Cubing Time Standards, updated for 2023

UncleFrank

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If you have X time, you are in the top Y% of all WCA competitors for that event.
These are just plain, basic percentiles.
wca time standards .jpg

If you have X time, you are in the top Y% of all WCA competitors for that event.
These are just plain, basic percentiles.

These are all official WCA times from the official WCA database export, which is updated daily and contains all the results from every WCA comp ever held.
I used official PR averages for the majority of events, but used singles for FMC and all BLDs due to so few avg's available for them.

This is an update of my chart from June 2022, which is itself an update of the original posted on Reddit 5 years ago by a different user.
That user was a competitive swimmer and got the idea from the motivational time standards published by USA Swimming, the governing body for competitive swimming in the US.
The choice of % breakdown and category labels (AAA, BB, C, etc.) is just random and made up just to give some points of reference.

The point is purely motivational, to compare yourself in several different ways, and give more definitive targets to set goals for yourself.
One way to look at this is, “I have a CC time in 3x3 but a B time in 2x2.” This lets you know that you are comparatively better at 2x2 than 3x3. Another way to look at it is if your main event is clock and your friend’s main event is OH, you can see who is comparatively 'better' at their event. Another way to look at this is, “I have an AA time in 3x3. How fast does that translate to 4x4?”

The original creator said they wrote a Python program to calculate the numbers, but I just opened some of the database export tsv files in a LibreOffice Calc spreadsheet and used spreadsheet formulas.
 
I'm starting to believe that what this really shows more than anything else is the events people have results in even if they're not very good at them. Those events are the ones that are easiest to get good ratings in.

So, for instance, it's easy to be pretty high in pyraminx, because lots of people who are real beginners at pyraminx are happy to do them, and averages are usually allowed for anything under 10 minutes.
But it's really hard to be high in big cubes, because it's hard to get a valid average in competition at all these days, with modern cutoffs.

And for instance, I'm rated A at 3BLD, even though I'm pretty bad at it. That's because there are a lot of people who just wanted to get a successful solve in competition, who have relatively very slow times but are just happy to have a successful solve (which I think is great!). But I'm rated CCC at 4BLD, because most people who aren't dedicated at it haven't even tried. I've put more effort into 4BLD than 3BLD - I think I've probably increased in skill at 4BLD at least as much as 3BLD. I think the difference in rating is due to there being more casual 3BLD results than casual 4BLD results.

My current ratings:
2x2x2 CC
3x3x3 CCC
4x4x4 D
5x5x5 D
6x6x6 below D
7x7x7 below D
OH D
Pyraminx BB
Megaminx below D
Skewb CC
Square-1 CC
Clock CC

FMC AA
3BLD A
4BLD CCC
5BLD B
MBLD A
 
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