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I performed a successful official FMC attempt with no cubes. I did it in 37 moves.

pepkin88

Member
Joined
Sep 16, 2008
Messages
18
Location
Rumia / Poland
WCA
2008PEPK01
Yesterday, during FMC Europe 2018, I managed to get an official successful FMC attempt without using any cubes or stickers (or a scramble for that matter), using only tools provided by the judge.
We were handed pens, blank sheets, solution sheets, and scramble cutouts, but I chose not to reveal the scramble - the picture of the cube net was enough.

I did it in 37 moves :O (although I'll admit, the scramble was lucky)

In order to achieve this, I graphed cube states after major stages and was visualizing cublet transitions in my head, with a help of hand gestures. I used my main speedsolving method, ZZ.


The backstory:

Our friend, Wojciech Szatanowski, was offering a 50 PLN prize for such challenge, so I was considering accepting it. I knew, that I'm able to do that roughly in 1 hour (I did it 2 times before, one correct and one with 4 edges swapped). However, I didn't want to have a worse mean because of that. But yesterday I DNF'd the first scramble, so I thought: "Why not, I'll try this".

The second attempt was already without cubes. It was almost successful, I barely managed to finish my solution, but then I noticed I did phasing wrong. There was a U perm left at the end and I didn't have time to write it down. But in the end it turned out good for me, because I was decided to try the challenge again for the next scramble.

And it turned out that the third attempt was the best. Easy 4-move EOLine, short left block, straightforward right block with phasing. However I messed it up the first time, had to redo it, it cost me a lot of time, but I had it saved up from quick earlier stages. And at the end ZZLL, with 2 move cancelation and no AUF, which I was sprinting to write down. I barely made it, I had only 15 or so seconds left.

The delegate (and the creator of the challenge), checked it and said something like: "I don't believe it, he did it". At first I wasn't sure, that he was talking about my solution, but then he congratulated me and handed me a 50 PLN banknote. I was so relieved, but pretty proud too :)

Funny note: few competitors in the room, normally using the cubes, had a worse result for the third attempt than me, including the delegate, who is also the current national record holder for FMC :D

Funny note #2: my method was evolving during the attempt. I added more cube snapshots and compacted the corner notation.


Here's the solution and draft sheet:


Reconstruction/visualization:
/* Scramble */
R' U' F L2 U B2 U2 L2 U' L2 B2 R' B U R2 D2 L F D2 U F' L2 F2 R' U' F

/* Solve */
y' x2 R' B U2 F2 // EOLine
L' U L' R U' R' L2 U' L' // left block
U' R U R2' U' // half of the right block
R2 U R' U2' R U' // last slot with phasing
y R U' R' U2 R' U2' R2 U R2' U R U' F' // ZZLL

// View at alg.cubing.net
 
Last edited:

efattah

Member
Joined
Feb 14, 2016
Messages
711
I have long stated (in other threads) that something similar like this should be an official event. You can consider several variants of this event, all of which share one thing, you are not allowed to have a cube. In one variant, the first person to submit a solution under 70 STM wins. This prevents BLD methods.
 
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