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Proposal: allow a move limit for FMC

Dene

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Proposal
I would like to propose that an option be given to impose a move limit for FMC (e.g. 40 maximum), much in the same way we can impose a time limit for other events.

E2d would need to be modified to suit this proposal. My suggestion would be to create:
E2f: The organisation team may enforce move limits per attempt.
And then change E2d1 to E2f1.

Reasoning
While marking FMC sheets for Australian Nationals I went through a lot of solves that were plain CFOP. No obvious attempt to actually find a solution with the "fewest moves" was made. In fact, one solution was well over 60 moves (well over the average CFOP solve). Often these were scribed incorrectly, resulting in a DNF and a lot of wasted time for Tim and myself.

It is clear that competitors doing this simply want a result in the database. While that may be nice for them, I consider it a waste of my time. I want to hold FMC for the few people that actually take it somewhat seriously, but I can't avoid all these tag-alongs just wanting a solve in the database. If I could enforce a move limit, perhaps I would host FMC more often.


I would be interested to find out if people in other parts of the world have the same problem. Especially those that host FMC regularly.



Sidenote
While organising this post, I noticed 9s. This regulation obviously applies to FMC, as it is an event, but I can only assume 60 minutes isn't the referred to "time limit". This regulation needs to be cleaned up, and if my proposal is taken up perhaps it could refer to E2f.
 

Tim Major

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I think a 50 move limit would be acceptable. It's not hard to get sub 50 solutions but takes SOME effort.

There is already an 80 move limit. Dene is suggesting allowing the organizers to set any cutoff they want. For example we had a 1:45 cutoff for Megaminx at Ausnats. If you put the amount of time into FMC as it takes to get sub 1:45 you can easily be sub 40, so setting a sub 40 move cutoff would be equivalent
 

Dene

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I misinterpreted, what he's trying to say is that there could be a 40 move limit equivalent to a hard cutoff? I actually don't have much of an issue with that.

"I would like to propose that an option be given to impose a move limit for FMC (e.g. 40 maximum), much in the same way we can impose a time limit for other events."

In all honesty, how could I be any more clear? :p
 

Divineskulls

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This came up at Nats this year during scorechecking, A couple other people and I liked the idea of an attempt by attempt move limit, but no one else seemed to take the idea seriously. Glad you brought it up, and I'm all for it. :D
 

ottozing

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Does it really take that long to check a solution and count the moves?
Would the advantage for the judges be such to justify preventing low-level competitors from having an official result?

Correct me if I'm wrong, but I heard that for fmc solutions, delegates have to check a solution more than once if it doesn't work or something like that, which could definitely waste time if someone decided to write down a 60+ move solution that didn't work.
 

Jimmy Liu

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Delegates are responsible for checking competitors' solutions, that's their duty.
But during continent competition, it really help the delegates while checking 40 ups solutions.
Ok, I'll go positive to this proposal. Let the organizers depend their cutoffs.
 

Laura O

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It is clear that competitors doing this simply want a result in the database.

I disagree.
I know competitors who are not capable to do sub40 or even sub50 CFOP solutions because they don't know full OLL/PLL and do F2L on a very low level. Nevertheless they enjoy competing in FMC and try to find their shortest possible solution seriously.

Scrambling a cube with a 20 moves scramble, solving it with a 60 moves solution (including cube rotations), counting the moves, writing them down and signing probably takes 3 minutes at most. At the Australian Nationals there were 5 sup40 solutions, so this might have taken 15 minutes to check them. Doing this with 3 judges (there are always people willing to do this here) shortens this to approximately 5 minutes. Furthermore you should keep in mind that you also have to check and sign solutions when there is a move limit.
Is this really a valid argument to exclude competitors from FMC?
 

porkynator

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Correct me if I'm wrong, but I heard that for fmc solutions, delegates have to check a solution more than once if it doesn't work or something like that, which could definitely waste time if someone decided to write down a 60+ move solution that didn't work.
If someone decided to write down a wrong solution, they can write a short one, causing the same problem (can they be disqualified for doing something like this? I hope so).
I don't know what the DNF rate for FMC is exactly, but I'm sure it's below 50%. And in many of those cases, no solution is submitted (it happens sometimes when someone can't find a "good" solution).
So if a solution doesn't work you can call the competitor himself to ask him to try his solution; if he isn't trying to cheat, this will make the control quicker.

anyway, my questions were serious: how long does it usually take to check many FMC solutions when some of them need to be re-checked? How much time do you think you can save by not checking the longer ones?
 

TimMc

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It'd be nice if competitors draw a line across the sheet, write DNF and sign if he/she writes a solution that exceeds 50 moves and/or they know what they've written won't work. This will save time for 1-2 people double checking a solution that doesn't work or isn't under the move limit. We do take time to check thoroughly...

Tim.
 

Erik

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I don't support this. Normal time limits make sure you can win general competition time. Your proposal only would win a bit (almost negligible) of delegate/judging time and create an unnecessary variety. How long do you need for checking 40 extra moves and how often do people actually have a solution of 40+ moves? (assuming a 40 move limit) It's the same extra time as having an extra competitor.

If anything I'd change the 80 move limit (which I don't think is necessary).
 

Stefan

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Does anybody check solutions by typing them into a computer? The computer could check whether they're correct, count the moves and submit the result. It could even try to automatically find and highlight the errors, which could then be checked whether they were made by the competitor or by the judge.

Quick, someone write an app that does all this and uses OCR so the judge just has to take a photo and confirm the result.
 
Last edited:

Stefan

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I don't know what the DNF rate for FMC is exactly, but I'm sure it's below 50%.

Using data from WCA_export451_20140827 and Stefan's WCA forum statistics tool.

yearattemptsDNFsaveragebestworst
200320.00%32.502936
2004100.00%41.703149
20052128.57%42.532856
20063426.47%41.962860
200713438.81%43.853176
200843539.08%44.7127102
200981240.15%44.3322535
2010146440.57%42.572281
2011183341.63%42.212573
2012226240.32%41.542075
2013258642.73%41.942180
2014328034.76%42.292180

SELECT
year,
solves+DNFs attempts,
concat(round(100*DNFs/(solves+DNFs), 2), '%') DNFs,
round(moves/solves, 2) average,
best,
worst
FROM
(SELECT
year,
sum((value1>0)+(value2>0)+(value3>0)+(value4>0)+(value5>0)) solves,
sum((value1=-1)+(value2=-1)+(value3=-1)+(value4=-1)+(value5=-1)) DNFs,
sum(if(value1>0,value1,0)+if(value2>0,value2,0)+if(value3>0,value3,0)+if(value4>0,value4,0)+if(value5>0,value5,0)) moves,
min(least(if(value1>0,value1,999),if(value2>0,value2,999),if(value3>0,value3,999),if(value4>0,value4,999),if(value5>0,value5,999))) best,
max(greatest(value1,value2,value3,value4,value5)) worst
FROM Results JOIN Competitions ON Competitions.id = competitionId
WHERE eventId = '333fm'
GROUP BY year) tmp
ORDER BY year;
Interesting DNF percentage drop this year.
Note that "average" only considers correct attempts, so it's not the average of *submitted* moves.
 
Last edited:

kinch2002

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I don't have any problem with the current state.

Sometimes we have a few people who get 50 moves or more, but I can check that in under 2 minutes. It's really not hard to get through everything with 2 people checking, unless you have maybe 40+ competitors doing the event.

Sure, it's not hard to get results of sub 50 or even sub 40, but the event takes an hour and effectively no judges no matter where there's a move limit, and that's the where the difference lies compared to other events. The bulk of the event time is completely fixed.

People who get 60-80 moves...maybe they aren't doing FM 'properly', and maybe they've never even tried the event at home, so they certainly shouldn't 'expect' to be allowed to compete. But I think the positives of allowing it outweighs the small negative of an extra solution to check.

I'm not fussed about this either way tbh. I won't be trying to use cutoffs at UK comps even if this is allowed.
 

TimMc

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How long do you need for checking 40 extra moves and how often do people actually have a solution of 40+ moves?

Australian Nationals
2012 66% over 40 moves, 11% DNF
2013 80% over 40 moves, 27% DNF
2014 83% over 40 moves, 50% DNF

Good solutions were checked once by each delegate (Dene, Tim) and DNF attempts were checked twice by each delegate. Checking was performed at the end of the first day.

The ability to set an upper limit and some regulation or guideline to get competitors to DNF their own attempt if they know their solution won't work will make it a lot easier and faster to check solutions.

Competitors might average 30-40 moves in your area while a few are likely to come up with 60-80 move solutions. In this scenario, the limit could be left at 80 because a couple of long/DNF attempts won't take much time.

On the other hand, if there are half a dozen competitors that average 30-35 moves and a lot are likely to come up with 60-80 move solutions then time could be saved by setting the limit to 60.

Tim.
 

Erik

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Australian Nationals
2012 66% over 40 moves, 11% DNF
2013 80% over 40 moves, 27% DNF
2014 83% over 40 moves, 50% DNF

Good solutions were checked once by each delegate (Dene, Tim) and DNF attempts were checked twice by each delegate. Checking was performed at the end of the first day.

The ability to set an upper limit and some regulation or guideline to get competitors to DNF their own attempt if they know their solution won't work will make it a lot easier and faster to check solutions.

Competitors might average 30-40 moves in your area while a few are likely to come up with 60-80 move solutions. In this scenario, the limit could be left at 80 because a couple of long/DNF attempts won't take much time.

On the other hand, if there are half a dozen competitors that average 30-35 moves and a lot are likely to come up with 60-80 move solutions then time could be saved by setting the limit to 60.

Tim.

Ok that's more/worse than I expected. Still, lets do the math using conservative assumptions. I used the actual results from the competition.

2012: 5 competitors over 40 moves, in total: 35 extra moves to check once. 1 DNF which I will assume is 60 moves (conservative, I don't have the data) makes 2x20 extra moves (because it has to be checked twice). In total 75 extra moves to check for each delegate. I will assume you check about 3 moves per second (conservative) = 25 seconds extra
2013
: 5 competitors over 40 moves, in total 67 extra moves to check. 3 DNF's which I will assume are 60 moves each, make 67 + (60 * 2) = 187. Because you double check: At 3 tps that is 62 seconds extra
2014: 5 competitors over 40 moves, in total 62 extra moves to check. 9 DNF's of 60 moves, make 62 + (180*2)= 442 moves extra. At 3 tps that is 140 seconds extra

These numbers don't exactly convince me that it's a significant amount of extra work for the delegates. Remember or even 4-times checking is not necessary per se and that delegates can delegate this task to trustworthy competitors as well.
For example: we often have a lot of people check the solutions, but each solution has to be checked and signed by 2 people. This way the checking can be done within 5 minutes, even if you have like 30 competitors.
 
Last edited:

dlo

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Just to add some more statistics:

US Nationals 2014 had 109 competitors in fewest moves which is 327 solves. 30 attempts were not performed (DNS). 67 were recorded as DNF. 107 solves were over 40 moves. The total move count of these 107 solves was 5134 (29 minutes using the 3 tps checking estimate).

I support allowing organizers to set limits for FMC. It seems analogous to setting time limits for speed events. One effect which I haven't seen mentioned is that this could decrease the number of competitors in the event, which could make it easier to hold in smaller venues where accommodating all FMC competitors could be an issue.
 
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