Romania's Got Talent 2015 Final

[DeeDubb]

I think it's important to distinguish between competitive cubing and presentation cubing. This is presentation cubing. Like the stuff Steven Brundage does, or the stuff Anthony Brooks seems to be delving into. This is like pro wrestling while our competitions are like MMA.

We can't judge these based on the degree of "cheating" that is involved, but rather the impact on the intended audience. We are absolutely NOT the people this presentation was intended to impress.

 

[qqwref]

Here's another picture. I framed all cubes in that shot showing the same yellow+green+yellow middle stripe. You can also see that five of them additionally had that red+white+yellow stripe. But the third stripe was never the same. I suspect that all cubes were at most a handful of setup moves away from the one main scramble and that they used some simple rules for the setup moves.

Nice detective work, this makes a lot of sense. So the cubes are in different positions, but just a short sequence (maybe a trigger or two) from the main scramble that they have probably practiced many times.

I think it's important to distinguish between competitive cubing and presentation cubing. This is presentation cubing. Like the stuff Steven Brundage does, or the stuff Anthony Brooks seems to be delving into. This is like pro wrestling while our competitions are like MMA.

We can't judge these based on the degree of "cheating" that is involved, but rather the impact on the intended audience. We are absolutely NOT the people this presentation was intended to impress.

Sure, it's entirely possible to make a performance involving cubing (although I think what Steven Brundage does is closer to using a cube as a prop in a magic trick). You can certainly show off some legitimate cubing-related skills. The problem here is that it's like pro wrestling where the audience doesn't know it's fake - you make people think you have done some very impressive and difficult thing, but in fact it's just an illusion and you have cheated your way there. Then someone will see this, and then watch a real cuber like Maskow or Oliver Frost or Kevin Hays do a solve, and wonder why they're so slow and bad at it. "But I saw a guy do it in under a minute on TV, and he wasn't even trying that hard..."

 

[Tim Major]

These are not members of OUR community, and if they are, they should be permanently banned. Cheating in front of an audience of thousands or millions of viewers is completely unacceptable and deals a huge amount of harm to speedcubing as a sport and an activity.

You keep hating whilst they just pocketed 120k Euros. To a non-cuber, how is this different from normal bld solving? What harm can it possibly deal

 

[TheSeppomania]

Nice detective work, this makes a lot of sense. So the cubes are in different positions, but just a short sequence (maybe a trigger or two) from the main scramble that they have probably practiced many times.

Thats just what i said at the beginning and thx for Stefan for the picture, i hadn't enough time today to look for a picture on my own.

What the problem is in my opinion, that people think they needn't memorize a puzzle to blind solve it and don't see the real difficulty of Bld, the MEMORIZATION.

 

[Nuster]

I think it's important to distinguish between competitive cubing and presentation cubing. This is presentation cubing.

Exactly what I was trying to say.

My only problem is that they didn't memorize 100 cubes like they presumably claimed.

That's quite a presumtion. As someone that speaks Romanian I can refute it and verify that they merely explained the basics of BLD(not claiming they would solve them using BLD).
They also said all the cubes were scrambled differently, which is also true, most likely a few setup moves were made to differentiate all the scrambles, as Stefan presumed.

I am sure the judges would feel betrayed and be very disappointed that they give away so much money for a magic trick.

Funny enough you should mention a "magic trick", in 2012 a magician won the same show.

 

[adimare]

Here's another picture. I framed all cubes in that shot showing the same yellow+green+yellow middle stripe. You can also see that five of them additionally had that red+white+yellow stripe. But the third stripe was never the same. I suspect that all cubes were at most a handful of setup moves away from the one main scramble and that they used some simple rules for the setup moves.

http://i59.tinypic.com/6sgcuh.jpg

Also notice how perpendicular to the yellow+green+yellow stripe there's usually a white+green+orange one, all the cubes where you can see the green center that don't have the y+g+y stripe do have the w+g+o one.
Silly way to fake it.

They could have done something like figure out a scramble that results in a memo with no As, Es, Rs or Us in it (so every letter can apply to a corner or edge that's not the buffer), for instance U2 R U2 B' D2 R2 L B' U' R' U L2 F2 U2 R2 L2 U B2 D L2 U (memo XN ID QW LB OH PM / GB DM TH PN) and make that cube 1, cube 2 could be setup to be solvable using the same memo but starting from the second letter (NI DQ WL BO HP MG / BD MT HP NX), etc. That simple idea produces 20 different scrambles that can be solved with a single memo and don't look so obviously suspicious, throw in some rotations based on the position of the cube and I'm sure no one would notice any pattern without spending a lot of time looking into it.

 

[qqwref]

You keep hating whilst they just pocketed 120k Euros. To a non-cuber, how is this different from normal bld solving? What harm can it possibly deal

Yes, they threw our community under the bus for $135000. I shouldn't have to explain this to a grown adult, but gaining money has nothing to do with moral actions - ever heard of theft or embezzlement?

 

[Nuster]

Yes, they threw our community under the bus for $135000. I shouldn't have to explain this to a grown adult, but gaining money has nothing to do with moral actions - ever heard of theft or embezzlement?

Threw a community under the bus?
You qualify that as theft? You are quite amusing.

 

[Tim Major]

Yes, they threw our community under the bus for $135000. I shouldn't have to explain this to a grown adult, but gaining money has nothing to do with moral actions - ever heard of theft or embezzlement?

Except they didn't, they did more for speedcubing in the PUBLIC eye than you've ever done

 

[qqwref]

You qualify that as theft? You are quite amusing.

You misunderstand me - my point is that you can't argue that, because they came out financially ahead, they did the right thing.

Except they didn't, they did more for speedcubing in the PUBLIC eye than you've ever done

Frankly, I don't really care about getting more people into cubing at a very low level. People who learn a beginner's method and stop mean nothing to me. I'm only interested when someone gets fast or develops something new. And besides, what you saw was not "speedsolving", it was a magic trick claiming to be BLD solving.

 

[Nuster]

Frankly, I don't really care about getting more people into cubing at a very low level. People who learn a beginner's method and stop mean nothing to me. I'm only interested when someone gets fast or develops something new. And besides, what you saw was not "speedsolving", it was a magic trick claiming to be BLD solving.

But how can you get serious speedsolvers without first getting "more people into cubing at a very low level" first.
And like I said before, they never claimed to be solving it using a BLD method.
I understand the audience not knowing the difference between presentation cubing and competitive cubing, but shouldn't people here know better than to "get offended" by this?

 

[Tim Major]

Frankly, I don't really care about getting more people into cubing at a very low level. People who learn a beginner's method and stop mean nothing to me. I'm only interested when someone gets fast or develops something new. And besides, what you saw was not "speedsolving", it was a magic trick claiming to be BLD solving.

If you don't care about that why are you so outraged? This performance certainly won't decrease people getting fast or developing something new. It will even increase the amount of people getting fast and developing something new as people will likely develop interest in Rubik's cubes as a direct result

 

[Radu]

Hi all,

I will try to clarify some things as I was directly involved in thinking this number and helped the 3 guys all the way.

First of all when we registered for RgT we did this with the purpose of spreading our hobby around, which I consider we succeeded.

I see there is some debate about this number they did in the final and the “blindfolded solving abilities”. But before this I think you should know the bigger picture. 3 years ago, Cristian Leana (the guy with longer hair) went to RgT and got 3rd place with something including also BLD solving. It was a boom in speedcubing after that show and many newcomers appeared in our community. So people were already aware of real BLD solving as the guy was later invited in several shows, corporate events etc. and became quite known. Attendance at our WCA competitions increased a lot and people realized solving a cube blindfolded is actually possible, not fake.

After 3 years the 3 guys went now to promote cubing again in a TV Show, not a WCA competition. So I think we should get out a bit of the WCA Regulations mindset, because if we follow this judgment of prepared cubes you could say that also a hand scrambled cube that is solved BLD is fake… as it’s not WCA official and that they tricked the people. Btw. even the show producers made us some suggestions if they could do this or that because they wanted more spectacular things and some of the proposals seemed way more fake. Coming back to the final number: Everyone being aware of bld solving and maybe even bored of it they had to come up with something different. And actually it was quite hard to prepare the scene, all the 100 cubes without moving them and all the small details which seem so easy on youtube.

What makes the final number different and you don’t know was the message and the story that was told. A message that was spoken while they were solving and each finished the solve in a particular moment of the story that fit so well. The judges were almost crying in the end and this final number was not about bld skills as you all think, because they already knew about bld solving. Their number won because of the story, message about education and an emotional music cut that fit well.

What they explained in the beginning (because this seems to be very debated) is that no 2 cubes on the table are the same (which is true), solving 1 BLD is memorizing ~40 numbers (which again is true) and that the brain can memorize an impressive amount of information if numbers are grouped in patterns and in a certain order (which again is actually true to what they did). Their grouped the cubes in such a way they could recall any of them. They didn’t say once they memorized each cube, but only maybe left this illusion.

Again, that being said, the show was won mostly by emotions and story than their actual cubing skills. This was what moved the people. Only watching without understanding the number as a whole and paying attention only to the technical part is misleading in this case. The judges even said they don’t really care how they did this as it was such a beautiful presentation and nobody could have believed you can transmit emotions with a cube. They were almost crying after this number (without exagerating). So this is what actually made this number win, not what you think.

Yeah, I totally see the point of some of you, but I think you are a bit to extremist about this. It’s a TV show, not a WCA competition. It’s not like they got an unfair WR.

I hope this clarifies at least a bit of the debate.

Thank you,

Radu

PS – Martin (12), the little guy, started cubing after he saw Cristian in 2012. He is now the NR holder with 8.63s and 10.03 average.

 

[scylla]

Fantastic! They combined magic with cubing and did what other cubers didn't succeed in. Make it a show! That's why they win.

I wish I would had this idea before them

 

[bubbagrub]

These guys are not "nubs", they're extremely fast speed solvers who found a way to turn speedsolving into something that could win a nationally televised event. They staged an amazing, spectacular show using their (unquestionable, given the links Stefan provided) skills. They didn't (as far as I can tell) lie about what they were doing, they just did something that was different from the usual WCA events we're used to, and maybe used a bit of misdirection and clever tricks to change it from something that would impress us to something that would impress the general non-cubing public.

It's not clear to me how the "tricks" they use are inferior to the tricks BLD / MBLD solvers use in competitions: the latter are an accepted part of the process, designed to achieve optimal results in a pre-defined setting. Here, they had freedom to define the setting, and came up with the right set of tricks to make things work in that setting.

Surely it's also clear that this win in no way harms our community: I am pretty confident that there is no member of the public who saw that show and said to themselves "Hah! What a bunch of fakers. My respect for the speedcubing community is way down". It can only have had a positive effect, and should be, if you ask me, applauded.

 

[TimMc]

The judges were almost crying in the end and this final number was not about bld skills as you all think, because they already knew about bld solving. Their number won because of the story, message about education and an emotional music cut that fit well.

Thanks for sharing!

the show was won mostly by emotions and story than their actual cubing skills.

Emotional intelligence is a pretty good skill.

Tim.

 

[newtonbase]

I have to say that since the start if the thread my opinion has changed. I've been persuaded that the tricks used were reasonable given the circumstances and that the exposure is good for the community.

 

[Mollerz]

Thank you Radu for your insight, I hope everyone in this thread now understands.

 

[Stefan]

[plenty of background information]

Thanks a lot, that's good to know. I wish I understood Romanian and could experience it all myself

They didn't (as far as I can tell) lie about what they were doing

Not in the most direct way, apparently, but lies come in many forms.

It's not clear to me how the "tricks" they use are inferior to the tricks BLD / MBLD solvers use in competitions: the latter are an accepted part of the process, designed to achieve optimal results in a pre-defined setting.

What BLD/MBLD tricks are you talking about?

Surely it's also clear that this win in no way harms our community: I am pretty confident that there is no member of the public who saw that show and said to themselves "Hah! What a bunch of fakers. My respect for the speedcubing community is way down". It can only have had a positive effect

You must have missed the argument that fake solves can make real solves look bad in comparison. And did anyone here really claim the public would think something like "Hah! What a bunch of fakers. My respect for the speedcubing community is way down" or is that just a straw man you just made up?

 

[RB]

Radu,

Thanks for your post!

Is it also possible to make the video with full performance, with reaction of judges, and with English translation? (just captions)
This would help to better understand details of the show.

Just FYI:
in 2013 on Ukrainian Got Talented a Russian cuber made a similar show.

Before the final one of the judges said: "Solving a Rubik's Cube is not a talent. It's a skill".
But after the show he said, "you have a talent in memorizing", which was true as that cuber was in wca top-20 in mbld at that time.
Not knowing that, a lot of criticizing people were screaming "the talent was in cube solving, and no talents were demonstrated".

During the show, before the solves the cuber whispered solutions, like "B2 R2 L2 first on two layers then on three ones then triggers" for 7x7, but negative people again were screaming "He didn't say that he will be solving by triggers. It's cheating!!!" whereas everything was clear.

There were many other things that only Russian-speaking people could understand from that Ukrainian show, which is pretty sad. That's why it would be very great to see in all details what exactly was on your winning show.

Btw, the positive result on speedcubing popularity from ukrainian show was pretty much the same as after Cristian Leana's performance: Ukrainian speedcubing started blooming, sponsors came, good places were provided for wca competitions for free, and there were many other positive improvements. Now it's destroyed because of political changes in that country, but in 2013 growth was significant.
and I hope this victory on the show will cause speedcubing boom in Romania as well