[WCA Regulations 2012] Proposed: Alternative formats for 3x3x3 BLD

keyan said:
Or, much easier, you prevent it by not having a limit on total solve time. That way everyone solves all the scrambles without having to fake solves or whatever.

Note I never said I oppose five solves. I'm just saying that the people supporting five solves and saying it won't cause a time problem are using bad arguments. People saying five solves isn't a problem because you can use a broken system to limit the time it takes aren't actually helping their position. Better to mention benefits, more representative results with average three of five or median of five or whatever.
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Dude, have you been to a competition where the time limit was "X minutes, solved or not"?
That's really stupid if it even exists somewhere. To meet the time limit you obviously need to solve the damn cube.
In that sense, allowing best of 5 would not really harm the competition time, since most already have time limits for the first 1 or 2 attempts.

TimMc said:
An Average of 5 format would simply default back to what's essentially Best of 5 when everyone gets a DNF. Anyone who's accurate and fast enough would take the average.

Tim.
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What if not everyone gets a DNF? Say someone gets three WRs solves and someone else gets four 5-min solves. Who should win?
Being a bld solver I'd like the first one to win...
 
qqwref said:
I'd like to see an "average of 5" competition, with the single ranking taking precedence. So the winner is the person with the best single time, not the best average. It's equivalent to "best of 5" except that averages are also recorded, and average records can be set. This is better than "best of 5" because of the possibility of average records; it's also better than a pure "average of 5" because consistency is not required to do well, and a few DNFs won't destroy your chances at winning.

EDIT: Oh, and also, knocking someone out after one or two solves with this format wouldn't destroy their chances of getting ranked.
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I like that format. That seems to be good for everyone. Possibility of cutoff after about 2 solves keep the event about as managable as it is currently. Possibility to score an average is very cool (and competition are supposed to be cool). It is also very cool for fast bld solver to have 5 solves. Indeed, they are fast because they love the event and practice it a lot. In the end the fastest solve win, which make the most sense to me.
 
Would just like to register my vote. I would like best of 5 format. Let organizers worry about time limits. BLD is getting faster and taking less time to hold.

qqrefs idea is very cool. It would also be pretty emotional for people if they are on solve 5 and they have 4 successes already, and they are talking to their friends about how they might get an average. It sounds exciting.
 
RyanReese09 said:
qqrefs idea is very cool. It would also be pretty emotional for people if they are on solve 5 and they have 4 successes already, and they are talking to their friends about how they might get an average. It sounds exciting.
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Wait - if they already have 4 successes, they already have an average - the DNF gets thrown out as the high time. But it is true, and I do think it would be fun.

Most people who currently have a valid mean of 3 at 3x3x3 BLD in a competition are at least aware of that fact - it's fun to think you got them all right for a round. It would be nice to have that statistic on your personal page - what your average is. I also like qqwref's idea. Keep the focus exactly where it is now - the winner is always the person with the best single. But allow recorded averages, for statistical purposes - they're fun.
 
Pedro said:
What if not everyone gets a DNF? Say someone gets three WRs solves and someone else gets four 5-min solves. Who should win?
Being a bld solver I'd like the first one to win...
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They'd have the single WR solve once for that event and someone else would win the event with a 5-min average.

It'd be unlikely that someone would win with an average of 5-min if you enforce a cut-off of 2-5 minutes or a total time limit of 15 minutes for 5 solves to time-box the eventl.

Tim.
 
Pedro said:
What if not everyone gets a DNF? Say someone gets three WRs solves and someone else gets four 5-min solves. Who should win?
Being a bld solver I'd like the first one to win...
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Well, you can compare this to magic. You can have 3 WR solves and 2 DNFs, and you don't win. Nobody complains...

Btw I agree with the average of 5 format.
 
bamilan said:
Btw I agree with the average of 5 format.
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To make it clear, you mean that you agree to record average (and hence have a WR for it), but winner is still the fastest single? I really think that such format can work very well. In that case, I think regulation should states that organizers should decide before the event how many attempt everybody have (2 or 3) and what is the cutoff to beat in order to do all 5 solves.
 
Best of 2/Best of 5 is just a natural extension to Best of 2/Best of 3 consiering the enhanced speed that competitors have nowadays.

Best of 2/Average of 5 instead would change the whole nature of BLD events and because of this this seems like complete nonsense to me.

But: Just changing 9f6 seems very dangerous for me. This would allow to change the nature of other events. 3x3x3 could be hold as best of 5 for example, having as much attempts as usual but with a whole different rating. Or 7x7x7 could also be hold then with Best of 5 instead of Mean of 3 --> nonsense!
I propose to allow x <= 5 ONLY for events where Best of x ist the prefered format. (the prefered format for feet obviously and trivially needs to be changed.)
 
bamilan said:
Well, you can compare this to magic. You can have 3 WR solves and 2 DNFs, and you don't win. Nobody complains...
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As Kirjava already pointed out: It's much easier to DNF in BLD than it is in any other speed event.

But I'd also like to have averages for BLD (for obvious selfish reasons ^^ and imo it makes BLD more exciting).
 
A person who is good at blind shouldn't care about stuff like this. If competitor is really good, he can solve it whenever he wants.
Average of 5 would cause worse times, but podium would still remain the same.
Best of X is not really a good format, because the one who gets a really lucky scramble could break the world record, and in that round almost all the competitors get better results than usual.(2x2, pyra, blind, FMC)

In 1982 3x3 podium was ranked by the best of 3. Do you think this format would work nowdays? :O I don't because of lucks.
 
I don't care too much whether we get averages or not, but I'd just like to say that although lucky scrambles can make things awkward with regards to the world rankings etc, having averages would make podiums at a single comp too 'inaccurate'. As in, it wouldn't represent who's the best at that time. Imo a best of x format does give a good indication of who 'deserves' to win.

Remember, bld is different to other events in that you can, to an extent, choose how fast you go. And I think that gives it license to have a completely different format to other events while still being fair.
 
kinch2002 said:
I don't care too much whether we get averages or not, but I'd just like to say that although lucky scrambles can make things awkward with regards to the world rankings etc, having averages would make podiums at a single comp too 'inaccurate'. As in, it wouldn't represent who's the best at that time. Imo a best of x format does give a good indication of who 'deserves' to win.

Remember, bld is different to other events in that you can, to an extent, choose how fast you go. And I think that gives it license to have a completely different format to other events while still being fair.
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Anyone who can solve the cube blindfolded 4/5 deserves the win. The fastest from that group wins.
In blind you can choose between a fast solve and a safe solve. I don't believe if you memorize the cube for 6 minutes you wouldn't success.
 
bamilan said:
Anyone who can solve the cube blindfolded 4/5 deserves the win. The fastest from that group wins.
In blind you can choose between a fast solve and a safe solve. I don't believe if you memorize the cube for 6 minutes you wouldn't success.
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I'm curious - do you think you're capable of a successful average 98/100? (Meaning only one DNF out of 100.) I average about 85% on 3x3x3 BLD at home, but I'm not sure I could do a successful average 98/100, regardless of the time. If I did, I think I'd probably have to be pretty lucky. I think that up to one extra minute spent on memorizing and safe-solving a cube can really help my accuracy, but I'm not sure if it would get me all the way to 99% - I still make too many stupid mistakes (mostly execution mistakes). 6 minutes memorizing a cube wouldn't help any more than 2 minutes would - it would just give me more opportunity for my mind to drift and for me to mess up. Admittedly, 4/5 is much more attainable, though - I'd love having that be the goal. But I think you and I are very much in the minority favoring that approach; I've learned to live with the idea that most people are against it. It does seem like most of the really fast people are quite capable of 4/5, though, if they are going for accuracy over speed.

Anyway, while I acknowledge that there's almost no hope for your preferred format, I would love to have it be possible to get an average in BLD, even if it doesn't count for the winner. It would just be nice to have an average in the statistics.
 
I've stayed out of this average discussion until now, but I'd like to share my thoughts.

Do I think an average of 5 should be used for 3BLD? Yes, I do. However, not yet. I think the "top" blindfolded solvers are mostly missing one important factor, and that is accuracy (this is why I am so impressed when I see stats from people like Zane and Marcell; their accuracy is awesome!) I think the first stage of progress is to implement best of 5. You can't say that blindfolded solvers are accurate enough for an average in competition until they are doing 5 solves in a round, and it will be a while after best of 5 is implemented that the top solvers will be able to get 4 or 5 of those solves, and only after that (it will be an arbitrary point in time) should average be introduced to determine winners.

Some people have disagreed with me when I have said that accuracy is important, but this is why I don't consider myself "good" at big bld or multi -- I'm fast, but I am very far from accurate. I think accuracy is something not enough of us practise, and it's lagging behind speed, and I'll admit that I'm guilty of not training to increase my accuracy.

I agree with Mike, I would like to see an average for BLD introduced now, but only for statistics, not to determine winners (yet!)
 
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