surprised by Stefans One-Handed times
At the US Open Mitchell Stern watched me doing a V perm slowly in two long steps and afterwards showed me an easy LUR alg for it. Also Dan and Chris Dzoan gave me some advice and so thanks to these three guys I became very interested in OH-solving again, learned algs for all OLL and PLL cases (including a few new ones (algs, not cases) I found with ACube), and then practiced for a week or two until I got a sub30 average. Maybe I should compete in this forum's competitions, then you might've known.
If the competition next year takes place at the same toy fair, then I won't go. This year I only came because I asked the toy fair organizers beforehand about smoking, and was told it would be forbidden inside the building, signs would say so, no ashtrays would be there, and personnel would be ensuring it. Nothing of this was true. They're big fat liars. And this in a matter about my health. Had I known what it would be like, I wouldn't have gone there this year, just like I had announced after last year's competition (I made it depend on the smoke situation). But since I was already there, I took the money for the 3x3 and 3x3oh events. There was no money for 4x4, and no money for me in 3x3bld, which is why I didn't compete there and instead walked around in the city and had great lunch in a very nice nearby restaurant.
This is actually a clear violation of the official WCA regulations, which state
"The competition area must be smoke-free".
Oh and
"Audience should be at least 1.50 meter away from the competitors." also didn't happen, people were standing maybe 50 cm away, with at least one guy loudly asking annoying questions until I asked him to be quiet.
Those German national championships as well as the German Opens which had first rounds in smoky pubs/restaurants are by far the worst competitions I've been to.
Edit: I'd like to clarify I don't blame Ron and the other Dutch organizing guys, they're not the ones who made the competition bad. I blame the toy fair for lying to me and for allowing the smoke. I don't think Ron knew more about the smoking situation than I did, and actually I had told him about the no-smoking promise I had gotten.
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