Is the stickerless speed advantage real?

[stoic]

Stickerless puzzles are ubiquitous now, and have been legal for speedsolving since a regulation change in (I think) 2015.
Prior to that, their use was controversial due to a belief that a solver could "see" the colours at the back of the puzzle by viewing the coloured internals from the front mid-solve.
However, in the subsequent ten or so years I've never heard of anyone actually stating that they had used this technique.
Which leads to me asking:
Does anyone on here actually do this in a speedsolve, or have you ever? And are there any known cases in which top solvers have confirmed they were doing it?

 

[abunickabhi]

I do not think stickerless cubes give a speed-up.

The ruling a decade back by the WCA was wrong.

 

[Averageof12]

Stickerless puzzles are ubiquitous now, and have been legal for speedsolving since a regulation change in (I think) 2015.
Prior to that, their use was controversial due to a belief that a solver could "see" the colours at the back of the puzzle by viewing the coloured internals from the front mid-solve.
However, in the subsequent ten or so years I've never heard of anyone actually stating that they had used this technique.
Which leads to me asking:
Does anyone on here actually do this in a speedsolve, or have you ever? And are there any known cases in which top solvers have confirmed they were doing it?

While I don’t think this is practical, I’m sure with practice you could use this technique. I definitely don’t think it’s worth using, since just doing normal look ahead is faster imo.

 

[Puzzle Maniac]

I believe with enough practice of the technique, only an extremely small advantage.

 

[ruffleduck]

It shouldn't give any advantage. Lookahead/prediction is way more powerful already, there is zero reason to try to slow down your turning so that you can "peek" at colors not normally visible.

 

[ProStar]

I actually did a solve in my competition a couple days ago where this came up. I barely caught a glimpse of the bottom color of a piece (that I never could have seen on a stickered cube), and my brain managed to process it quickly enough that I was saved a partial rotation. I don’t think it comes up often enough or is a big enough advantage to matter, but it’s interesting for sure.

 

[OreKehStrah]

I mean, in theory stickerless is better because it maximizes the color area visible. Stickers have a border around the color that isn't there on a stickerless puzzle.

 

[Garf]

You would need to have absurd lookahead and look both in between the pieces and the outside of the puzzle. It could be done, but no one would practice that, especially now that many puzzles feature stickerless caps on top of the edges and corners and use special colored plastic (like black, white, primary, etc.) for aesthetic and distinguishability purposes.

 

[artless1der]

Stickerless puzzles are ubiquitous now, and have been legal for speedsolving since a regulation change in (I think) 2015.
Prior to that, their use was controversial due to a belief that a solver could "see" the colours at the back of the puzzle by viewing the coloured internals from the front mid-solve.
However, in the subsequent ten or so years I've never heard of anyone actually stating that they had used this technique.
Which leads to me asking:
Does anyone on here actually do this in a speedsolve, or have you ever? And are there any known cases in which top solvers have confirmed they were doing it?

clearly there is No Advantage
bcoz the mighty WCA says:

"It's Fine " ♪⁠┌⁠|⁠∵⁠|⁠┘⁠♪
...

 

[Caleb Valenzuela]

if you were turning at a reasonable speed, you wouldn’t have time to look in between the pieces which means it is completely useless. Plus, if you were smart about your pair choices, you wouldn’t never have to look at the back for pieces since you should be solving pairs in the front, front left, or front right. If you knew cross plus one, you should be solving them into the back left or back right, so that you can see all the pieces in the front. And then, just deduce the pieces until f2l is done.

 

[Lucas Garron]

I have a pretty simple view on this: if the advantage wasn't real, I don't think people would care so much to use stickerless puzzles.

Stickerless puzzles make it a lot easier to see colors from more angles. You can see sides of the U pieces without turning the cube as much, and you can straight-up see colors for F2L edges on the back of the cube that would be impossible with a stickered cube: https://github.com/thewca/wca-regulations/issues/177
I've definitely heard top cubers say that such visual cues can help make a difference in some solves.

In a sport where times are often under 10 seconds and are recorded to the hundredth of a second, even a little more information can make a difference. Even if it just makes a difference in some solves, that still contributes to a lower average. And even if it's just a matter of preference, feeling comfortable with your choice of cube can make a difference.

That said, the variance in times (e.g. natural solving variation, how warmed up a competitor is, how well tuned the cube is) probably makes a bigger difference than whether the puzzle is stickerless, and it's impossible to perform a blind experiment. I don't think you would be able to design a proper scientific experiment that isolates stickerlessness as a factor with enough confidence. So I don't think we'll ever know how much of an advantage a stickerless cube gives.

 

[stoic]

That’s interesting Lucas, thank you. I maybe didn’t appreciate at the time how the design of stickerless cubes enables one to see “round the corner” as the plastic wraps round.

It’s also interesting to see the old concerns expressed that cube designers might somehow try to maximise this feature. Doing a quick visual comparison between an old Dayan Lunhui and the latest Zhanchi the difference is minimal (albeit the build quality has clearly improved, with much better consistency where the pieces meet and no visible gaps).