World Championships 2011 Bangkok

Tim Major said:
He received two of the same scramble, he looked away so as not to cheat, and one of the two were scrambled. He finished a couple of minutes after Marcel, without the scramblers' mistake he would've held the world record for a few minutes.
Click to expand...

That's not how WRs work.

kinch2002 said:
- Sometimes you stop practising for a couple of weeks before a comp to get a better result (less pressure), but other times it takes 18 months for it to work (me in clock)?
Click to expand...

I've been not practicing for a while now but it hasn't done me any good yet :p
 
DYK:

-this is my first DYK in ages
-best comp ever
-I didn't make 3x3 finals because of nerves and 2 POPs in the semi final :(
-not to sound cocky but I could have easily become 2x2 world champion if I hadn't predicted the wrong PBL case on the 3rd solve :/
-I saw a 3 or 4 move OLL skip and thought the PBL was R2F2R2
-I got a 2.34 on my first retry which would have given me a 2.60 average
-nevertheless I got a 1.63 with the only EG I know on the second scramble
-the Baiyoke Boutique hotel sucked, hence we changed to the Sky hotel (which was awesome) after the first night
-I'm extremely bad at golf
-I tried like 3 hits and hurt my thumb on my 3rd try
-I got pretty anxious about that since it was right before 3x3 second round but it wasn't too bad
-Feliks, Simon and Breandan are pro at golf
-Breandan is "a really fussy eater"
-Piti lubes his cubes with hair gel
-his father gave us hair gel lube and it's actually pretty good (and smells good too ;))
-the judges' pronounciations of the competitors' names were hilarious:
-EWIK, BEN BALA, CONEELAHS
-one of the judges went around calling for the competitor "Megaminx" :D
(-she was mistakenly reading out the event name obviously)
-the venue had an outdoor observation deck on the 84th floor
-from up there we saw a housefire :/
-Thai food isn't for me (and I got the impression that a lot of other cubers were longing for some tourist-appropriate food as well :p)
-the breakfast at the 'cube canteen' was good
-but if you leave the table for only 10 seconds the waitresses take away everything that was on there
-I had to use three glasses for a 10 minute breakfast once
-Breandan broke the hotel
-therefore he owns it
-Faz and me got a 9.95 team step by step solve
-factory solving is awesome
-the person after Faz would always have 2-3 cubes waiting to be solved :D
-doing random colour crosses at factory solves is fun
-the cube canteen opened especially for us on Friday evening
-before that we (about 15 people) wandered around the hotel for about 20 minutes looking for a place to eat
-eventually we became less and less until Breandan and co. decided to get McDonald's :D
-the evenings were even more fun than the actual competition
-I was very happy throughout the 4 days (except for the post-3x3-semi-final moments :p)
-I got a 50.58 BLD solve beating Kai's NR by 3 seconds :)
-also a 54.xy afterwards
-I got 5th place with that which was surprising for me
-I BEAT AMOS
-at my first 4x4 BLD solve my judge decided to stop the stopwatch when I had finished memo >_>
-it was a success...
-when I looked at the time and it said 8:49 I immediatly knew something was wrong
-I was given an extra attempt which I DNF'd
-I was pretty annoyed at how uneducated some of the judges were (e.g. my cube was one turn off and the judge wrote DNF or I got a 5:06.xy 7x7 solve and the judge wrote 5.06)
-it got better as the competitions proceeded
-Ethan and I traded Zhanchis
-I somehow got 2nd at Magic in spite of me not even owning one, let alone having practiced for more than a year
-Henrik was so happy about his feet win :)
-Michal is a beast that doesn't have nevers :p
-I feel kind of bad for Faz because the astonishing applause must have hugely unnerved him
-I'm happy for Michal and LOW HESSURA!
-Dan and Rowe didn't even make 2x2 finals
-Rowe was really tired all Saturday (before 2x2 first round: "I wanna go back to bed")
-Sébastien won FMC!!
-I got a 37 which is OK
-I missed the OH NR single by 0.05 and the average by 0.3 seconds >:|
-I'm still happy I got sub-17 avg
-the whole competition was televised in the local hotel TV and could be viewed in every single room of the hotel (same as the livestream)
-Mats is really good at 4x4
-he tied my single with a 7.52 non-lucky
-I beat his PB average by 0.01 :D (with 9.08)
-I thought it was 9.09 so I told him "I tied your avg!"; when it turned out that it was actually 9.08 he called me a liar the entire day :p
-Chris Hardwick is awesome
-we made a ~3.5m high cube mosaic of the hotel
-when I first saw the mosaic of Stefan Pochmann I thought it was Steve Jobs
-Aussi accent is funny "he's having a bear", "Fayliks"
-5x5 final was epic but I missed most of it because I was busy being upset about not making 3x3 final
-the only thing I filmed was 4x4 final which I know regret
-I'd really like to have some footage of me solving but apparently noone recorded me
-Breandan can juggle really well
-one of his balls, PUN INTENDED, got stuck in the ceiling
-Piti's father gave me a cube bag
-Erik failed :(
-so did many others like Piti and Breandan
-Hays is really unlucky
-he turns ridiculously fast on big cubes
-his 6x6 exploded when during scrambling in the 6x6 final
-it exploded on his last turn of his final solve :(
-Arnaud was a really good (and funny) announcer
-the youngest competitor was cute :3
-her inspection consisted of: x x
-she then used the first ~3 seconds of her solve to inspect :D
-Australia now has two persons that have done sub-10 in competition
-Feliks brought TimTams
-they're good.
-I got 5/5 in multi!
-execution took me like 17 minutes because on two cubes I had to un- and redo almost all of the edges and also guess something
-I was very surprised when I opened my eyes and had solved all five cubes
-for the entire competition weekend I only left the hotel once or twice
-on Thursday it took me a while to figure out that "Fren Fied" was supposed to be french fries :D
-Rowe tried to seduce Feliks to a beer :D
-the farthest he got was taking a picture of him holding one
-Zane is crazy good at Multi and 3BLD
-I'm happy for his win
-I liked the 3x3 final format
-overall I'm pretty happy with my results, though not making 3x3 final being a drop of bitterness
-even though I don't really care about magic it's still nice to have a trophy :p
-this was one of the best weekends in my life
-I wish the competition hadn't gone by so quickly
-it was incredibly awesome and fun to meet so many great people at the biggest cube gathering of all time
-the organisers did a very good job which I am thanking them for
-I really hope to see everyone again in two years
-AWESOME!


AnXdN.jpg
......
HeZa5.jpg

Breandan about to break the hotel....... Jeremy and Feliks playing golf.
 
Last edited:
Yes said:
DYK:

-this is my first DYK in ages
-best comp ever
-I didn't make 3x3 finals because of nerves and 2 POPs in the semi final :(
-not to sound cocky but I could have easily become 2x2 world champion if I hadn't predicted the wrong PBL case on the 3rd solve :/
-I saw a 3 or 4 move OLL skip and thought the PBL was R2F2R2
-I got a 2.34 on my first retry which would have given me a 2.68 average
-nevertheless I got a 1.63 with the only EG I know on the second scramble
-the Baiyoke Boutique hotel sucked, hence we changed to the Sky hotel (which was awesome) after the first night
-I'm extremely bad at golf
-I tried like 3 hits and hurt my thumb on my 3rd try
-I got pretty anxious about that since it was right before 3x3 second round but it wasn't too bad
-Feliks, Simon and Breandan are pro at golf
-Breandan is "a really fussy eater"
-Piti lubes his cubes with hair gel
-his father gave us hair gel lube and it's actually pretty good (and smells good too ;))
-the judges' pronounciations of the competitors' names were hilarious:
-EWIK, BEN BALA, CONEELAHS
-one of the judges went around calling for the competitor "Megaminx" :D
(-she was mistakenly reading out the event name obviously)
-the venue had an outdoor observation deck on the 84th floor
-from up there we saw a housefire :/
-Thai food isn't for me (and I got the impression that a lot of other cubers were longing for some tourist-appropriate food as well :p)
-the breakfast at the 'cube canteen' was good
-but if you leave the table for only 10 seconds the waitresses take away everything that was on there
-I had to use three glasses for a 10 minute breakfast once
-Breandan broke the hotel
-therefore he owns it
-Faz and me got a 9.95 team step by step solve
-factory solving is awesome
-the person after Faz would always have 2-3 cubes waiting to be solved :D
-doing random colour crosses at factory solves is fun
-the cube canteen opened especially for us on Friday evening
-before that we (about 15 people) wandered around the hotel for about 20 minutes looking for a place to eat
-eventually we became less and less until Breandan and co. decided to get McDonald's :D
-the evenings were even more fun than the actual competition
-I was very happy throughout the 4 days (except for the post-3x3-semi-final moments :p)
-I got a 50.58 BLD solve beating Kai's NR by 3 seconds :)
-also a 54.xy afterwards
-I got 5th place with that which was surprising for me
-I BEAT AMOS
-at my first 4x4 BLD solve my judge decided to stop the stopwatch when I had finished memo >_>
-it was a success...
-when I looked at the time and it said 8:49 I immediatly knew something was wrong
-I was given an extra attempt which I DNF'd
-I was pretty annoyed at how uneducated some of the judges were (e.g. my cube was one turn off and the judge wrote DNF or I got a 5:06.xy 7x7 solve and the judge wrote 5.06)
-it got better as the competitions proceeded
-Ethan and I traded Zhanchis
-I somehow got 2nd at Magic in spite of me not even owning one, let alone having practiced for more than a year
-Henrik was so happy about his feet win :)
-Michal is a beast that doesn't have nevers :p
-I feel kind of bad for Faz because the astonishing applause must have hugely unnerved him
-I'm happy for Michal and LOW HESSURA!
-Dan and Rowe didn't even make 2x2 finals
-Rowe was really tired all Saturday (before 2x2 first round: "I wanna go back to bed")
-Sébastien won FMC!!
-I got a 37 which is OK
-I missed the OH NR single by 0.05 and the average by 0.3 seconds >:|
-I'm still happy I got sub-17 avg
-the whole competition was televised in the local hotel TV and could be viewed in every single room of the hotel (same as the livestream)
-Mats is really good at 4x4
-he tied my single with a 7.52 non-lucky
-I beat his PB average by 0.01 :D (with 9.08)
-I thought it was 9.09 so I told him "I tied your avg!"; when it turned out that it was actually 9.08 he called me a liar the entire day :p
-Chris Hardwick is awesome
-we made a ~3.5m high cube mosaic of the hotel
-when I first saw the mosaic of Stefan Pochmann I thought it was Steve Jobs
-Aussi accent is funny "he's having a bear", "Fayliks"
-5x5 final was epic but I missed most of it because I was busy being upset about not making 3x3 final
-the only thing I filmed was 4x4 final which I know regret
-I'd really like to have some footage of me solving but apparently noone recorded me
-Breandan can juggle really well
-one of his balls, PUN INTENDED, got stuck in the ceiling
-Piti's father gave me a cube bag
-Erik failed :(
-so did many others like Piti and Breandan
-Hays is really unlucky
-he turns ridiculously fast on big cubes
-his 6x6 exploded when during scrambling in the 6x6 final
-it exploded on his last turn of his final solve :(
-Arnaud was a really good (and funny) announcer
-the youngest competitor was cute :3
-her inspection consisted of: x x
-she then used the first ~3 seconds of her solve to inspect :D
-Australia now has two persons that have done sub-10 in competition
-Feliks brought TimTams
-they're good.
-I got 5/5 in multi!
-execution took me like 17 minutes because on two cubes I had to un- and redo almost all of the edges and also guess something
-I was very surprised when I opened my eyes and had solved all five cubes
-for the entire competition weekend I only left the hotel once or twice
-on Thursday it took me a while to figure out that "Fren Fied" was supposed to be french fries :D
-Rowe tried to seduce Feliks to a beer :D
-the farthest he got was taking a picture of him holding one
-Zane is crazy good at Multi and 3BLD
-I'm happy for his win
-I liked the 3x3 final format
-overall I'm pretty happy with my results, though not making 3x3 final being a drop of bitterness
-even though I don't really care about magic it's still nice to have a trophy :p
-this was one of the best weekends in my life
-I wish the competition hadn't gone by so quickly
-it was incredibly awesome and fun to meet so many great people at the biggest cube gathering of all time
-the organisers did a very good job which I am thanking them for
-I really hope to see everyone again in two years
-AWESOME!


0WMDQT9ERR.jpg
......
7ZRU2ZYU0L.jpg

Breandan about to break the hotel....... Jeremy and Feliks playing golf.
Click to expand...

Most Thais lube their cubes with hair gel + Jeremy as well lol
 
Kind of late, but...
-Australia now has 2 people in 3x3 average top 100
-Australia had 3 people in the 2x2 finals, the most out of any country, even though only 6 Australians went
-Me and Mats Valk did over 150 2x2 solves/races when warming up for the 2x2 first round
-And we ended up top 2 in that round
-Faz also joined in for some of it
-At one point I was racing Mats at 3x3, even though he is 5-6s faster than me
-Erik told me to make sure I dried my hands properly
-I didn't leave the hotel for 3 days
-The after party was weird
-Me and Kirt started having dinner at Sky Coffee, then Kevin Hays, Daniel Sheppard, Zane Carney, Simon Westlund and Tim Major ended up coming
-I missed the 5x5 finals, which apparently was one of the most exciting rounds of cubing ever
-I did FMC, and had 4 corners left after 27 moves. I ended up half guessing a long way to solve them, and knew I would get a DNF, but apparently it was only a DNF by 1 move
-I usually use CFOP/FreeFOP for FMC
-On the day trip on Monday, me and Ethan Crislip started doing teamBLD, and got down to 31.10
-They told me to go to bus 2, so I did, but apparently they were looking for me on another bus
 
Last edited:
Worlds was so awesome! I'm still working on publishing pictures, I have a ton! I also took a number of videos of feet cubing and square-1. I'll update again in this thread once I have them all posted. I had such a fun time seeing old friends again, as well as meeting so many new cubers! I can't wait for Worlds 2013! :D

----------

On a bit of a self serving note Full Sail University, the school where I teach, sponsored me for about half my trip costs. They wrote an article about me on the school news site, Propeller. I think you have to be connected via the school network to see it, but you might still be able to view it.

Here's the link

If that doesn't work then here is the text of the article:
Meet Full Sail's Blindfold 'Speedcubing' World Champ!

Thursday, October 27, 2011; Last Updated: 12:01 PM EDT (12:01 GMT)

Since its debut in 1980, there have been many variations of the traditional 3x3 Rubik's Cube, like the Megaminx, above center.
"It takes about an hour to learn and about a day through practicing to get it down."
Full Sail math teacher Chris Hardwick, on learning the basic technique to solve the Rubik's Cube
Discussion What is your talent?
Want to learn speedcubing and compete in a competition? Join Full Sail’s Rubik’s Cube Group!

Full Sail faculty members have distinguished themselves in many areas of media and entertainment. They’ve won film festivals and design competitions, and have been credited on blockbuster film, games and albums.

Now Full Sail can boast of its own Rubik’s Cube world champion! Math teacher Chris Hardwick became the world champion for blindfolded 5x5 cube solving in Bangkok, Thailand this month at the 2011 World Rubik’s Cube Championship.

Hardwick competed against as many as 366 champion “cubers” from at least 39 countries Oct. 14-16. His time for a blindfolded solve of a 5x5 Rubik’s Cube (also called the “professor’s cube”) was 15 minutes, 6 seconds, making him the reigning world champion in that event.

While solving a Rubik’s Cube blind might seem an impossible task, Hardwick explained that cubers first spend a minute or two studying the cube, during which time they visualize and memorize the moves they will make to solve the cube. Then the blindfold goes on, and the cuber has to remember each move to solve the puzzle. (Watch Hardwick's video demonstration with a standard 3x3 cube, below!)



“The world record for this event is 9 minutes, 48.58 seconds,” said Hardwick. “My time was quite a bit slower than the world record, but it was the fastest in the competition and good enough for first place.”

Hardwick came in 2nd place in the 4x4 blindfolded competition with a time of 6 minutes, 9.85 seconds.

The top three winners in each competitive event earn trophies and prize money. “The combined prize money that I won for both events was 825 euros, which is almost enough to pay for my plane ticket!” Hardwick said, laughing. “But I was very excited for the placement.”

The World Rubik’s Cube Championship takes place every other year and there have been five years competitions since its inception. Hardwick has competed in four of them. This is his third world champion title. Stateside, he holds the North American records for both the 4x4 blindfolded and 5x5 blindfolded events. He has also held eight national titles and set 16 world records.

While Hardwick is clearly gifted in his puzzle solving abilities and spatial skills, he will openly tell you that he didn’t initially solve a Rubik’s Cube without help. In fact, Hardwick wants people to know that the technique of solving a Rubik’s Cube is something that most people can learn.

Hardwick first got into cubing during the summer before his freshman year of high school year.

“I had a cube in a closet, basically. I just found it one day, and I was like, ‘I want to learn how to do that.’ I tried for about a week to figure it out, and I got one side, and that was about it,” said Hardwick.

Then he found an online video on the basic technique of Rubik’s Cube solving, and he was hooked. The secret is solving in ‘layers’, Hardwick says.

“It takes about an hour to learn and about a day through practicing to get it down,” said Hardwick. “After about a day, no matter how scrambled it gets, you can solve it. Some of the configurations are more difficult because they are more scrambled than others, but you can solve any one of them basically after about a day of practice.”



Hardwick likes sharing the secret to solving the puzzle, and he is the faculty advisor for Full Sail’s Rubik’s Cube Group. Although the club has been in hiatus for a few months, Hardwick said he is about to start scheduling regular club meetings again. (Contact [email protected]).

Last year, Hardwick and the club sponsored an official Rubik’s Cube competition on campus, and he plans to do the same in early 2012.

“People who compete will get ranked on the official tournament lists and everything, and they’ll have a world rank and a national rank. I want to set one up again for sometime next March,” said Hardwick. “If I can get more people to join the club, that’s awesome.”

And if you want to learn to solve the Rubik’s Cube, who wouldn’t want to learn from a world champion?

Want to learn to solve the Rubik’s Cube? Hardwick recommends:
Dan Brown’s How to Solve a Rubik’s Cube on YouTube
Speedsolving.com

To learn to solve blindfolded, check out Hardwick’s page on Speedcubing.com!

- Christine Janesko
 
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