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Do you do better in competitions or at home?

How do you do in competitions compared with at home?

  • I do significantly better in competitions (>10%)

    Votes: 17 17.2%
  • I do a little bit better in competitions (2% to 10%)

    Votes: 23 23.2%
  • I do about the same in competitions as I do at home (-2% to 2%)

    Votes: 16 16.2%
  • I do a little bit worse in competitions (-10% to -2%)

    Votes: 26 26.3%
  • I do significantly worse in competitions (<-10%)

    Votes: 17 17.2%

  • Total voters
    99

NewCuber000

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I'd say it varies greatly for me, and depends on the event. I'll show you what I mean.
At the time of my last comp:
2x2 - Global average: Sub-5.5
- official average: 5.02
-single: 2.28 (Not lol scramble)
- official Single 4.38 (Bad)
3x3: -Global: Sub-15
-Average of 5: 13.09 (0.2 from old PB ao5 with a DNF... I was in the zone)
-Single: 8.54
-official Single: 12.05
4x4: Global: Sub-1:12ish?
Average:1:01.xx (7 seconds better than at home Ao5)
Single: 59.xx
Official single: 48.52 (It's been a month after comp and my best home is 52 and i can't beat it!! 48 wasn't lucky besides no parity either..)
3x3BLD: -Mo3: 6:20.46
- Official Mo3: DNF XD
-Single: 4:50.89
-Official Single: DNF (Couldnt seem to concentrate!)
3x3OH: -Global: Sub-30
-Avg: 26.6x (Almost beat home Ao5)
-Single: 18.69 (PLL skip)
-Single: 24.97 (No skips)
Pyraminx: -Global: Sub-7.5
-Ao5:7.46 (I think? Roughly. Don't feel like checking :p
-Single: 2.31 (Like 7 moves, way too lucky)
- Official Single: 7.0x
Skewb: Lets just say I did badly... I was nervous on this one and because the way the skewb turns I could hardly turn it for some reason.


I didnt read the percentages of the poll so I choose the 2%-10% better range at THAT comp for the majority of the events.
 
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Let me clarify some things:

Yes, the numbers aren't important.

No. If you get your third best time in a competition, then you are best in competition, unless you hardly ever solve at home. If I do 4990 solves at home, then do 10 at a comp, and my 3rd best one is in those 10, then you did better at the comp. Seriously, if out of, say, 0.02% of your recent solves, one was your third best ever, then...

This is not talking about single times. This is talking about averages. It is somewhat uncommon for people to beat their PB at a comp.

Kit understands my point.

Those goals that I set were not exactly HARD, but they were a little bit better than what might be my expected times. Especially for 3x3. For 5x5 was closer to me not making my goal (the soft cutoff).

I didn't say that I thought it might be a +2 for three reasons: The first one was that it was close, and I couldn't really tell. The second one is because I don't like +2s. The third was because it was Chris Olson and I know he is very experienced.

Now, I have a question. mDiPalma, what exactly is wrong with this thread because it seems that you are very strongly rejecting it.
 
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I used to be terrible in competition. Now I tend to be about the same as at home. Some events are usually worse (such as pyraminx), some I do much better (like 5x5).

And yes, I am sure that at 5x5 I am much better in competitions.

During my past 10 rounds in competition, my overall average for them was of 1:21.60. At home, I have never overall averaged under 1:22.
That may seem like a small difference, but 1:22 was at my peak, and the 1:21.60 average is over the course of 10 rounds, almost 2 years.

A more flagrant example is my last competition. A week before the competition, I was determined to improve at 5x5, so did a few hundred solves. The overall average of these was about 1:27, with a best avg12 of about 1:23-1:24. Right before competing, I was still bad, and couldn't get better solves than about 1:25. However, I ended up getting an official 1:16 average, with a 1:10 single. If that isn't doing better in competition, I don't know what is.
 

Wylie28

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For the first 2 or 3 events (always the ones i want to do the best in at that particular comp) i do way worse than at home, but after those events i do better than at home
 

adimare

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Only went to one comp years ago, was already sub-20 at the time but best I could manage was 20.72 (still holds as the Costa Rican national record tho, so I got that going for me, which is nice).
 

mDiPalma

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No. If you get your third best time in a competition, then you are best in competition, unless you hardly ever solve at home. If I do 4990 solves at home, then do 10 at a comp, and my 3rd best one is in those 10, then you did better at the comp. Seriously, if out of, say, 0.02% of your recent solves, one was your third best ever, then...

I'm not sure where you're from. But where I live, "better" is a strict comparative word. That means the item before the "is better than" is objectively superior to the item after the "is better than."

11 seconds is not better than 10 seconds. You are not better at a competition, because your BETTER times are at home.

You say that you got your 3rd best time ever at a competition. 3 is an arbitrary number. What if I said I got my 12th best time ever at a competition. Or what about 150th best time? What about 2000th? According to your logic, as long as the ranking of my fastest solve at a competition is less than half the total solves that I've ever done, then I'm faster at a competition. If that's the case, I'm sure everyone is faster at competitions. Because we all have nonzero standard deviations to our averages.

What about in the exact opposite case? What if I get a DNF at a competition? That's my absolute worst time EVER. Does that mean I'm objectively worse at a competition? According to your logic, I am.


This is not talking about single times. This is talking about averages. It is somewhat uncommon for people to beat their PB at a comp.

OK, then consider the only other WCA measurement of 3x3 performance: avg5. Unless your competition avg5 is less than your at-home avg5, then you are NOT faster in competition. If you're comparing avg5s to global averages, you're not doing the whole "comparing" thing on level playing fields. It's not a valid comparison.

Now, I have a question. mDiPalma, what exactly is wrong with this thread because it seems that you are very strongly rejecting it.

Well if you want valuable information, the poll should read, "What is the (signed) percent difference between your official 3x3 PR avg5 (in comp) and your unofficial 3x3 PB avg5 (at home)?"

And don't expect more than a few "negatives".
 

Mollerz

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I do better at competitions. I'll tell you why.

At competitions, the lighting is good, I'm generally well rested, my focus ALL DAY is cubing, so my brain is prepared for it, also for the most part the height of the chair and desk is consistent throughout the competition, so I get comfortable with that.

At home, my lighting is pretty mediocre, I cube whenever, first thing in the morning, last thing before I sleep etc. Cubing at home I generally pick up the cube and just solve, time a few maybe, whatever. My chair is very relaxing, so I'm slouched or perhaps not in an optimal seating configuration, my chair height varies a little bit too.

A lot of my overall PBs come from comps. 4x4 average, 5x5 single, OH single, megaminx single, square-1 single, clock single, 6x6 single, 7x7 single. Yes admittedly they are all single bar one, but if I'm doing big averages at home of course my home PB will be faster than what I get at competition, I'm doing hundreds more solves. If I sat down right now and did a big 4x4 average, I would expect to get around a 46-47 average globally. At my last competition I got two 46 averages, I would say I performed on par with how I did at home, and I also got a 42 average. I would say this exceeds what I expect to get at home, hence I am performing better at a competition than at home.

mDiPalma: When people say they are faster at competition, they generally mean that they consistently perform slightly better than their at-home global average. Which I think is fair enough if they can perform averages consistently better than their global at home, which I personally do.
 

cashis

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He's saying he has gotten better times at competition relative to how many solves he does. Clearly, the times aren't literally better, but they are objectively better compared to the amount of solves. If I do 100 solves and get a 5.56 and do 10 solves at the competition and get th same time, i would say that i am better at a competition because, out of the ten solves, I got a solve that took me 100 to do at home. The title of the thread is "better", not "faster". Usually this is the same, but what the OP means is that he's better because he gets a fast solve in 10 or 15 comp solves wheras, out of the tons of solves he does at home, he can only get 2 that are faster.
I guess this is just subjective to how you interpret "better", though. But its up to the individual, lets not argue too much :)
 
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mDiPalma

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Ok. Then if I get a DNF at a competition because the new timers suck, then I'm officially worse at competitions. I got an infinitely bad time for 20% of my solves. That would never happen at home!

Thanks for setting things straight. :tu
 
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I'm not sure where you're from. But where I live, "better" is a strict comparative word. That means the item before the "is better than" is objectively superior to the item after the "is better than."

11 seconds is not better than 10 seconds. You are not better at a competition, because your BETTER times are at home.

You say that you got your 3rd best time ever at a competition. 3 is an arbitrary number. What if I said I got my 12th best time ever at a competition. Or what about 150th best time? What about 2000th? According to your logic, as long as the ranking of my fastest solve at a competition is less than half the total solves that I've ever done, then I'm faster at a competition. If that's the case, I'm sure everyone is faster at competitions. Because we all have nonzero standard deviations to our averages.

What about in the exact opposite case? What if I get a DNF at a competition? That's my absolute worst time EVER. Does that mean I'm objectively worse at a competition? According to your logic, I am.




OK, then consider the only other WCA measurement of 3x3 performance: avg5. Unless your competition avg5 is less than your at-home avg5, then you are NOT faster in competition. If you're comparing avg5s to global averages, you're not doing the whole "comparing" thing on level playing fields. It's not a valid comparison.



Well if you want valuable information, the poll should read, "What is the (signed) percent difference between your official 3x3 PR avg5 (in comp) and your unofficial 3x3 PB avg5 (at home)?"

And don't expect more than a few "negatives".

You are missing my point. I thought it should have been obvious what I meant. I am asking this:
On average, are your times in competitions better or worse than a "normal" or "expected" average for you.

You are acting like I'm talking about PBs. This has nothing to do with PBs, except for the one round which contains your competition PB. I'm not talking about your PB at home AT ALL. So, you can argue, but you are missing the whole point of this thread. The answer to the question is not this (c = competition PB, h = non-comp PB):

100*(c-h)/h

Instead, c should be your competition AVERAGE and h is your EXPECTED AVERAGE.

Sorry about the caps, it's just that I'm getting a little bit frustrated.
 

DeeDubb

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...

Allow me to translate the first poll option:

Is your competition PB >10% faster than your at-home PB?

Allow me to translate the second option:

Is your competition PB 2-10% faster than your at-home PB?


I seriously doubt that half of cubers have official PBs by such a large margin, as this poll suggests.

This is NOT the intention of the poll. The intention of the poll is comparing your competition PBs vs your at home averages. You don't get nearly as many chances at competition, so it would be unfair to compare PBs to PBs, and if your comp PB Ao5 matches your at home PB Ao100, I would say you do the same, if it's worse, then you do worse and if it's better you do better.

OK, then consider the only other WCA measurement of 3x3 performance: avg5. Unless your competition avg5 is less than your at-home avg5, then you are NOT faster in competition. If you're comparing avg5s to global averages, you're not doing the whole "comparing" thing on level playing fields. It's not a valid comparison.


How is it a level playing field to compare PBs among thousands and thousands of solves at home vs the PBs you get among the 20-100 solves you might get a year as an active competitor (depending on where you live, how many rounds you usually make it to, etc...)?
 
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mDiPalma

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This is NOT the intention of the poll. The intention of the poll is comparing your competition PBs vs your at home averages. You don't get nearly as many chances at competition, so it would be unfair to compare PBs to PBs, and if your comp PB Ao5 matches your at home PB Ao100, I would say you do the same, if it's worse, then you do worse and if it's better you do better.

Let's say I play a weird version of darts. Each round is me throwing 5 darts at a dartboard, and I tally up the amount of bulls-eyes (BEs) I get, and only BEs count for points. For example, if I hit 2 BEs in a single round, my score is 2.

Let's say I do 100 rounds. Here are my stats:

Personal Record of BEs in a single round: 3
Mode of BEs in 100 rounds: 1


Now let's say I go to my friend's house to use his dartboard. On the first round I play, I get 2 BEs.

Which of the following two reactions is reasonable?

1) WOW OMG HIS DARTBOARD IS SO MUCH BETTER. I JUST GOT DOUBLE WHAT I EXPECTED ON MY FIRST TRY. OMG WE SHOULD CLONE THIS DARTBOARD AND SELL THEM FOR CASH MONEY ON THE INTERNET. WOW

2) Hmm. I seem to have gotten 2 BEs in a single round. That is interesting. As an intelligent individual, I will note that this is more than the mode of BEs that I have gotten in the past 100 rounds I have played at my own house. But at my house, I have gotten 3 BEs in a single round before, so I do not have definitive evidence that my friend's dartboard is better than mine. Nor do I have definitive evidence that I have even performed better than average. In fact, until I have done 100 rounds at my friend's house, I really cannot make a valid comparison between these two dart venues.


How is it a level playing field to compare PBs among thousands and thousands of solves at home vs the PBs you get among the 20-100 solves you might get a year as an active competitor (depending on where you live, how many rounds you usually make it to, etc...)?

How is it a level playing field to compare 3 counting solves at a competition to thousands of counting solves in a global average?

Let's say you are a dietitian. You are testing the nutritional contents of various types fruits, namely apples and oranges.

You are interested in checking 2 types of apples from a 2 different orchards, and a single type of orange from a grove.

The first orchard lets you have 5 apples, but wants you to not count the nutrition of the best and worst apples during your analysis. The second orchard sends you 1000 apples, and requires that you group them in sets of 5 and follow the same procedure as orchard 1.

The orange grove sends you 1000 oranges. They require that you average them all together before you submit your analysis.


Does it make more sense to compare the first orchards avg5 to the second orchard's avg5? Or to compare the apple's avg5 to the orange's avg1000?
 

Kit Clement

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I'm not sure where you're from. But where I live, "better" is a strict comparative word. That means the item before the "is better than" is objectively superior to the item after the "is better than."

11 seconds is not better than 10 seconds. You are not better at a competition, because your BETTER times are at home.

You say that you got your 3rd best time ever at a competition. 3 is an arbitrary number. What if I said I got my 12th best time ever at a competition. Or what about 150th best time? What about 2000th? According to your logic, as long as the ranking of my fastest solve at a competition is less than half the total solves that I've ever done, then I'm faster at a competition. If that's the case, I'm sure everyone is faster at competitions. Because we all have nonzero standard deviations to our averages.

What about in the exact opposite case? What if I get a DNF at a competition? That's my absolute worst time EVER. Does that mean I'm objectively worse at a competition? According to your logic, I am.




OK, then consider the only other WCA measurement of 3x3 performance: avg5. Unless your competition avg5 is less than your at-home avg5, then you are NOT faster in competition. If you're comparing avg5s to global averages, you're not doing the whole "comparing" thing on level playing fields. It's not a valid comparison.



Well if you want valuable information, the poll should read, "What is the (signed) percent difference between your official 3x3 PR avg5 (in comp) and your unofficial 3x3 PB avg5 (at home)?"

And don't expect more than a few "negatives".
http://i.stack.imgur.com/RdTEU.png

Here are two histograms of cubing times, ignore the x-axis labels. You have the choice to be the red cuber or the blue cuber. Which do you choose, and why?
 

DeeDubb

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Comparing apples to oranges.

Yeah, that's clever...

It doesn't make sense for orchard A to pick the best 5 out of 1000 randomly chosen apples and orchard B to select it's best 5 out of a randomly selected 20 apples, which is exactly what comparing your home solves (orchard A) to competition solves (orchard B) is.

Sure the question should be more clear and say "Is your competition PB ao5 better or worse than your global average at home." I felt like that was the intention, so I gave the original poster the benefit of the doubt, and answered it with that interpretation, rather than accusing everyone of being liars, backing myself into a corner and creating ridiculous analogies to try to bail myself out.
 

Rocky0701

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I usually do better in competitions because I am more focused since the times actually are more important to me than home times. Not that I'm unfocused at home, I'm just more focused in comp. Plus I am super warmed up in comps since the whole day is just hanging out and cubing.
 
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I just noticed what mDiPalma changed his signature to and it cracked me up XD

Not entirely worded correctly, but...

Yes, that is very likely to be true. Out of 10 solves, one of them was my third best. Out of tens of thousands of solves, hardly any of them at a comp, only 2 of them beat it.

So, by the fact that your signature is supposed to be mocking me (because it sure looks like it) then it really is making you look stupid in several ways. For one, it is very likely right. Even given 1000 total solves, 10 of which are in competition:
The chance that one of the top 3 solves occurs in that subset of 10 is very close to 3/100 or 3%. That is a pretty low probability. So, it probably wouldn't have happened if it were completely random. Therefore, I must do better in competition. Does that somehow offend you, that I'm better at competitions than at home? My overall observation is that I am 5 to 10 percent better at competitions in most events. The reason that my best solve isn't in competition is that it is a much smaller sample of data. Before my next competition, maybe I should do 10 solves. I will look at my average and best 3 times, and compare those to my overall average and best 3 at the competition. Chances are that my best will be at the comp, probably the second best, and maybe even the third best (of all 20). My (mean) average will also probably be less. Again, what is wrong with the fact that I do better in competitions? If you can't be constructive, then quit posting on the thread.
Oh, and the other way that it makes you look stupid. It shows that you are disrespectful of people (specifically, in this case, me) and that never makes you look good. Why did my simple thread turn into a pointless argument?
 
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