Marcin Zalewski banned from WCA competitions until June 2016

[ottozing]

Well if zalewski got banned for orientation, I'm afraid this has to be considered too.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oU2tKYvDH2g
Most of his cubes are in his favourable orientation(and are in packs of 8 [ Which i don't really think matters]) This basically saves close to 45-50 seconds. Whatever the amount of time it is, It sure is an advantage to the competitor

P.S Don't mistake me. BLD Is my favourite event as maskow is My idol.

https://www.worldcubeassociation.org/forum/viewtopic.php?f=9&t=1162

Basically, this was around the time of the first warning, and since then Maskow got it together, so he's not getting punished.

 

[Ranzha]

Well if zalewski got banned for orientation, I'm afraid this has to be considered too.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oU2tKYvDH2g
Most of his cubes are in his favourable orientation(and are in packs of 8 [ Which i don't really think matters]) This basically saves close to 45-50 seconds. Whatever the amount of time it is, It sure is an advantage to the competitor

P.S Don't mistake me. BLD Is my favourite event as maskow is My idol.

From here:

Incident 4 is the most serious of all. Mr. Kowalczyk has declared to the Board that he never requested a particular orientation. The judge for three of these attempts has declared that she understood 'arbitrary' to mean that she could choose the orientation. This interpretation is in clear opposition to the intent of the regulation, which is to prevent competitors from getting their preferred orientation more often than randomness would have it. With regard to Mr. Kowalczyk's role, we consider that, although a competitor is not obliged to report incorrectness of procedure that he may notice, in the spirit of fair sportsmanship Mr. Kowalczyk should have done so the first time this happened. Instead, he continued to exploit the procedural errors to his advantage, be it big or small. We find this against the spirit of the WCA and formally reprimand the competitor for this unsportsmanlike behaviour. No further disciplinary action will be taken, but the recurrence of any of these incidents will be grounds for disqualification in future attempts.

 

[qqwref]

It got all of their meaning across, the basic function of language.

is reason us not all speak caveman

 

[PenguinsDontFly]

Thats crazy... why cheat when you already have WR... unless all are cheat...

 

[JasonDL13]

We're disappointed, Zalewski.

This WCA investigation wasn't done well. It doesn't consider the 23.80 (no video shows him taking the cube cover off) and they DNF'd him in Rumia Open 2014, Krzysztof Kuncki was not the delegate.

Well if zalewski got banned for orientation, I'm afraid this has to be considered too.

Someone already said it has been. But this is something different, Zalewski cheating against people, Gabriel should have 1 more WR and Maskow should have 3 more WR's. Orientation in BLD make a huge difference then orientation in MBLD. Maskow has 6 minutes to spare, and if the WCA banned him he would just go back and beat the WR on his first try.

Most of his cubes are in his favourable orientation(and are in packs of 8 [ Which i don't really think matters]) This basically saves close to 45-50 seconds. Whatever the amount of time it is, It sure is an advantage to the competitor

45-50 seconds for 8 cubes? That's over 5 seconds per cube. I'm sure it's more like 10 seconds per pack of 8.

He had 5:46 left, so that's 346 seconds, on average, that's ~8.4 seconds left per cube. That's plenty of time to reorient them. He wouldn't have lost the WR if it was for random orientation.

 

[Genius4Jesus]

I didn't hear about this until now. It is such a shame that this happened.

 

[Ollie]

This WCA investigation wasn't done well. It doesn't consider the 28.80 (no video shows him taking the cube cover off) and they DNF'd him in Rumia Open 2014, Krzysztof Kuncki was not the delegate.

Do you mean 23.80? I doubt that you know more than what was mentioned in the OP on the WCA Forum, you can't possibly comment on exactly what they investigated and how.

Someone already said it has been. But this is something different, Zalewski cheating against people, Gabriel should have 1 more WR and Maskow should have 3 more WR's. Orientation in BLD make a huge difference then orientation in MBLD. Maskow has 6 minutes to spare, and if the WCA banned him he would just go back and beat the WR on his first try.

If Maskow did cheat, even on a 41/41 attempt, he is still cheating against people. OK, nobody retroactively gets a world record, but you can't possibly believe you can excuse someone for cheating in any sense? What if he decided to cheat so that he could get a time that would be unlikely to be beaten for years and years?

Plus you can't possibly say he would get it back on the first try, especially since he's tried to beat it since and failed.

45-50 seconds for 8 cubes? That's over 5 seconds per cube. I'm sure it's more like 10 seconds per pack of 8.

He had 5:46 left, so that's 346 seconds, on average, that's ~8.4 seconds left per cube. That's plenty of time to reorient them. He wouldn't have lost the WR if it was for random orientation.

He means overall, not per pack.

And it's not about the time left over. If he had to reorient those cubes, it becomes a completely different solve. Extra mental processes are involved in a solve where he'd have to orient every single multi cube, so there's no guarantee that he would get 41/41 in the exact same situation where the only difference is that every cube is in a random orientation.

 

[JasonDL13]

Do you mean 23.80? I doubt that you know more than what was mentioned in the OP on the WCA Forum, you can't possibly comment on exactly what they investigated and how.

Yep, I did mean 23.80, oops. But I can say that it wasn't investigated well based upon what was DNF'd and what wasn't.

f Maskow did cheat, even on a 41/41 attempt, he is still cheating against people. OK, nobody retroactively gets a world record, but you can't possibly believe you can excuse someone for cheating in any sense? What if he decided to cheat so that he could get a time that would be unlikely to be beaten for years and years?

Plus you can't possibly say he would get it back on the first try, especially since he's tried to beat it since and failed.

He's not cheating against anyone, WR was and is 41 points, 2nd in the world is 26 points, that's a huge difference, no one would have gotten the WR if he was banned. I can excuse Maskow for "cheating" in MBLD because he was hardly cheating, random orientation or not it would have been 41/41. And I can say he didn't cheat so he can get a good time, he has 40/41 sub 50 at home, and hardly anyone uses random orientation in MBLD at home. And, if this isn't enough for you, I don't know what is, I was talking to him, he said: "I never thought about it in MBLD before WCA asked me about it after few WRs done in this way ^ _ ^" He didn't mean to completely destroy the WCA. And he fixed his act, it's fine.

I can say he got it on his first try because MBLD isn't luck. He's tried once, over 1 year later, and he didn't get it. I talked to him about that too and he said that there was some construction going on or something. But he has beaten it at home, and he's gotten 4 attempt over WR.

He means overall, not per pack.

And it's not about the time left over. If he had to reorient those cubes, it becomes a completely different solve. Extra mental processes are involved in a solve where he'd have to orient every single multi cube, so there's no guarantee that he would get 41/41 in the exact same situation where the only difference is that every cube is in a random orientation.

Oops, well he is right then, my apologies. If he does an x2 on the cube it is not a completely different solve, I have no idea why you would think that. To reorient a cube takes no skill compared to solving 41 cubes blindfolded. Do you really think if he needed to do 41 new rotations he wouldn't have gotten 41/41?

 

[qqwref]

If you ask me, reorienting the cube doesn't really add anything except time to multiBLD - it's not like you have to memorize the orientations too. You can just spend a minute at the very start reorienting all the cubes before you even start memorizing. So if you can do a multi solve in under 59 minutes, you can do it with reorienting in under an hour - it's the same thing. I just looked at Maskow's records and the only times that would be affected by reorienting were bad results (34/46, 25/32, 27/37, 19/29). While some of these may have won competitions, none were PBs, let alone records.

The thing about multiBLD, though, is that time doesn't really matter - as long as you're under an hour, it only even gets looked at if there's a tiebreaker, and Maskow is so far ahead of the pack that none of his WRs will be affected by that. If you stay under an hour, a second or two per cube is irrelevant. In fact, if anyone sets a WR by points in the future without reorienting, I wouldn't even consider not accepting it. But in 3BLD a second or two can make a lot of difference, and often affects competitions, rankings, and records even at the highest levels. It makes a lot of sense there to disqualify results due to not having to reorient.

 

[AlGoreRhythm]

geez... I'm not sure if I am more upset about him cheating, or him being banned.

 

[Kit Clement]

Yep, I did mean 23.80, oops. But I can say that it wasn't investigated well based upon what was DNF'd and what wasn't.

Given that the WDC has "not included all the details of the investigation in [the] public post," I don't think you are in any position to judge whether they did a fair job or not.

The presence of Krzysztof Kuncki is irrelevant, as their investigation showed that he had cheated within a period of time, and thus had all of those solves disqualified. Details could have been withheld -- it's plausible that he could have cheated without Krzysztof, unknown to us, or maybe even the WDC. Matyas may have not cheated at some point in the time frame in which his solves were disqualified too, but that didn't change the ruling to just those competitions where we had evidence.

 

[DanpHan]

If you ask me, reorienting the cube doesn't really add anything except time to multiBLD - it's not like you have to memorize the orientations too. You can just spend a minute at the very start reorienting all the cubes before you even start memorizing. So if you can do a multi solve in under 59 minutes, you can do it with reorienting in under an hour - it's the same thing. I just looked at Maskow's records and the only times that would be affected by reorienting were bad results (34/46, 25/32, 27/37, 19/29). While some of these may have won competitions, none were PBs, let alone records.

The thing about multiBLD, though, is that time doesn't really matter - as long as you're under an hour, it only even gets looked at if there's a tiebreaker, and Maskow is so far ahead of the pack that none of his WRs will be affected by that. If you stay under an hour, a second or two per cube is irrelevant. In fact, if anyone sets a WR by points in the future without reorienting, I wouldn't even consider not accepting it. But in 3BLD a second or two can make a lot of difference, and often affects competitions, rankings, and records even at the highest levels. It makes a lot of sense there to disqualify results due to not having to reorient.

If a person intentionally gives his/her self an unfair advantage on a given solve, I think that the solve should be disqualified, regardless of how minuscule the advantage is. In Maskow's case, I think it's safe to say that he did not intentionally give himself an unfair advantage, but if someone were to set up the orientation of the cubes in a MBLD attempt to their advantage in the future, the attempt shouldn't stand. It may not be too significant, but it's still an unfair advantage to other competitors, and I think that's enough to justify the disqualification.

Going back to Zalewski, it's disappointing to hear about his cheating, but I hope he does come back to compete in the future. He's still a skilled competitor, and hopefully he'll come back to break some more records.

 

[Antonie faz fan]

I understand of him being banned but see it from this side, he isn't allowed to go to a fun comp because of a color..
If it's such a problem ban him only for BLD events...

 

[Maskow]

OK, I see that I have to say something

About my cheating:
Of course it wasn't intentionally. There were no reason to do it. Rules just changed during the season and we were to busy hating these new rules in single BLD to notice that it should be applied to MBLD too Of course, it's obvious. But nobody really noticed it, nobody really thought about it. Also look at it: I never tried to hide it! There are videos of all my official WRs, all are done in the same way, few are done after changing the rules, I uploaded them by myself, these videos are full, showing everything, you can easily say that "oh no, Maskow, you are cheater!". And you know what? Nobody, NOBODY noticed that something is wrong. I didn't, delegates didn't, people here didn't, WCA didn't for long time. Nobody ever asked about it, commented it, nothing. Of course you can still say that it's cheating and it should be banned because "not thinking about the rules" shouldn't be an excuse and it's true. Second thing: I never asked any judge about my orientation in MBLD after changing the rules but it's longer story how it even happen. Then one day WCA noticed that something is wrong, after a long time of doing it and not hiding it Then I noticed that something is wrong! Then I noticed "oh no, I am cheater, I will be banned" ^ _ ^ I admitted to my own stupidity, because really, it was very very stupid to never noticed it. There were completely no profit to me from that, completely, I didn't need it for anything and because of something like that I could lose everything oO

Finally they didn't ban me, probably because there were reasons to believe me that I didn't know about it and I didn't do anything to cheat and because it really didn't change anything (I dominated MBLD too much oO) and I am very happy because of that. Now all scrambles in BLD and MBLD have orientation applied in scramble so there is no chance to not intentionally cheating with that and it's good.

About cubes grouped by 8:
I don't get this point, I don't get why I can't have cubes grouped by 8. Me and many other people had cubes grouped even on Euro 2012 when Ron van Bruchem allowed it

About my bad results after that:
Of course I had bad results after that because I stopped practice MBLD in June. In June 2013. So after long time without practice I lost my skill. Even with my 49/50 sub1h (I practiced 2 weeks to get it and I stopped practice again) I'm still worse in MBLD than I was in June 2013 ^ _ ^ (in June 2013 I was more ready to do 50 cubes in one hour than now) MBLD is hard to practice and I lost interesting in it for long time. I can say that I focused on single BLD but it will be lie I just didn't practice anything for very long time but I'm still trying to back

Why I failed my last official attempt, 34/46, so much? (it was the only one attempt in all 2014 after some practice)
I was ready for doing it but this attempt shouldn't even happen. It had over 2 hours delay (I am always ready for one single hour because like I said it many times before: MBLD on that level is all about having 100% concentration for one hour, it's a lot of time, any problems with that and I can't do it on max level) with no reason and nobody were able to say when it will start oO And there were another bonus: Drills behind the window! Somebody decided that it's a good moment to start drilling (oh, and it was very very cold in MBLD room but it's a detail ). I asked delegate about second attempt because conditions were terrible but he wasn't interested in giving me another chance because of that reasons. I also wasn't interested in fighting all day for second attempt, nerves aren't good for MBLD too

I don't like this story but it happened and I only want you all to know how it happen. And you can believe me or not.
That's all. Any questions? : P

 

[Bindedsa]

I understand of him being banned but see it from this side, he isn't allowed to go to a fun comp because of a color..
If it's such a problem ban him only for BLD events...

Speedsolving is all about colors and matching them.

I think the idea is to punish him. There should be disincentive not to cheat beyond just losing the records you got from cheating, I think this is completely fair. Comps are fun, but regulations exist for a reason. If you want to compete, follow them.

 

[Lazy Einstein]

Stuff Maskow said.

That's all. Any questions? : P

Yes, one.

Of course I had bad results after that because I stopped practice MBLD in June. In June 2013. So after long time without practice I lost my skill. Even with my 49/50 sub1h (I practiced 2 weeks to get it and I stopped practice again) I'm still worse in MBLD than I was in June 2013 ^ _ ^

Do you mean you stopped MBLD after you very recent 50/50 practice?! or do you mean that back in 2013 that you had a 49/50 unofficially as well.

I really hope you are not worse at MBLD right now. You recent MBLD videos are awesome and I need to see a 50/50 officially before I can die happy.

 

[tseitsei]

Yes, one.



Do you mean you stopped MBLD after you very recent 50/50 practice?! or do you mean that back in 2013 that you had a 49/50 unofficially as well.

I really hope you are not worse at MBLD right now. You recent MBLD videos are awesome and I need to see a 50/50 officially before I can die happy.

I'm not Maskow but I'm quite sure he means that he has stopped practising again after his recent 49/50 unofficial success. AND that he was even better at MBLD back in June 2013 than he was when he did that 49/50 attempt.
And also no he didn't have 49/50 unofficially back in 2013 because he never practised that many cubes...

 

[Myachii]

I feel bad for everyone who chose Zalewski on Fantasy Cubing (if he was available to choose).

Just emphasizes the concept that cheating happens all across the spectrum of skill.

 

[JasonDL13]

Given that the WDC has "not included all the details of the investigation in [the] public post," I don't think you are in any position to judge whether they did a fair job or not.

The presence of Krzysztof Kuncki is irrelevant, as their investigation showed that he had cheated within a period of time, and thus had all of those solves disqualified..

I can definitely judge whether they did a fair job because it's public! All of us can see what was DNF'd and what wasn't.

It's quite clear the same thing happened on 23.80 and nothing happened to it. There's not one video of him taking the cube cover off. It's hard to tell from videos what orientation he did have because of the way he memorizes (he turns the cube so much and so fast) and the video starts 1.34 seconds after the cube pickup.

You can easily say "They didn't include the investigation details" but one thing is for sure: The 23.80 wasn't DNF'd. Chances are it didn't have random orientation.

The presence of Krzysztof Kuncki is relevant for sure, you can't just say, "Well, he cheated in comps with Krzysztof Kuncki, so let's DNF every single result." It might as well could have been that the WDC didn't release information about that, but that doesn't explain 23.80, or anything before.

The stuff about Matyas doesn't matter. It's something totally different and I would appreciate it if you didn't use him as an example.

 

[tseitsei]

Given that the WDC has "not included all the details of the investigation in [the] public post," I don't think you are in any position to judge whether they did a fair job or not.

Yeah I agree with this. We don't necessarily know all the details and therefore we can't say if the right call was made or not

HOWEVER

The presence of Krzysztof Kuncki is irrelevant, as their investigation showed that he had cheated within a period of time, and thus had all of those solves disqualified. Details could have been withheld -- it's plausible that he could have cheated without Krzysztof, unknown to us, or maybe even the WDC. Matyas may have not cheated at some point in the time frame in which his solves were disqualified too, but that didn't change the ruling to just those competitions where we had evidence.

I definitely think that the bolded part is not true since Kuncki played an important part in the cheating process according to that report WDC published. Of course it is plausible that Zalewski has cheated with other people as well but surely you cannot say that the presence of Kuncki is completely irrelevant...

After all I believe that the correct call was made and I trust WDC in this (and all the similar) incident(s)