Czech Open 2009

Ton said:
Question, what conclusion could you make of the Czech Open?
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Location:
  • Doesn't get much better than this. Pardubice is a town with lots of nice places to go to (pubs, restaurants, swimming pool,...) and has incredibly cheap places to stay and eat.
  • Because the Czech Republic is located quite centrally in the European continent, it attracts people from many different countries and this gives it a very international character.
  • The beautiful city of Prague is only about a one and a half hour drive away.
Venue:
  • Big arena with plenty of room and tables to sit down.
  • I like the fact that the cube competition is part of a bigger event and there are lots of other things going on at the same time: the European Chess championship, bridge and Go competitions, and many other games. It adds a bit of spice to the whole.
  • Free coffee :)
  • Good range of drinks and snacks can be bought at the venue, no need to go out for lunch unless you crave for a McFlurry (which is still only a 5 minute walk away).
  • Although the lighting in the arena is very good, it's a bit unfortunate that we're placed in a corner of the hall, which means that you have very strong light coming from one direction but it's quite dark from the other side. I'd like to see the organisation put us in a more prominent area further up the arena.
    Can't we swap with the bridge players? They're not supposed to see each other's cards anyway. :p
Organisation:
  • Went extremely well in general. The schedule was almost followed to the letter, no excuses.
  • People got badges with their groups printed on (a pity that it was a bit smudged on the back of the photo paper).
  • I liked the fact that you encouraged people to help judging and scrambling without getting too annoyed (and btw, I fully understand why you would get angry). If not enough people volunteered, you simply warned them that you'll have to cancel events if they wouldn't cooperate. I think that's a good and polite way of reminding people that they too are responsible for making the competition go smoothly.
  • Having said that, I think people were actually very co-operative. But there's still room for improvement. It seems like the same people always end up doing the work and the same people refuse to do anything at all.
  • I appreciate that you ask us for feedback afterwards. That's the spirit of an organiser with the right intentions.

Final conclusion: this is one of the few tournaments on the calendar I wouldn't want to miss. This was the third time we went there and it never gets old, in fact it only gets better.
 
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Lessons learned:

-Use mat photo paper for badges
-Request for better light -position- , already done for next year
-Propose two change requests for the WCA , color blind sticker, design e.g green with dark green circle. Accept printed or painted colors on puzzle
-For the MBF I will split the group in two group for the ones who does 2 and 3 cubes in two in order to have enough judges, propose a change request to WCA admin page for register the number of cubes
-people who did not canceled for the Czech open will automatically be placed in waiting list,the next competitions limit will be set to 60. Only when not full these people will be registered, third time not canceled will be reported to WCA
-When I announce event will start at 9:30 means 9:30 and not 9:31 or 9:35 , just a reminder for the cubers.
-people from first round when finished must seated on the tribune, so I am sure my judges do not disappear
 
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Ton said:
Question, what conclusion could you make of the Czech Open?
Click to expand...

More DNS's and DNF's for lazy people please.

Did you know that:

-Rama secretly is from the KGB?
-The Danish cubers support me with it?
-You can attract a cuber with a Rubik's Revolution just like you do with Batman with the Bat-Signal?
 
In Poland we do not have such problems with the organization, because we have a permanent team of judges. The judges in the majority are involved in max. 2 event and can judge the whole competition, if necessary, train the local volunteers no-cubers before competition. List of cubers to scrambling shall be published prior to the competition on forum Polish Speedcubing Association. With such a solution more easily enforce discipline and stick to schedule.
 
That's a nice solution. But it takes quite some effort to find enough people volunteering I think? I wouldn't mind a full team of Czech girls judging :)
Back to topic. I never had a competition where there was so much pressure from the organisation about scrambling. It wouldn't be a problem if everyone did an equal amount of effort... still raising cubers to have better manners is not really possible apparently.
Weirdly I never saw a tournament that was so marked by this subject, why is that? We didn't have an extraordinary high amount of competitors...
 
antros said:
In Poland we do not have such problems with the organization, because we have a permanent team of judges. The judges in the majority are involved in max. 2 event and can judge the whole competition, if necessary, train the local volunteers no-cubers before competition. List of cubers to scrambling shall be published prior to the competition on forum Polish Speedcubing Association. With such a solution more easily enforce discipline and stick to schedule.
Click to expand...

Well the organistation in Czech is one person.....me. For the events I compete I had some help for the score taking. There was exactly 1 non cuber judging and 2 who did some score taking. I do not have any pool of volunteers in Czech as the community of cubers in Czech is only about 5 cubers....
 
Ton said:
Well the organistation in Czech is one person.....me. For the events I compete I had some help for the score taking. There was exactly 1 non cuber judging and 2 who did some score taking. I do not have any pool of volunteers in Czech as the community of cubers in Czech is only about 5 cubers....
Click to expand...
I appreciate, as will all, Your hard work and commitment.


YouTube playlist (I will update on a regular basis), monocycle solv, golden blind solv, Erik pop etc.: http://www.youtube.com/view_play_list?p=CA7FD66E18B0EF59
 
masterofthebass said:
O wow... Now I know why Arnaud got his sub-2 solve. He finally gave up on using his rubik's brand and used a v-cube for once ;)
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That were 2 sub-2 solves ;)

I know you are joking, but there is a serious difference for me between Rubiks and V5:
* Rubiks: 45 centers, 45 edges, 45 3x3x3
* V5: 40 centers, 60 edges, 35 3x3x3
I really focussed on edges this time and it paid off. I have used V5 in some other competitions and have gotten "horrible" averages with them.
My Rubiks 5x5x5 is really dying so I put it in my "retirement home" where it can have a nice time with other older cubes and discuss "the good old days"

About the competition: I love the idea of having 1 table with 1 scrambler and 2 judges dedicated to 2 scramble tables with 4 competitors that alternate
 
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AvGalen said:
About the competition: I love the idea of having 1 table with 1 scrambler and 2 judges dedicated to 2 scramble tables with 4 competitors that alternate
Click to expand...

Will not be efficient for combined finals and for big cubes as there are only a few who can scramble fast for big cubes. e.g. where do I find 5 fast scramblers for big cubes for Czech? Or for WC 2009, we need 9 scramblers???? I think for 5x5 the scrambler should scramble in less than 2:30 min at average around 2 min to be effective in this concept, which is possible but normally I can only find a few who/willing to scamble that fast. Maybe we can clone some AvG's

Would be ideal for Rubik 3x3 first round with a big number of competitors like Indonesia 2009 or WC2009. We might try this for the Indonesian Open first round

Down side with this concept a competitor can not choice a spot ....
 
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Ton said:
AvGalen said:
About the competition: I love the idea of having 1 table with 1 scrambler and 2 judges dedicated to 2 scramble tables with 4 competitors that alternate
Click to expand...

Will not be efficient for combined finals and for big cubes as there are only a few who can scramble fast for big cubes. e.g. where do I find 5 fast scramblers for big cubes for Czech? Or for WC 2009, we need 9 scramblers???? I think for 5x5 the scrambler should scramble in less than 2:30 min at average around 2 min to be effective in this concept, which is possible but normally I can only find a few who/willing to scamble that fast. Maybe we can clone some AvG's

Would be ideal for Rubik 3x3 first round with a big number of competitors like Indonesia 2009 or WC2009. We might try this for the Indonesian Open first round

Down side with this concept a competitor can not choice a spot ....
Click to expand...
I can easily scramble 2 cubes in the time that it takes for a competitor to switch places with the other competitor, get ready, inspect, solve and write down the time. Even when these competitors are world-class fast. Other people might not scramble as fast, but they should be able to keep up with non-world-class solvers. Only Clock and Square-1 take longer to scramble than to solve (sometimes) and not being able to choose a spot is indeed an issue that would need to be addressed by the WCA

This is the system I would prefer (assuming 2 groups of 4, just double everything for 2 groups of 8):
Two competitor-tables: 1, 2
Two judges: 1, 2 (judges stay with their table)
One scrambler (and optionally 1 runner to check the scrambles, bring them to the competitor-tables and help with scrambling/fixing-bad-scrambles)
Four competitors: 1A, 1B, 2A, 2B

1) All 4 competitors hand in their cubes
2) Cubes 1A and 2A are scrambled and brought to the table
3) While competitor 1A and 2A are competing cubes 1B and 2B are scrambled
4) Repeat 2 and 3 untill the round is finished
5) The 4 competitors become the judges/runner/scrambler and vice-versa

This system would keep tables/timers filled almost optimally and makes sure that everyone helps out. It still allows competitors to (keep) warm(ed) up in between solves

I think we should experiment with this at the (possible) The-Hague-Before-Worlds tournament. There will be lots of experienced cubers there so changing into this setup (or back to normal if it doesn't work) should be much easier than during the first Indonesian Open
 
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