Proposal: allow a move limit for FMC

[DrKorbin]

I see that people that tried to explain rule A1c all gave a different explanation about it

Example of applying A1c:
A competitor registers for 3x3 bld, while not knowing how to solve it bld. During his attempt he looks at the cube for ten seconds, then puts on his blindfold and starts applying random moves. After taking off his blindfold he looks at his scrambled cube and exclaims: "Ahh, I missed!" If a delegate thinks that this person cannot into bld, he can disqualify him from further attempts.
If you are interested, this case was real, but A1c was not enforced because there was no A1c that time. Maybe this competitor actually had been the reason why A1c was invented.

 

[Noahaha]

Example of applying A1c:
A competitor registers for 3x3 bld, while not knowing how to solve it bld. During his attempt he looks at the cube for ten seconds, then puts on his blindfold and starts applying random moves. After taking off his blindfold he looks at his scrambled cube and exclaims: "Ahh, I missed!" If a delegate thinks that this person cannot into bld, he can disqualify him from further attempts.
If you are interested, this case was real, but A1c was not enforced because there was no A1c that time. Maybe this competitor actually had been the reason why A1c was invented.

That's a pretty mild example of what someone could do if A1c didn't exist. Imagine a 30 cube MBLD attempt or 10 minutes turning a 7x7.

 

[obelisk477]

The biggest argument against this idea to me would be implementation. I mean you would already have to give the person the full hour anyway for at least one attempt (and then disqualify them for the remainder of the mean if they fail to get a sub-40 solution on attempt 1?). And then count the moves afterwards to decide whether or not it met the new move count requirement. At that point, you might as well have checked the solution anyway.

The point of this is that it's different than cutoffs for 3x3, 4x4 etc. With a 1:00 cutoff for first round of 3x3, for example, it makes sense to have the cutoff because after one short minute, if they fail, they're done, and no one has to deal with 1:00+ solvers anymore. With an FMC cutoff, you'd already have to give them a whole hour anyway.

Edit: Just saw the soft cut-off idea, which I like. But to give the person a shot anyway, I still think for the above reasons that their first attempt should count given that it is sub-80. And the load on the judges would still be there, but only for one attempt)

 

[Lucas Garron]

The biggest argument against this idea to me would be implementation. I mean you would already have to give the person the full hour anyway for at least one attempt (and then disqualify them for the remainder of the mean if they fail to get a sub-40 solution on attempt 1?). And then count the moves afterwards to decide whether or not it met the new move count requirement. At that point, you might as well have checked the solution anyway.

The point of this is that it's different than cutoffs for 3x3, 4x4 etc. With a 1:00 cutoff for first round of 3x3, for example, it makes sense to have the cutoff because after one short minute, if they fail, they're done, and no one has to deal with 1:00+ solvers anymore. With an FMC cutoff, you'd already have to give them a whole hour anyway.

Well... at most competitions it's true that a few additional FMC competitor doesn't require more judges. (This is not true for all competitions. At Worlds last year there were many rooms, and we would have needed fewer rooms/judges if we had fewer competitors casually attempting FMC.)
That's why Dene's proposal addresses the part of FMC that takes organizer time.

FMC sheets have a total of 80 slots for the competitor to write the solution. It's very easy to tell if a competitor used 80 or fewer moves (and also very easy to change this to another amount). Checking if they met a cutoff takes one glance at the FMC sheet.

I agree that it makes basically no organizational difference to let the competitor *attempt* FMC, but it is false that "you might as well check the solution anyway". Checking the full solution is exactly where the cost is.

 

[AvGalen]

Well... at most competitions it's true that a few additional FMC competitor doesn't require more judges. (This is not true for all competitions. At Worlds last year there were many rooms, and we would have needed fewer rooms/judges if we had fewer competitors casually attempting FMC.)
That's why Dene's proposal addresses the part of FMC that takes organizer time.

FMC sheets have a total of 80 slots for the competitor to write the solution. It's very easy to tell if a competitor used 80 or fewer moves (and also very easy to change this to another amount). Checking if they met a cutoff takes one glance at the FMC sheet.

I agree that it makes basically no organizational difference to let the competitor *attempt* FMC, but it is false that "you might as well check the solution anyway". Checking the full solution is exactly where the cost is.

Most competitions don't use FMC sheets

 

[Lucas Garron]

Most competitions don't use FMC sheets

I'd love to see some stats on that. If TNoodle outputs PDFs with the scramble and image, what do they distribute to the competitors?

Since we introduced TNoodle, I've never explicitly heard of a competition that *didn't* use FMC sheets. The Delegate reports only mention things when FMC sheets were used, but I don't have information about most competitions. I'd love to know what the case is, either way. What leads you to believe your statement?

(Just to make sure: you mean "competitions", not "competitors", right? The latter would also be interesting.)

(Also, FMC sheets are easy to use for competitions that *do* want to be able to check the move limit for most competitors easily.)

 

[Dene]

I don't know what you mean with " the fact that this is pretty much what is done anyway".
And having a consistent attitude sounds nice, but not when that attitude is wrong.
Also, your distinction in having 3oh as a beginners event and 444 is an intermediate is not supported by the amount of people that have succesfully participated in that event.

What I mean is at most competitions I am aware of (and as I get the reports for every competition around the world, that's quite a lot), organisers usually take advantage of implementing cut-offs so that fast solvers can get more solves in more events. Plain and simple; cut-offs are for the "elite". Anyone that uses cut-offs is already an "elitist".

Perhaps this is the wrong attitude, but then cut-offs in general are a much more serious problem than what I am proposing.

The reason I call OH a beginner event is because anyone that can do 3x3 can do it. OH is literally just an extension of that. 4x4 takes a bit more learning, that most people new to cubing wouldn't learn. Of course, I'm not really interested in disputing this moot point...

 

[tseitsei]

The reason I call OH a beginner event is because anyone that can do 3x3 can do it. OH is literally just an extension of that. 4x4 takes a bit more learning, that most people new to cubing wouldn't learn. Of course, I'm not really interested in disputing this moot point...

Anyone that can do 3x3 can also do an FMC solve. No need to even know the notation beforehand because it is explained in the FMC sheet...

Anyone can't do a GOOD FMC solve but anyone can't do a GOOD OH solve either...

 

[AvGalen]

I'd love to see some stats on that. If TNoodle outputs PDFs with the scramble and image, what do they distribute to the competitors?

Since we introduced TNoodle, I've never explicitly heard of a competition that *didn't* use FMC sheets. The Delegate reports only mention things when FMC sheets were used, but I don't have information about most competitions. I'd love to know what the case is, either way. What leads you to believe your statement?

(Just to make sure: you mean "competitions", not "competitors", right? The latter would also be interesting.)

(Also, FMC sheets are easy to use for competitions that *do* want to be able to check the move limit for most competitors easily.)

Maybe this his changed in the last year. I haven't participated in much FMC events because they are often spread out over the weekend and I am not always there both days. Basically the "mean of 3" rule has made me loose interest in FMC.

Anyone that can do 3x3 can also do an FMC solve. No need to even know the notation beforehand because it is explained in the FMC sheet...

Anyone can't do a GOOD FMC solve but anyone can't do a GOOD OH solve either...

Dene already said he isn't interested in talking about this, but I would be interested to see him find some logic where 3FMC is advanced and 3OH is not.

Cut-offs are NOT for fast solvers to get more solves. They are to prevent the slowest solvers from holding up the competition. They can be used for both purposes though.

 

[Dene]

Dene already said he isn't interested in talking about this, but I would be interested to see him find some logic where 3FMC is advanced and 3OH is not.

I guess it's fair enough I should respond quickly to this. Basically, FMC is an event where if one is to take it really seriously, one should be learning a lot more than [insert standard speedsolving method here]. I'm sure any top FMCer will say it is very different to a standard speedsolving method. But OH, other than maybe a few OH-specific algs, is the same thing with one hand.

Cut-offs are NOT for fast solvers to get more solves. They are to prevent the slowest solvers from holding up the competition. They can be used for both purposes though.

This obviously depends on how the organiser chooses to use them. I'm willing to bet in the majority of cases this isn't true. Surely someone solving a 5x5 in 4 minutes isn't that much slower than someone in 3 minutes, but I doubt you would see a cut-off that generous in most cases.

 

[DrKorbin]

I guess it's fair enough I should respond quickly to this. Basically, FMC is an event where if one is to take it really seriously, one should be learning a lot more than [insert standard speedsolving method here]. I'm sure any top FMCer will say it is very different to a standard speedsolving method. But OH, other than maybe a few OH-specific algs, is the same thing with one hand.

In our competitions I see here and there people who use simple CFOP with PLL skip and get sub-35. Our NR (26 moves) is set with CFOP with OLL skip, though there is a splendid double X-cross.
So person who just try a bunch of CFOP solves with different crosses, pair order etc. can get a good result in FMC (or, more precisely, if a competition is full of such persons, then some of them most likely get good result).

I do agree with your events division by simple (3x3, 2x2, pyra) which should have very soft limits to encourage newcomers, middle (oh, 4x4, 5x5, bld) which should have some cut-offs (soft or hard, depending of the competition size, competition time etc.), and "complex" (sq-1, mega, clock, 6x6, 7x7...) which should have harder limits and cut-offs for several reasons: few people can scramble sq-1 and clock or sometimes mega, and 6x6 and 7x7 are long to scramble and to solve. Well, I don't agree that 2x2, 3x3 and pyra must necessarily have as many rounds as possible, let the organizer to decide this question.

I do not consider fmc in any events group described above because it is not speedsolving and has another nature. As many people said before me, a competitor in fmc doesn't waste competition time and only wastes organizer time. Therefore I think no additional limits should be applied to the one we already have.

And as for the "elite" cut-offs. Yes, you can say they are elitist. However, their existence does some profit to "non-elite" competitors too. Cut-off is the thing that allows holding more events. Suppose that you decide to make no cut-offs and to set limits to the default 10 minutes. Then you can find that you have time only to hold 3x3, 4x4 and 5x5. So everyone can make 5 attempts of 3x3, 4x4 and 5x5, and that's all. But if you set cut-offs, everyone can make at least two attempts in 4x4, 5x5, oh, clock, square-1, mega and so on. Diversity is cool.