[Official] 0.86 Magic Single

[BlueDevil]

What if this was WR? Would that change your opinion?

Probably, but the thing that I am mostly stuck with is how to deal with other top solves that should have been +2s. It's a tricky situation because we don't know about those other solves.
I don't know how to deal with it, and I guess that is a decision for WCA board members.

Do you truly think that that is the justification people are using in this thread?

You know what, just +2 him then. He would still have a .90 single. There are still plenty of people who have gotten away with improperly stopping the timer, and there is no way to do anything about that. It's obvious that action needs to be taken with this issue, and if giving him a 2.86 is what it takes to get it started, then so be it.

 

[mitch1234]

Ravi is going to look into the solve, currently his decision is more powerful then all of yours. I feel that he is leaning towards no penalty because at the angle the timer stopping does look bad but at his POV angle the solve looked good. We must wait on his decision to take further action.

 

[cubernya]

Doesn't the WCA not accept video evidence though?

11f) The main judge and WCA delegate must not support their decisions with video or photograph analysis.

They do. It's all in the context that you left out though. It is only under incidents, such as a power failure

 

[kinch2002]

No, because it will be hard to tell if a competitor stops timer holding a puzzle in hands or not.

This is the reason I think the regulation should be 'fingers' rather than hands. The start of the solve must be with fingers (according to the regs), so why not make the end of the solve the same?

 

[Ranzha]

About "hands flat", his hands were indeed flat, and his palms were certainly not facing up.

Can we just /thread?

 

[Ravi]

Sorry for joining the conversation late, everyone--I've been busy lately. As the judge for this particular solve (and as one of the organizers of the competition), it seems appropriate for me to offer some kind of comment on this solve.

Some people in this thread have pointed out that I had a better viewpoint than the camera that recorded this video. While true in one sense, one could also say that I had a much worse viewpoint, since I did not have the luxury of frame-by-frame analysis. However, from seeing the solve both in real life and in the video (including stepping through frames), I've reached more or less the same conclusion: while it appears close, I don't see any clear enough violations to call it a penalty. I basically agree with what Patrick said:

Flat is both pretty subjective and incredibly hard to judge in real time. His hands are more flat in some frames than others.

That's about all I have to say as the judge. Even if I did see a penalty in the video, Article 11 would prohibit me from overturning my decision on that basis--as I understand it, only the WCA Board (per regulation 8f) is allowed to do that. I believe I made the most correct decision I could based on what I saw, but that's really all a judge can do. I don't know how the WCA Board makes decisions on things like this, since the regulations don't go any further than Articles 11 and 8f, but if it's decided that I made the wrong call (which is possible) then I suppose the result will be changed. From a judging perspective, I feel that it's out of my hands.

I've also been asked to comment as a member of the organization team. I think there isn't much to add. Enforcement of the regulations isn't in the organizer's jurisdiction. I'll definitely remember to be more careful about finding experienced judges for Magic next time (admittedly, a lot of people around here know more about Magic than I do), but anything beyond that is the delegate's business.

I do have a few thoughts I'd like to share about this incident purely as a community member--assuming I find time--but I'll leave those for another post.

 

[onlyleftname]

They don't really look flat to me:

EDIT: Although after looking at some other frames, his hands are definitely not touching the puzzle.

 

[qqwref]

Wait a minute. We want the hands to be totally flat, with the magic on the mat and palms on the timer... during a particular 1/30th of a second interval... but the hands may not be touching the puzzle. I think by interpreting the regulations this harshly we are basically asking for something that is impossible to do consistently, if at all.

The real problem here is that the puzzle is flat, which means that in a normal timer-stopping posture you will be almost touching the puzzle anyway. Maybe we should consider removing the event for that reason alone - unlike the cube puzzles, it's impossible for the judge to really verify that everything was proper, and it's also impossible for a competitor to properly do it. In fact, it looks like Mitchell was raising his fingers specifically to avoid being too close to the puzzle when the timer is stopped. In all the competitions I've been to, the rule has pretty much been that nobody got a +2 or DNF for their solving style unless it was blatant - stopping the timer while clearly holding the puzzle, stopping with a karate chop, having part of the puzzle folded over, and so on. The regulations need to reflect this, or else they are unreasonable.

 

[Bob]

Wait a minute. We want the hands to be totally flat, with the magic on the mat and palms on the timer... during a particular 1/30th of a second interval... but the hands may not be touching the puzzle. I think by interpreting the regulations this harshly we are basically asking for something that is impossible to do consistently, if at all.

The real problem here is that the puzzle is flat, which means that in a normal timer-stopping posture you will be almost touching the puzzle anyway. Maybe we should consider removing the event for that reason alone - unlike the cube puzzles, it's impossible for the judge to really verify that everything was proper, and it's also impossible for a competitor to properly do it. In fact, it looks like Mitchell was raising his fingers specifically to avoid being too close to the puzzle when the timer is stopped. In all the competitions I've been to, the rule has pretty much been that nobody got a +2 or DNF for their solving style unless it was blatant - stopping the timer while clearly holding the puzzle, stopping with a karate chop, having part of the puzzle folded over, and so on. The regulations need to reflect this, or else they are unreasonable.

I agree the regulations are flawed here. There was a time when it was not ambiguous because people stopped the timer in a manner in which it was very clear that there was no penalty. It was not until a couple of years ago that this became an issue.

Here is an example of a solve that I think is very clear that the hands are far away from the puzzle. Yes, I'm probably the only person who still solves a Magic like this, but that's not really the point. When people stopped the timer like this, there was no ambiguity.

Do you still agree with what you said in bold? You used the word impossible three times in that short span.

 

[Ranzha]

It's not impossible. It gets very near impossible when magic solves go sub-1. This is especially considering the globally-implemented technique of doing every part of the solve in the air. The point still stands. Without high-speed backing up magic solves, it becomes too difficult to judge.

 

[Noahaha]

Perhaps there should be a rule just for magic that you need to leave your palms on the sensors so the judge knows its a good stop.

 

[Bob]

Perhaps there should be a rule just for magic that you need to leave your palms on the sensors so the judge knows its a good stop.

I don't agree that stopping with palms on sensors will indicate a good stop to a judge. A stop with FINGERTIPS on sensors, however, would be quite clear.

 

[qqwref]

Do you still agree with what you said in bold? You used the word impossible three times in that short span.

Yes - I think with the Gen-2 stackmats (timer elevated and closer to the middle of the mat), and with the in-the-air solving demanded nowadays, it's essentially impossible to consistently and quickly solve the puzzle in a way that clearly satisfies the regulations.