good to see Ike Lee (a fellow Yalie) there. He was kind enough to judge all four of my big cube blindfolded attempts. It was fun chatting with him and his dad.

The competition ran pretty smoothly, and I liked how close the audience seats were to the competitor stations, allowing for really good views. The only bad thing that happened was that some of the StackMat displays fell off the tables during the competition and some of the displays were broken or hard to read, so you couldn't see what times the competitors at those stations were getting.

Finally, congratulations to Phil Yu for finally getting that North American one-handed average record (13.46, shattering the previous record of 14.86 set at US Nationals 2012 two weeks ago) that he's been practicing so long for. Now you can retire in peace, though I hope you keep cubing and coming to competitions.