Old magic winner

[xchiltonx]

Hi there,
It's 2am here so I'll be short. I'm from the UK and now live in France.
I was into the cube at an early age, after that I got the ball, pyramid, 2x2 and so on as presents for birthdays and christmas. (Even now my wife and family still buy me all sorts of ones.)

Back in 1987 I won the Rubik Magic competition for Yorkshire, 0.78s and competed in the UK finals where I messed it up and got 3s :'( I still have my cup, but not the "Get Fresh" tv appearance... Anyway my family and I got an exciting trip to London.

I get an average of 2mins, using the old method that I learnt as a child.
I always imagined that the sub-20s were some super weird method and never got into it. Recently my child minder's 14 year old said that his mate was doing it in 1:30, so I thought that it was about time to improve

Hence my very first question
http://www.speedsolving.com/forum/showthread.php?p=94376 on my old 3x3 method on the last layer that I learnt in the early 80's

 

[joey]

Bonjour Mate!
How long have you been living in france?

If you were to enter competiton, would you represent france or england? If the latter, I welcome the newest UK forum member

 

[CharlieCooper]

hello!

firstly, magic. awesome. you will swipe the uk record from me, no problem

where do you live in france? i think you should represent the uk in any case... because... it's always nice to have more cubers from the uk

if you have time, you should put some videos on youtube

 

[Jason]

Great, I'm a UK cuber living in France too. whereabouts do you live?

 

[AvGalen]

Back in 1987 I won the Rubik Magic competition for Yorkshire, 0.78s

Are you saying that you solved the Magic in 0.78 21 years ago?

 

[xchiltonx]

hello all, very nice to get some interest.
I live in the south of France near Toulouse, and I've been in France for 7.5 years.
I'd of course represent England, that it unless the rules would go against it or if the uk players are too good

In reply to

Are you saying that you solved the Magic in 0.78 21 years ago?

yes 0.78 of a second, I think I once got less but it was a fluke.
I think I averaged sub-1s. I was 16years old at the time... (yes that makes me 37 now).
I don't have a magic left, I guess they all got bust. I'll have to buy one and see what my time is
I still have my original 2x6 Rubiks magic master that they gave us there, it was several months before they were available in the shops. I think that with the Master I'd get sub-5sec (but I've no idea of the exact number).
Oh yes and I still have my old one I made it was 2x12 (the length of 2 magics). I did a photo copy (b&w) of the magics and coloured them in in felt tip. Of course I put my own signature instead of E.Rubik's

 

[CharlieCooper]

:O if you have any of that skill on magic going, you need to get yourself to a competition ASAP. 0.84 is the single wr, and 0.96 the average. it seems like you at least *were* up there

 

[AvGalen]

If you somehow could get your hands on a Magic, could you post your method? I can't imagine how to get those times without the Jaap-method and I don't think that was discovered untill the cube revival of 2003

I have only seen 1 person that got a sub 0.78 ever: http://www.speedsolving.com/forum/showthread.php?t=6865

 

[Bryan]

What was the timing procedure like back then?

 

[xchiltonx]

Ha ha... timing procedure??? someone had a stopwatch

Hey Jaap, that's my method Jaap says he saw it on tv but I can guarantee that this method was out very early. Yes it was the twist and flip all in one go. We were about 12 teenagers in total and everyone was doing the twist way, and if they weren't then they soon picked it up. The boy who won it got like 1.5s he was not one of the fastest in the group, but he had his mother molly-coddling him, and wearing that coat on a cold day obveously paid off :'(

Right that's it! My Christmas list is done, a timer and a magic!!!
Couple of questions:
1.Is it an official WR when you video it?
2.I remember that new ones were always crispy and you'd have to break them in. In the Championships are they always brand new puzzles?
3.and do you only get one go?

 

[CharlieCooper]

1. no you can only get a record by going to an official competition. there is a single record and an average record for each puzzle.
2. no they aren't new puzzles, you use your own but there are standards that puzzles have to meet, you should check the wca rules (www.worldcubeassociation.org)
3. means and averages are taken for most puzzles (although sometimes there is a time limit for some puzzles, i,e. 5x5, and if you are slower than a certain time, you do a best of 2 and do not gain an average. i think this is for time management reasons) . for magic it is usually an average of 5 though.


edit: you may want to consider getting a stackmat... which is like a mat that is used for both speedstacking and cubing. for magic official solves you have to solve from a mat like this, so it might be useful to practice picking up and putting the puzzle down on this surface. there are also rules about how to stop and start the timer to ensure fairness.

 

[xchiltonx]

Wow that's a lot of rules, thanks.
It's better to do several goes as you may just mess up due to nerves or just get unlucky.
I'll check out those standards, thanks

 

[Boopyman]

xchiltonx, could you tell me where you live close to Toulouse? My dad is originally from there and we have a country house by Albi.

 

[xchiltonx]

Boopyman - you're on the same side of Toulouse as me, I live just off of the N126 that runs between Castres and Toulouse, are you visiting at any time soon?
Jason - Where do you live?

 

[CharlieCooper]

n.b. my family live in the north west. dinard/st malo region. if anyone happens to be in those parts any time soon...

 

[xchiltonx]

CC - I went to St.Malo few years ago after the Franz Ferdinand concert in Rennes, nice beach there. Isn't it the place that has the weird things sticking out of the sand???

 

[Boopyman]

xchiltonx, I am coming at christmas.

 

[brunson]

hello all, very nice to get some interest.
I live in the south of France near Toulouse, and I've been in France for 7.5 years.
I'd of course represent England, that it unless the rules would go against it or if the uk players are too good

Having grown up in the UK as a US military brat, I have a great, great love for the British people, but considering the French competition (Eduard Chambon, Jean Pons, Benjamin Sintes, Thibadot Jacquinot, and (come on), Gilles Roux himself!?!), I think it'd be best to compete as an Englishman as long as you're still a citizen. ;-)

Don't get me wrong, Dan Harris is a great, great cuber and you have plenty of other amazing competition from the Isles, but the French really seem to have a penchant for this cubing thing.

Which brings to conjecture a new analysis. National records held by population. Once again, Erik A, by virtue of being a mutant from a small country, will totally skew first place, but I'm putting a bounty on his head so that may not be an issue for long. ;-)

 

[AvGalen]

It's true that the French have many great cubers, but you will have a tough time beating Breandan Vallance.

And Erik A is not the only mutant from that small country. What about Joël van Noort, Rama Temmink, Ron van Bruchem and kid-mutant Mats Valk?
(I am simply skipping other (previous) WR-holders like Jaap Scherphuis, Alexander Ooms and Guus Razoux Schultz)

 

[xchiltonx]

Here's my old cup entitled

Rubik's Magic
National Challenge 1987
Runner-up

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