New 3x3x3 avg WR

[EmersonHerrmann]

That's dumb...
Say he got a world record in the one round but messed up badly on the last...
He would get a World Record, but not even win the competition. They should compare everyone's best score from the competition.

Another thing about competitions that bothers me is that your success is based solely on your perfomance in 3x3x3 speedsolve. That's the only even the WCA uses to determine "winners" and second and and third place holders at competitions.

What are you talking about? At Berkeley my friend won third place for 5x5...and you say it's only 3x3? I don't get it....

 

[Lord Voldemort]

On the main website homepage.
Look back on my quote of the summary of the competition.
No mention at all of winners for any other event.
(Except in case of WR/CR/NR)

 

[qqwref]

That's dumb...
Say he got a world record in the one round but messed up badly on the last...
He would get a World Record, but not even win the competition. They should compare everyone's best score from the competition.

I've been saying this for a while but nobody agrees: I think the final rank should be based on the BEST average (or best single or whatever) you got during the competition.

That way:
1) People who didn't make it to the final still get an overall competition rank.
2) Assuming they can make it to the final round, people who do better in the afternoon do not have an advantage over people who do better in the morning (that's me at 3x3), instead they are equal, and everyone is compared at their peak.
3) People who are fast enough to make the final guaranteed still have a reason to try in the first rounds.
4) People who do very badly in the final round (for whatever reason) or miss the final round are ranked based on their performance rather than on that one bad round, so it is more fair to people who are unlucky.
5) It is impossible to set a WR average (or single in the case of BLD events) which still stands after the competition, and not win.
I think all these things are advantages, but nobody else seems willing to use this system. In my opinion the person who gets the best average should win the event, regardless of when they got the average, because they had the best performance in the competition.


And yeah, 3x3 is the Most Important Event. It's annoying for me since I suck too much to ever place in 3x3 but I can win some other events... and yet I would never get on the homepage unless I can get a NAR. I do think it's weird that 3rd place in 3x3 is considered better than first place in OH or 4x4. I'm not sure if speedcubing.com would want to put the winner of every event on the homepage, though. Personally I always look at the winners for every event when a competition's results have been posted.

 

[Lord Voldemort]

Perhaps we should start a lobby...
Any supporters of the status quo willing to come out and tell us why this is beneficial? Since I don't see anything.

 

[Robert-Y]

Question: You know who I think deserves to get the next WR 3x3x3 avg?

Answer: Harris Chan

Reason: Ever since he got his first sub-12 avg, he has not stopped getting them. In fact, he has gotten 8 in a row so far! I think it's about time that Harris broke the WR avg

 

[Bryan]

That's dumb...
Say he got a world record in the one round but messed up badly on the last...
He would get a World Record, but not even win the competition. They should compare everyone's best score from the competition.

I would think that any competition that has multiple rounds would have this same "issue".

And yeah, 3x3 is the Most Important Event. It's annoying for me since I suck too much to ever place in 3x3 but I can win some other events... and yet I would never get on the homepage unless I can get a NAR.

I think there should be some formula to determine the overall winner. I think about the MN Open 2007 where Ravi "won" the competition, but Phil Thomas ended up taking first in all events besides the 3x3x3. I once suggested the following:

For each event, give the first place person 100 points and then give the others (up to some limit), a fraction of 100 based on their time in comparision with the first place person. So if 1st place is 10 seconds, and 2nd place is 15, and 3rd is 20, they would get 100, 67, and 50 points each for that event. Do that for all events and then just sum the point totals. I've seen people suggesting something like this before, but they always do it by the last place person, which leads to problems, because if the last place person has a very high time, then small differences won't matter much (image a Magic with 1s, 2s, and 10minutes).

anyway, it would be nice to have some common way of ranking competitors for the whole competition. For a small competition, it's easier to purchase medals for 1st through 8th, rather than 1st through 3rd for all events.

Of course, you'd still have to work out some issues with this, like trying to discourage people from entering all events just because they might be able to pick up an extra point or two. Perhaps it could even be done to discourage some people from entering an event they're really bad at if they want to avoid being ranked lower.

 

[puzzlemaster]

Perhaps we should start a lobby...
Any supporters of the status quo willing to come out and tell us why this is beneficial? Since I don't see anything.

well, a person could break any WR... any one.. other than the 3x3 average, and it wouldn't mean that they won the competiton. Dan Cohen broke the 5x5 world record average at UPenn yet only got recognition during the competition as the winner.. and this was because he had the best average. It's unfair to people who specialize in big cubes (aka mike gottlieb or dan cohen)

 

[amostay2004]

I think there should be some formula to determine the overall winner. I think about the MN Open 2007 where Ravi "won" the competition, but Phil Thomas ended up taking first in all events besides the 3x3x3. I once suggested the following:

For each event, give the first place person 100 points and then give the others (up to some limit), a fraction of 100 based on their time in comparision with the first place person. So if 1st place is 10 seconds, and 2nd place is 15, and 3rd is 20, they would get 100, 67, and 50 points each for that event. Do that for all events and then just sum the point totals. I've seen people suggesting something like this before, but they always do it by the last place person, which leads to problems, because if the last place person has a very high time, then small differences won't matter much (image a Magic with 1s, 2s, and 10minutes).

anyway, it would be nice to have some common way of ranking competitors for the whole competition. For a small competition, it's easier to purchase medals for 1st through 8th, rather than 1st through 3rd for all events.

Of course, you'd still have to work out some issues with this, like trying to discourage people from entering all events just because they might be able to pick up an extra point or two. Perhaps it could even be done to discourage some people from entering an event they're really bad at if they want to avoid being ranked lower.

That's too much of a hassle simply to decide whose name will be on the front page isn't it? Unless there's a trophy for the competition's overall winner.

It would be much easier to not put 'xxx wins xxx Open' as the title but to list down the winners of each category. If it takes up too much space, might as well don't list any names at all.

 

[Swoncen]

Congratulations Tomasz!

EUROPE!!! =)

 

[abr71310]

Question: You know who I think deserves to get the next WR 3x3x3 avg?

Answer: Harris Chan

Reason: Ever since he got his first sub-12 avg, he has not stopped getting them. In fact, he has gotten 8 in a row so far! I think it's about time that Harris broke the WR avg

I agree; some people are just amazingly talented, and others just have one good day and dominate.

the WR average should be based on an average of 12, or 100!!

Then it'd be ridiculous, if somebody got a sub-10 avg. of 100, everyone would be like "Praise!!!" -- simply because it'd be the mean of 98 solves (obviously top / bottom taken out).

@qqwref: Well, what if two WRs were set in the same round, or what if a top contender in the first round actually had a bad average of 5 and didn't make it to the final, where he WOULD HAVE (let's say, for argument's sake, hypothetically) set a WR average??

It happened at TOW 2009, sort of -- Yalow had a 28.97 average first round, 26th place (didn't "technically make it", but Dave let him go anyway because Sarah didn't come back yet), and all of a sudden he flew up to 17th in the second round with an average of about 23.?? (my Edison is too godly ^^).

What would've happened there if it was, say HARRIS CHAN (LOL DOUBTFUL) who got that kind of average (or went from like 26th to FIRST)??

 

[Chuberchuckee]

An average of 100 would take too much time. It would be cool, but still cannot be used in a competition.

 

[Robert-Y]

Maybe they could do avgs of 10 in huge events like the WC...

 

[abr71310]

An average of 100 would take too much time. It would be cool, but still cannot be used in a competition.

Not really... for the top speedcubers it'd be maybe an hour (LOL not even) per person; if you held a competition over two days you could easily get through a lot of people (10 tables at once).

Maybe they could do avgs of 10 in huge events like the WC...

I think that that'd be the best way. Average of 12, take off best and worst, take average, be done with it.

 

[Bryan]

That's too much of a hassle simply to decide whose name will be on the front page isn't it? Unless there's a trophy for the competition's overall winner.

Well, everything is in a computer already, so it's not really a hassle. Besides, another advantage for smaller competitions is that I can buy less prizes (since I have less entry fees, etc). Let's say I have a competition where three people just dominate. If I had prizes for every event, 3 people would leave with stuff. Well, that's nice for those three people, but it does kind of suck for everyone else. Now, if I could rank all the competitors, then I could simply get 8 prizes, and more people have a chance to get something.

Of course, if I have to get prizes for all the events, they're usually going to be very small prizes (like just certificates), but if I just need to get 8 prizes, they can be a bit better.

 

[Chuberchuckee]

An average of 100 would take too much time. It would be cool, but still cannot be used in a competition.

Not really... for the top speedcubers it'd be maybe an hour (LOL not even) per person; if you held a competition over two days you could easily get through a lot of people (10 tables at once).
[...]

Still, who has the patience to sit down and do 100 solves?

 

[Ganesh1995]

wow
I thought that record wouldn't be broken for a while
And two sub-10s in a competition

 

[Robert-Y]

An average of 100 would take too much time. It would be cool, but still cannot be used in a competition.

Not really... for the top speedcubers it'd be maybe an hour (LOL not even) per person; if you held a competition over two days you could easily get through a lot of people (10 tables at once).
[...]

Still, who has the patience to sit down and do 100 solves?

Any cuber with enough determination and dedication

 

[Chuberchuckee]

An average of 100 would take too much time. It would be cool, but still cannot be used in a competition.

Not really... for the top speedcubers it'd be maybe an hour (LOL not even) per person; if you held a competition over two days you could easily get through a lot of people (10 tables at once).
[...]

Still, who has the patience to sit down and do 100 solves?

Any cuber with enough determination and dedication

I meant in a competition.

 

[Robert-Y]

An average of 100 would take too much time. It would be cool, but still cannot be used in a competition.

Not really... for the top speedcubers it'd be maybe an hour (LOL not even) per person; if you held a competition over two days you could easily get through a lot of people (10 tables at once).
[...]

Still, who has the patience to sit down and do 100 solves?

Any cuber with enough determination and dedication

I meant in a competition.

Erm... I'm sticking with my answer

 

[qqwref]

For each event, give the first place person 100 points and then give the others (up to some limit), a fraction of 100 based on their time in comparision with the first place person. So if 1st place is 10 seconds, and 2nd place is 15, and 3rd is 20, they would get 100, 67, and 50 points each for that event. Do that for all events and then just sum the point totals. I've seen people suggesting something like this before, but they always do it by the last place person, which leads to problems, because if the last place person has a very high time, then small differences won't matter much (image a Magic with 1s, 2s, and 10minutes).

anyway, it would be nice to have some common way of ranking competitors for the whole competition. For a small competition, it's easier to purchase medals for 1st through 8th, rather than 1st through 3rd for all events.

Of course, you'd still have to work out some issues with this, like trying to discourage people from entering all events just because they might be able to pick up an extra point or two. Perhaps it could even be done to discourage some people from entering an event they're really bad at if they want to avoid being ranked lower.

Yeah, we don't want people entering every event just so they can get a high overall rank. The weekly contest ranks people something like that and a lot of people really do just do every event they can, but for a real competition that would waste time.

How about this system (which was unofficially used by me, Dan Cohen, and Timothy Sun at US Nationals '08 to decide who had the 'most' trophies): 1 point for 3rd place, 2 points for 2nd place, 3 points for 1st place (in any event); and maybe for 3x3 you could give something like 1 through 8 points for the top 8 since it's such a big event. So that way you'd only get points for doing events that you think you could place in, and we wouldn't get people doing extra events just to do better in the competition, unless they were actually good at them.

@qqwref: Well, what if two WRs were set in the same round, or what if a top contender in the first round actually had a bad average of 5 and didn't make it to the final, where he WOULD HAVE (let's say, for argument's sake, hypothetically) set a WR average??

Sorry but I don't believe in hypothetical averages - for all intents and purposes, you are not capable of a sub-whatever average in competition until you pull it off. It's just as likely that they would have gotten an amazing average as that they would have gotten a terrible one, and just because someone is theoretically capable of a really good average does not mean you should go out of your way to give them extra attempts in case they actually do as well as you thought they could. Anyway the way rounds would work with this system is that new rounds are basically extra attempts. If you don't do well enough to get an extra attempt, that sucks, but you DID get an average already and you'll still be ranked.

And you can't set two WRs in the same round (not counting single solve records for events where people are ranked by their average)... but if you could, if someone at the competition comes out of it with an average WR, they got the best result and they should have won the event.