What matters more, Rubik's cube average or single?

[drewsopchak]

Needs more poll options................................ Average.

[qqwref]

The shorter the puzzle, and the more luck, the more the average matters. I guess the extreme example might be 2x2, where single is basically completely irrelevant, and even averages of 5 or 12 have a lot of luck in them. The 3x3 is still very much a puzzle where the average matters more. When you have a really long puzzle like 8x8x8 or Gigaminx, though, the average is not really very important, because a single good solve gives enough information about how fast someone is. On a puzzle with so many individual things to do, you really can't get very lucky.

[aznanimedude]

averages are more meaningful i feel
because you can get really lucky skips, but averages are harder to have lower times in, because it's based on multiple trials. i.e. you can have outliers, but the box says more than the whiskers

[SweetSolver]

A good average basically shows that you're not just some random cuber who got a lucky scramble. It will just show people that you're purely skilled

[hcfong]

Yes, in competitions it's the average that counts, but I think it's the single times that people, including cubers will be looking at. I mean, if you would be asked what the single 3x3 WR is, you would probably without hesitation say: Feliks Zemdegs, 5.66. But do you know what the average WR is, without looking it up? Chances are you don't. Or, do you know the winning average time of Michal Pleskowicz at the Worlds, without looking it up? I don't.

That's because we can see single times happening when they happen. We have videos on youtube we can watch and hear people cheer at competitions. With an average, you have to calculate it first before you know it. For example, at the Zonhoven Open, Marcell Endrey got a 3BLD WR and everybody was aware of that. Mats Valk got a very good 4x4 average but it wasn't until later that we realised it was an average WR, at least according to the information we had available at that time (we weren't aware of what had happened in Australia)

To make a long story short: In competitions it's the average that matters but popularly, I think it's single times that matter most because they give you instant results.

[irontwig]

But what about Blind? and FMC? I would assume single to be the case here.

Just because that's the way it works in competitions doesn't mean it's more indicative of skill.

[HelpCube]

Single obviously. Luck determines your actual speed, duh...

[applemobile]

It depends what you were intending to do. I.e I I am doing a adv. of 12, I will go slow and look ahead, but if I am goin for a good single I will absolutely Kane through F2L hoping that I will spot my pieces. The latter gives me worse Averege but throws out the best singles.

[Cheese11]

Definetly the average. It takes skill to average a low speed consistantly. But you can easily get lucky and get a good solve.

Btw, that is a crime

[mchedlo213]

Don't know if it is necessary but I guess I will re-iterate what has been said already. Averages are better indicator of skill and I mean people don't really get singles beyond like 10 seconds below their average. I honestly wouldn't believe if some one who averages say 1 min said they got a time of 20 seconds with a legit scramble (not prepared solve or like a LL only scramble) but i wouldn't be surprised if some one who averages like 13 seconds got a sub 10 time. The only time a single is really more impressive is if it is a world record or some kind of recognized feat. For example, if you really did get a 20 second single and you average 1 min, no one would really care, but if you break the world record single, people don't care much about what your average is. Of course, like I mentioned before, the best singles generally also belong to the people with the best averages, so they are rather closely related, but ya in general average is more "important".

well said.