Proposal: allow a move limit for FMC

[Mikel]

I do not support this. The current limit of 80 moves already takes care of the issue of checking long solutions. Erik has already shown that solutions longer than 40 moves do not require significantly longer time to check. I believe this proposal would hinder the current state of FMC by not allowing competitors to compete because of their skill level. This is different from cutoffs in speedsolving events. Those cutoffs save significant time. This proposal would not save much at all.

 

[spyr0th3dr4g0n]

Can I suggest that one of the reasons there are such high movecounts and just CFOP solves, is perhaps a lack of easily available information on FMC solving compared to other events.

 

[TimMc]

I will assume you check about 3 moves per second (conservative)

I scramble at around 1-2 moves per second and check at around 0.25 to 1 move per second.

40-80 move solutions probably only take an extra 5-10 minutes overall.

The legibility of solutions increases the time it takes to check too. Someone wrote L' L' but it looked like U L'. It ended up being L' L'...

I do not support this. The current limit of 80 moves already takes care of the issue of checking long solutions.

Your WCA Profile might suggest that you participate in the "Fewest Moves" with the intention to come up with a 69 move solution every time rather than improve to get the fewest moves.

Tim.

 

[porkynator]

Can I suggest that one of the reasons there are such high movecounts and just CFOP solves, is perhaps a lack of easily available information on FMC solving compared to other events.

[OT]
There is a lot of information available, it's just spread over dozens of different threads.
I'm currently working on a tutorial to gather almost everything one needs to know about FMC
[/OT]

 

[irontwig]

I scramble at around 1-2 moves per second and check at around 0.25 to 1 move per second.

Why is checking so much slower? Aren't you doing exactly the same thing; reading moves and executing them?
I for one see no problem in allowing organizers to set a move limit if they so wish, even though the time saved might not be considerable.

 

[Erik]

I scramble at around 1-2 moves per second and check at around 0.25 to 1 move per second.

40-80 move solutions probably only take an extra 5-10 minutes overall.

The legibility of solutions increases the time it takes to check too. Someone wrote L' L' but it looked like U L'. It ended up being L' L'...



Your WCA Profile might suggest that you participate in the "Fewest Moves" with the intention to come up with a 69 move solution every time rather than improve to get the fewest moves.

Tim.

I'm sorry but that's really slow. 1 tps is feet-speed (don't take that personal please). Why don't you let someone else check the solutions if you know you are not one of the faster people to do so? 3tps for checking a solution is really not world-class cubing.

The limiting factor in your competitions really seem to be the fact that you are the only one(s) checking the solutions, rather than the length of the solutions.

 

[porkynator]

I'm sorry but that's really slow. 1 tps is feet-speed (don't take that personal please). Why don't you let someone else check the solutions if you know you are not one of the faster people to do so? 3tps for checking a solution is really not world-class cubing.

The limiting factor in your competitions really seem to be the fact that you are the only one(s) checking the solutions, rather than the length of the solutions.

I agree about 1 tps, but 3 seems fine. Have you ever timed yourself scrambling?

 

[Erik]

I take about 9 seconds to do a 40 move scramble. So I guess a 15 sec solver would take like 13?

 

[Stefan]

Stefan has already shown that solutions longer than 40 moves do not require significantly longer time to check.

I think you confuse me with someone.

 

[Dene]

I would like to clarify:

I know Tim was only checking solutions once, but I was checking every attempt at least twice, if not three or four times. Honestly I don't see why anyone would do less than this, as a lot is riding on getting it right.

Also, I would check quickly a couple of times to see if it's solved or not, then I would check once or twice slowly to see what's happening. You can't just speed through a solution and go "it's solved" at the end and tick it off...

Ultimately I would say Tim and myself spent at least an hour checking through solutions on Saturday night. This isn't exactly the most enjoyable task in the world, and it's made a lot worse going through long solutions by people that obviously don't practise FMC.

My general mentality towards setting time cut-offs in competition is "if this person takes this event seriously, and has put dedicated practise towards it, they'll be able to reach the cut-off". I don't see why it is unreasonable to apply the same principle to FMC.

I do not support this. The current limit of 80 moves already takes care of the issue of checking long solutions. Stefan has already shown that solutions longer than 40 moves do not require significantly longer time to check. I believe this proposal would hinder the current state of FMC by not allowing competitors to compete because of their skill level. This is different from cutoffs in speedsolving events. Those cutoffs save significant time. This proposal would not save much at all.

If you ever wanted to attempt FMC at one of my competitions I wouldn't let you anyway. Seriously, grow up.

 

[Erik]

I would like to clarify:

I know Tim was only checking solutions once, but I was checking every attempt at least twice, if not three or four times. Honestly I don't see why anyone would do less than this, as a lot is riding on getting it right.

Also, I would check quickly a couple of times to see if it's solved or not, then I would check once or twice slowly to see what's happening. You can't just speed through a solution and go "it's solved" at the end and tick it off...

Ultimately I would say Tim and myself spent at least an hour checking through solutions on Saturday night. This isn't exactly the most enjoyable task in the world, and it's made a lot worse going through long solutions by people that obviously don't practise FMC.

My general mentality towards setting time cut-offs in competition is "if this person takes this event seriously, and has put dedicated practise towards it, they'll be able to reach the cut-off". I don't see why it is unreasonable to apply the same principle to FMC.



If you ever wanted to attempt FMC at one of my competitions I wouldn't let you anyway. Seriously, grow up.

I am not trying to be mean here but it really sounds like the reason you use so much time checking FMC is not because of long solutions but because of a bad approach to the checking process!

If a solution solves, why check it again more than twice? A solution doesn't solve by coincidence. Twice is really the max if a solution is correct on first try.

then I would check once or twice slowly to see what's happening. You can't just speed through a solution and go "it's solved" at the end and tick it off

Especially this part makes me think you don't really have the necessary knowledge of FMC or are aware of how people get to FMC solutions. You want to see what's happening and understand the solution? I can assure you that on the majority of my solutions you wouldn't understand a thing about what is going on by just executing the solution and watch pieces magically match together, because of techniques like NISS, using the inverse scramble and using insertions.

Again: why don't you get help from other competitors if you know the both of you aren't the fittest for checking solutions?

If you ever wanted to attempt FMC at one of my competitions I wouldn't let you anyway. Seriously, grow up.

This is a very inappropriate reaction! Threatening to not allow someone to compete for no reason and sheer rudeness is not appropriate behavior on the forums and especially not for a delegate. It wasn't too long ago I saw you name-calling here as well. Why do you do this? (yes I am aware of the issue going on)

@ dlo: interesting statistics. With more people it can easily be done within 10-15 minutes I'm sure.

 

[Laura O]

Also, I would check quickly a couple of times to see if it's solved or not, then I would check once or twice slowly to see what's happening. You can't just speed through a solution and go "it's solved" at the end and tick it off...

Well, on the one hand you complain that people just do simple CFOP solutions, on the other hand you say that you have to check them several times to see what's happening?
Furthermore, if competitors use advanced techniques like inverse solutions, NISS and also insertions, you usually won't be able to reconstruct and understand the solution at all. So checking several times without any suspicion of cheating doesn't make sense.

Edit: ninja'd

 

[antoineccantin]

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.

Maybe I'm just absolutely terrible at FMC, but I use/know how to use tons of FMC methods/strategies (premoves, inverse scramble, switching, insertions, ect.) and I have a hard time getting solves below 40. Using them and not CFOP doesn't make me magically more efficient and sub-40.

Also, if I get a bad solve over 40 (ex. 41) I would hate for them to be automatically DNFed, and then it not possible for me to get a mean.

 

[TimMc]

I would like to clarify:

I know Tim was only checking solutions once, but I was checking every attempt at least twice, if not three or four times. Honestly I don't see why anyone would do less than this, as a lot is riding on getting it right.

Also, I would check quickly a couple of times to see if it's solved or not, then I would check once or twice slowly to see what's happening. You can't just speed through a solution and go "it's solved" at the end and tick it off...

Ultimately I would say Tim and myself spent at least an hour checking through solutions on Saturday night. This isn't exactly the most enjoyable task in the world, and it's made a lot worse going through long solutions by people that obviously don't practise FMC.

My general mentality towards setting time cut-offs in competition is "if this person takes this event seriously, and has put dedicated practise towards it, they'll be able to reach the cut-off". I don't see why it is unreasonable to apply the same principle to FMC.



If you ever wanted to attempt FMC at one of my competitions I wouldn't let you anyway. Seriously, grow up.

Yup, I checked and put them into two piles. Then you and Kirt also checked the piles.

Why is checking so much slower? Aren't you doing exactly the same thing; reading moves and executing them?
I for one see no problem in allowing organizers to set a move limit if they so wish, even though the time saved might not be considerable.

Scrambles are printed. Solutions are written down in a rush in the last 5 minutes.

Tim.

 

[Stefan]

Threatening to not allow someone to compete for no reason

No reason? Are you not aware of this? (I suspect that's Dene's reason)

 

[goodatthis]

My general mentality towards setting time cut-offs in competition is "if this person takes this event seriously, and has put dedicated practise towards it, they'll be able to reach the cut-off". I don't see why it is unreasonable to apply the same principle to FMC.

It took me several months and 1000+ solves to finally make the cutoff for 4x4. And that was mainly because the cutoff was 20 seconds slower than most comps I've been to. I've spent tons of hours doing 6x6 and 7x7 solves and wasn't even close to the cutoff at Nats. I've put even more hours in since then, and I'm still not even close. But apparently, by your sickeningly elitist statement, I don't take the event seriously, and I haven't put in dedicated practice.

Anyway, I don't agree with this at all. Cutoffs are put in place to make sure the competition doesn't drag on forever. FMC is one hour, every single time, so you don't save time at all. And how dare you say that someone who isn't sub 40 doesn't care about the event and is wasting your time? Sub 40 is actually pretty hard sometimes. Besides, if you look at FMC rankings, 61% of FMC competitors aren't sub 40 anyway. Does it really take that long to score a 60 move solution?

 

[Swordsman Kirby]

No reason? Are you not aware of this? (I suspect that's Dene's reason)

lulz.

I am okay with setting move limits for FMC, but I don't think organizers will try to invoke that rule in any reasonbly sized competition.

 

[Tim Major]

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.

This is the only valid argument I've read in this thread, so I feel like it somes up the arguments against this proposal. Arguments like Antoine's could apply to any event. I learnt all EP algs, CO algs and all non-3 corner CP algs and did a lot of Mega practice a while ago but failed to make the cutoff. So Antoine's argument could be applied to any event.

Anyway Daniel are you saying you compete in FMC and solution check? Because I offered to, as neither of our delegates are particularly fast, whereas I scramble 3x3 a lot and used to check my own FMC solutions under speed conditions, but Dene thought (and I agreed) that competitors in the event shouldn't check solutions (I could've altered solutions that beat me with a ' for example).

Do you feel it'd be fair to have competitors checking them? Me and Jay are probably at least twice as fast at checking for example.

 

[antoineccantin]

Arguments like Antoine's could apply to any event. I learnt all EP algs, CO algs and all non-3 corner CP algs and did a lot of Mega practice a while ago but failed to make the cutoff. So Antoine's argument could be applied to any event.

It wasn't an argument against the idea of the move limit. It was against Dene's argument that people don't get under 40 moves because they just use CFOP.

 

[kunparekh18]

This is a bit like saying 1:00 3x3 solvers shouldn't be allowed to solve (because obviously someone who takes a minute to solve a 3x3 isn't/hasn't taking/taken the event seriously). Sure, we have cutoffs for that, but cutoffs exist because there is a difference in the time taken to do a solve. But here, everyone takes the same time, 1 hour. 1:00 3x3 solves aren't DNFed because the competitor doesn't take the event seriously. It is because his solves take more time.