[WCA Regulations 2012] Proposed New Event: Skewb

[Carrot]

How is it incorrect, I tought my friend how to solve magic in 7 minutes.

7 minutes? Either you are a bad teacher or your friend is incapable of learning it took me less than a minute to learn magic and master magic.

 

[tx789]

IF skewb was offical more people would do and practice

 

[Hershey]

Because they require no skill.

I don't like rubik's magic, but if they require no skill then upload a video of a sub 1 magic average tomorrow. Can't do it? Exactly my point.

 

[Cheese11]

7 minutes? Either you are a bad teacher or your friend is incapable of learning it took me less than a minute to learn magic and master magic.

I'm a bad teacher.

 

[Cheese11]

I don't like rubik's magic, but if they require no skill then upload a video of a sub 1 magic average tomorrow. Can't do it? Exactly my point.

By no skill, I meant that it requires no thinking.

 

[uberCuber]

By no skill, I meant that it requires no thinking.

I hope you realize how big the difference is between those two words.

 

[tx789]

magic is the same thing over and over so it is so easy to learn you sort of need to think and remember the method. Skewb is a twisty puzzle

 

[Dene]

magic is the same thing over and over so it is so easy to learn you sort of need to think and remember the method. Skewb is a twisty puzzle

Magic is a twisty puzzle. And magic is only the same thing over and over because that's how we do it in the WCA. What I don't understand is the point you're trying to make.

 

[Kirjava]

What I don't understand is the point you're trying to make.

That Skewb is a more legitimate event to have than Magic.

 

[Escher]

I'm still waiting for someone to give a reason rather than an opinion towards not having Skewb. If nobody can actually produce one then we should just /thread and let the actual discussion of implementation start on the WCA forums.

 

[kinch2002]

I'm still waiting for someone to give a reason rather than an opinion towards not having Skewb. If nobody can actually produce one then we should just /thread and let the actual discussion of implementation start on the WCA forums.

Not saying I agree with this one, but here's a possible reason someone might come up with: There's already too many official events. Organisers sometimes feel pressure to hold as many events as possible/all of them so this would make matters worse. Also, continentals/worlds will always have all official events so it definitely puts strain on them.
Anybody got thoughts on whether there are enough/too many events?

 

[Dene]

That Skewb is a more legitimate event to have than Magic.

Now that really is a silly point to make - no one in their right mind would object to that.

I'm still waiting for someone to give a reason rather than an opinion towards not having Skewb. If nobody can actually produce one then we should just /thread and let the actual discussion of implementation start on the WCA forums.

I gave a reason, feel free to address it. (To make it easy for you, I basically said that skewb is just another quick and easy event that does not contribute to what should be a competitive spirit in competition).

 

[Escher]

I gave a reason, feel free to address it. (To make it easy for you, I basically said that skewb is just another quick and easy event that does not contribute to what should be a competitive spirit in competition).

"rather than an opinion"

I'm pretty sure you don't know how to solve a Skewb (and I'm 100% you aren't fast at it) so I don't see how you can think it's easy in the first place. 3x3 is also quick and easy.

I don't really know what you mean by 'competitive spirit'. Like everything apart from magic, it's 'fun' and requires skill to get to a 'competitive' level. The fact that it takes a short amount of time for the fast people only supports the inclusion argument, since it stresses time constraints less than other events that there is a desire for (such as team BLD).


@Dan: simple, get rid of clock

 

[Dene]

"rather than an opinion"

I'm pretty sure you don't know how to solve a Skewb (and I'm 100% you aren't fast at it) so I don't see how you can think it's easy in the first place. 3x3 is also quick and easy.

I don't really know what you mean by 'competitive spirit'. Like everything apart from magic, it's 'fun' and requires skill to get to a 'competitive' level. The fact that it takes a short amount of time for the fast people only supports the inclusion argument, since it stresses time constraints less than other events that there is a desire for (such as team BLD).

If you classify that as an opinion rather than a reason then I fear that I could never actually come up with a reason rather than an opinion.

I cannot off the top of my head solve a skewb, however the only time I have ever encountered a skewb I looked up a 4 minute tutorial on youtube and learnt how to solve it in that 4 minute period. I played with it for a bit, realised how stupid it was, and decided I had absolutely no interest in playing with one ever again.

By competitive spirit I mean creating some sort of competition, something challenging and not something that will turn into another joke fest. I already talked about this, I don't feel like repeating myself.

I'm not exactly sure on this "inclusion argument" that you mention, but if I'm getting the gist of it correctly, you're saying we should include things that take less time, but I don't see any particular reason to support that reasoning. Please correct me if I'm way off.

 

[Kirjava]

I'm getting sick of these "Skewb shouldn't be an event because I think it's stupid" posts.

 

[MaeLSTRoM]

By competitive spirit I mean creating some sort of competition, something challenging and not something that will turn into another joke fest. I already talked about this, I don't feel like repeating myself.

To be quite honest, skewb is more of a competitive event than feet and magics, and also all of what you have posted is opinions, and are not particularly relevant to this discussion.
To re-iterate:

This discussion is meant to be serious and useful. Posts construed as silly, inane, or similar will be moderated and dealt with harshly. Please post both constructively and respectfully.

 

[JustinJ]

I might even say it's worse than 2x2 in how often lucky/easy things happen. I haven't worked out the odds, but I've had entire averages of 5 that consisted of 'lucky' solves and really inconsistent averages of 12 for the same reason.

I don't think enough people have addressed this. If the difficulty of scrambles is so inconsistent that it's possible to get multiple significantly lucky solves in a row, there's no doubt in my mind that the WR average will eventually get to a point where it can only be set by getting extremely lucky scrambles.

 

[Kirjava]

I don't think enough people have addressed this. If the difficulty of scrambles is so inconsistent that it's possible to get multiple significantly lucky solves in a row, there's no doubt in my mind that the WR average will eventually get to a point where it can only be set by getting extremely lucky scrambles.

Once the FMC WR is sub20, it will be impossible to beat it in certain rounds.

WR averages already expect to be set with 'easy' scrambles.

 

[JustinJ]

Once the FMC WR is sub20, it may not even be possible to beat it in certain rounds.

WR averages already expect to be set with 'easy' scrambles.

And you don't think that that's a problem?

For the majority of events, you can't objectively say that it's impossible to beat the WR average on a random set of scrambles. The only ones I would argue you could are 2x2, pyraminx, and eventually FMC. This seems to me a major issue, and is something that should be avoided if possible.

Not to mention, one of the main arguments people were making earlier is that it will always require skill to set the WR, and based on Kris' post, I'm not really convinced of that.

I think it should also be considered that since tps is so low on skewb, having a short case as opposed to a long one makes a much more significant difference than it does in other puzzles.

 

[Escher]

And you don't think that that's a problem?

For the majority of events, you can't objectively say that it's impossible to beat the WR average on a random set of scrambles. The only ones I would argue you could are 2x2, pyraminx, and eventually FMC. This seems to me a major issue, and is something that should be avoided if possible.

Not to mention, one of the main arguments people were making earlier is that it will always require skill to set the WR, and based on Kris' post, I'm not really convinced of that.

I think it should also be considered that since tps is so low on skewb, having a short case as opposed to a long one makes a much more significant difference than it does in other puzzles.

I don't know enough about Skewb but I imagine the results will look like 2x2 a year or so from now - the top people are at the top, with a few people getting lucky and entering the top 20. It's worth mentioning that it's still young and will be subject to a lot of development so I'm sure there is a lot to be discovered in terms of alternate methods and optimisations, enough so that even with the same set of scrambles most other competitors would not see the sophisticated solutions.

Given the current format, 3x3, SQ-1, and clock will also be subject to freak case variance and probably near-impossible WRs in the near future. In my opinion the WCA should be looking towards extending the avg5 format for short/fast puzzles like these in the next few years...