[WR] Feliks Zemdegs 3x3 OH single 6.88

[Username]

You got me wrong.
I meant hand scramble and then you drop it on something that has the two cameras and is linked to a computer that has the scramble, it check the two given sides, if they are correct then pop a green LED or something.

What if you do an accidental S or S' or something (without noticing of course)?

 

[Please Dont Ask]

What if you do an accidental S or S' or something (without noticing of course)?

S and S' would be almost impossible not to notice.

 

[Username]

S and S' would be almost impossible not to notice.

Misscrambles are almost impossible not to notice, yet look what has happened

 

[Please Dont Ask]

Misscrambles are almost impossible not to notice, yet look what has happened

Understood!

 

[moralsh]

I wouldn't do this for ANY dollar amount either. The point of my hypothetical was that it's extremely possible for cheating like this to be happening undetected on a regular basis, especially in lower profile cases without video/visual evidence.

In my opinion, if the scramble was NOT random-state generated by a program and printed on the WCA scramble sheet, the corresponding solve should be DNS or DNF.

The WCA needs to stop being wishy-washy about all this stuff

This won't accomplish anything, there still are going to be misscrambles which may go unnoticed so it doesn´t solve the issue. It just punishes a competitor for no fault of his own.

Cheating will always be around you just gotta live with it, and report it when you are suspicious but for every extra measure that you or the WCA may come up with, there will always be another way to surpass it and cheat again. Rules have to be fair, but they can't try to cover every aspect because the won't. Ever.

Also, in my opinion, the cheater has to live with his own shame, knowing that they need to cheat to have better results that other competitors. Leave them alone, just focus on having fun and on the great majority of us non cheaters.

Rules are pretty ok as they are right now, please don't change anything and award Feliks the WR. He or sombody else will beat it again.

 

[RB]

I think I have a reasonable solution of this problem.

Currently, the problem is: Feliks can't be punished for the incorrect scramble as work of scrambles is beyond of his control. However, accepting all the results from the wrong scrambles may cause some troubles in the future as people may take advantage of this exception from the rules and this was described couple pages before.

In order to solve this, a new procedure can be implemented: what if to give these 2 scrambles (the right and the wrong ones) to a number of reliable cubers, and ask them to solve both, without telling which scramble is which.
- If times are relatively close, then it's a fair proof that no advantage was from the misscrambled cube.
- If it's relatively high discrepancy, then this would be fair to accept that the scramble was easier/luckier (and may be +2 to the time).

This solution would allow giving the record in this case, and in the future turn wrong-doers into DNFs and support the right-doers using the same tool.

 

[Kit Clement]

So basically they repeated Felik's solve in reverse, okay, fine, I'm su dumb I didn't think of that possibility. But to discover that you can get to that estate with just changing an R/R' is what I don't get, unless somebody tried "let's see if it was just this D that was changed into a D'"... with every turn in the official scramble, but in case the misscramble had been another issue (like permuting two moves: R F -> F R) there are so many possibilities to make a mistake... And I wouldn't think that the random state generator would just generate a scramble sequence that is just the same than the correct one but for the R/R' but maybe that's exactly the case, not sure how random state scramblers generate the scramble sequence.

We have a program to detect misscrambles like these. We didn't sit around all day trying all possible 1 or 2 move substitutions on each move.

 

[giorgi]

Even if scrambler did not notice R' there should have been picture of cube alongside with scramble which should have been checked and scrambler did not took his time to check if all colours were matching. In my opinion thats what should be considered in future competitions (taking more time in checking every side of puzzle).

 

[SenorJuan]

I presume if someone had a "Japanese colour-scheme", or even BYO vs. BOY, or a white cube with black stickers instead of white, the visual check against the 'scramble-sheet' becomes harder, and more error-prone?

 

[adimare]

What if I was at the competition, and someone promised to give me 3 dollars if I got him a legit but easy scramble?

...Then I went over to the scrambling table and memorized the scramble
....Then I went back to my laptop and typed the scramble into my computer program
...and the computer program generates "typo scrambles" in which 1 of the moves is just slightly different (1 R becomes R', one B becomes B', etc)
...and then it checks each one of these scrambles for the lowest-move xcross, then spits it out to me.

...Then I go back to the scrambling table and scramble their cube. Then I go buy some candy with my 3 bucks.

Ok WCA

If a scrambler has decided to cheat to get those juicy, juicy $3, I don't see why the miss-scramble would be necessary. It'd be way less suspicious and even easier to just find a solution with a skip for the actual scramble.

 

[AustinReed]

I presume if someone had a "Japanese colour-scheme", or even BYO vs. BOY, or a white cube with black stickers instead of white, the visual check against the 'scramble-sheet' becomes harder, and more error-prone?

No? Just check for patterns.

 

[Ronxu]

I presume if someone had a "Japanese colour-scheme", or even BYO vs. BOY, or a white cube with black stickers instead of white, the visual check against the 'scramble-sheet' becomes harder, and more error-prone?

I'm more likely to spend more time checking a cube with weird color scheme to make sure it's properly scrambled. The problem with the current system is that some people are too lazy to spend an extra second to compare the cube with the picture next to the scramble and instead just throw the cube in the box.

 

[nalralz]

Is there any footage we can see?

 

[AlexMaass]

Is there any footage we can see?

Footage would probably be uploaded after (hopefully) the world record is approved by the WCA board.

 

[nalralz]

Why not before?

 

[AlexMaass]

Why not before?

Because Feliks doesn't want to.

 

[cmhardw]

Why not before?

Because the people who see it on speedsolving are a very small fraction of the people who will see it. Listing it as WR would be misleading and saying it isn't would be confusing. It'd just upset a huge portion of the cubing community if it were retracted.

msgtooshortlolz

 

[Ollie]

Recent incidents regarding scrambling from the WCA Forum:

Spoiler: Phalsbourg 2015

Dear Community,

At Phalsbourg Open 2015, many of the scrambles in the 3x3 final were found to be incorrect by reviewing a video.

Complex analysis of the scrambles given was undertaken in order to determine the problems that happened. Some of the incorrect scrambles were the result of 1 wrong move, others were the wrong scramble (incorrectly applied also), and others were totally unrelated to the scramble sequence.
A competitor (under 18 years old) who scrambled the majority of the cubes has admitted to not checking the scrambles, and even more seriously, not even following the scramble sequences sometimes.

The Board determined that the results of the round will be kept. Reasons for this include the fact that the incorrect scrambles did not appear to give any obvious advantage to anyone, and also the competitors were not to blame for any of this.

Spoiler: Indian Nationals 2014

At Indian Nationals 2014 there was an incident involving a mis-scramble. Here are the details:
- For the fourth solve of the Combined First round, Akash Rupela (2012RUPE01) received the cube state obtainable by applying the following scramble: F2 L' U' R U' L' B R' L2 F L' F2 B2 U2 F2 L' F2 U2 L; when he should have received this scramble: F2 L' U' R' U' L' B R' L2 F L' F2 B2 U2 F2 L' F2 U2 L. It is highly likely that the scrambler made a mistake on the fourth move.
- Akash proceeded to solve the cube in a time of 6.91 seconds.
- The procedural error was noticed after the competition was over, and the attending delegate suggested that the time be disqualified.
- Akash himself agreed to the suggestion, as he esteemed that the error had resulted in an easier solution.
- The time was disqualified with the Board's consent.

However, the Board has come to feel this was not a correct decision. We now believe that the time should have been accepted for the following main reasons:
- This incident stemmed from an involuntary error that neither the scrambler nor the competitor designed to provide an advantage.
- The resulting cube state is a valid cube state by WCA regulations.
- A competitor should not suffer due to procedural errors.

We apologize to Akash for the unfair removal of his solve time, and thank him for the correct way in which he has handled this whole affair. We also take this opportunity to urge scramblers to make use of the scrambled state image accompanying the scrambles. The obvious goal of such images should not need to be emphasized.

The incident here is similar, except that the instead of an NR at stake it is a WR, so might not see a decision for a while. Assuming the scramble was valid and in the absence of any extra information (i.e. whether the scrambler had any intentions to make the scramble easier or not) then the situation becomes almost identical to the current one.

My two cents - a significant advantage was presented to Feliks over other competitors in that he received a PLL skip on a different scramble (that no-one else received) and achieved a WR. DNF it, in my opinion.

Semi serious note: unless one of the 7 other competitors achieved a similar skip on the original scramble (which is a 9% chance?)

 

[Mollerz]

A PLL skip is not a result of the scramble.

- This incident stemmed from an involuntary error that neither the scrambler nor the competitor designed to provide an advantage.
- The resulting cube state is a valid cube state by WCA regulations.
- A competitor should not suffer due to procedural errors.

These are the most important points from Akash's Indian NR. Also, Akash received a PLL skip as well.

 

[kinch2002]

All decisions must be method neutral. Trying to define a PLL skip as a lucky scramble is not right. As well as being totally dependent on everything else he does, can he just claim he knew the LL case and therefore it shouldn't be called a skip? It just doesn't work.