Older cubers discussions

I’ve found a comp outside of Chicago, IL, here in the states. They have 3BLD with a cummalitive time for all (up to 3) attempts of 15 mins... this could be a real chance for me to get a couple shots at a success. It’s in April after my upcoming March attempt in Charleston, SC.

I’m trying to convince a buddy of mine that enjoys Cubing but has never entered a comp to sign up and come along. He actually prefers 5x5 as his, but is a casual solver and really hasn’t taken to “speed solving” . But he’s actually interested at the idea of learning BLD. I’m going to work on him a little in that area, but hopefully I can swing this trip.

How far have/will you guys travel for a comp?

I know we have an international group here, sonas a point of reference, Charleston is a 7-8 hour drive for me whereas the Chicago area one would be closer to 13–Id actually fly and visit my friend, but 13 hours of driving is a good “reference”.

Welcome back and congrats to @cmhardw on the little guy!!

@newtonbase i probably wouldn’t answer the phone if I were in the middle of my memo phase!! Good on you and well done with the 13:30 outright. I’m still blown away with the Big BLD stuff.
 
@SpartanSailor I have flown to three comps, which is kind of ridiculous in a way but I had other excuses to make it seem justified. And my wife was always supportive! I live in Fort Worth, TX. Flew to Portland (have a niece there), Kansas City (an old friend had a son into cubing and we competed together), and Chicago (where I also have a friend) to drive to Fort Wayne for Nationals. I look at it more as an excuse to take a trip. :)
 
@SpartanSailor: Are you talking about Dixon Spring 2018? I delegated the first couple of Dixon competitions. Things are pretty hectic with my daughters these days, but I might see if I can come to that. It's only a 4 hour drive for me.

Back when I first got into cubing, my daughters were younger so it was a little easier to get away by bringing them with me, so I made quite a few 8 hour trips for competitions. But I rarely went farther than that unless it was for Nationals.

We used to organize our summer family vacations around US Nationals. We'd do sightseeing along the route there and back, and drive to wherever it was. Those are some of our most memorable vacations:

2009 (Stanford, CA): From Indiana pretty much direct to Salt Lake City, where we stayed a day with my best friend from high school, then onto San Francisco for several days, then the competition. Then on to Yosemite, then the Grand Canyon, then the Painted Desert, then through New Mexico and Texas to visit relatives.

2010 (Cambridge, MA): straight to Virginia to visit my parents, then up through Maryland and Delaware to New Jersey to visit a Filipino restaurant and grocery, then to New York City for a day, then on to Boston for the competition and a little sightseeing, then up to Maine for some fresh lobster, then through Vermont and New Hampshire into upstate New York to Niagara Falls for a day, then up to Toronto for a Canadian cubing competition before heading home.

2012 (Las Vegas, NV): through South Dakota for the Badlands and Mount Rushmore, to the Devil's Tower, to Teddy Roosevelt National Park in North Dakota, to Montana, down to the Grand Tetons, then up through Washington State to Mount Rainier and then to Seattle, then back down through Boise Idaho to the Craters of the Moon National Park, then down to Salt Lake City to visit my friend again, then on to Las Vegas for the competition.
 
Having a family i only get to stay away for one night which limits my travel time. Luckily the UK is small so I've not needed to drive over 2.5 hours domestically. The only exception was the 6 hours it took to get to the World Championships in Paris.
I'd happily travel to the continent mire often if I was able.
 
newtonbase said:
The target is 3 solves in 30 mins on 15th April with a maximum of 2 DNFs.
Click to expand...
Right on, makes sense.

Shoot for an 80% success rate on each solve until you get one.

1-(1-x)^3>=0.99 gives x>=0.7846

If you get a solve, then go for something faster, but the “safest” you really have to go is 80% to guarantee a greater than 99% chance of getting at least one solve. Going for 80% success rate (until you get a solve) also helps to keep your times down when the round cutoff is a factor.

Good luck!
 
Last week I got a 11.98 PB single with a complete LL skip. Didn't expect to beat it like this:

Generated By csTimer on 2018-3-1
single: 11.96

Time List:
1. 11.96 L U' F2 D L2 D2 R2 B2 U L2 U B2 R' B2 D2 F' R D U2 F D2

z2 y // inspection
F R' L D' // cross
y' R' U' R // F2L-1
L U' L' d L' U' L // F2L-2
U R' U R d' L' U L // F2L-3
d' L' U' L // F2L-4
U2 R' F R U R' U' F' U R // OLL
U R2 U' R U' R U R' U R2 U D' R U' R' D // PLL
U // AUF

53 moves full-step with a G-perm!? I can't recall when I would have ever had a PB single without skips.

I saw the first F2L pair during inspection. Otherwise nothing particularly special about the solve. Except it must have been very fluent execution at 4.4 moves/second.
 
Last edited:
cmhardw said:
Right on, makes sense.

Shoot for an 80% success rate on each solve until you get one.

1-(1-x)^3>=0.99 gives x>=0.7846

If you get a solve, then go for something faster, but the “safest” you really have to go is 80% to guarantee a greater than 99% chance of getting at least one solve. Going for 80% success rate (until you get a solve) also helps to keep your times down when the round cutoff is a factor.

Good luck!
Click to expand...
Thanks for the advice. Much appreciated
 
Jason Green said:
@SpartanSailor I have flown to three comps, which is kind of ridiculous in a way but I had other excuses to make it seem justified. And my wife was always supportive! I live in Fort Worth, TX. Flew to Portland (have a niece there), Kansas City (an old friend had a son into cubing and we competed together), and Chicago (where I also have a friend) to drive to Fort Wayne for Nationals. I look at it more as an excuse to take a trip. :)
Click to expand...

I have a cousin in Halifax which was a great excuse to fly there for a comp. :)
 
SpartanSailor said:
I’ve found a comp outside of Chicago, IL, here in the states. They have 3BLD with a cummalitive time for all (up to 3) attempts of 15 mins... this could be a real chance for me to get a couple shots at a success. It’s in April after my upcoming March attempt in Charleston, SC.
Click to expand...

Dixon Spring is enticing, maybe a good dry run for me for Great Lakes in May.
 
Mike Hughey said:
My work on 4x4x4 Hoya is finally paying off. I finally have an average of 5 and average of 12 that is faster than I think I ever did with simple reduction - I got a sub-1:20 average of 12 today! Still 6 seconds shy of my best single, but that's just luck anyway. :)
Click to expand...

Nice! I might have to take a look at Hoya. 4x4 is my worst event by far. It's the event where ive seen the least improvement vs practice time. I tried to switch to yau at some point but my times got slower and never really improved quick enough for me to want to practice more. I've given up on it a while back. For some reason the parity algs make me dislike solving 4x4 even more.

As for the distance comps below. I remember trying to plan to go to comps in your area back In my early competing days. Every comp I was looking at going to was delegated by you. In the end, I couldn't swing going to the 3 or 4 I looked at the time. I remember looking forward to meeting the illustrious Mike Hughey though lol
Perhaps one day.


SpartanSailor said:
I’ve found a comp outside of Chicago, IL, here in the states. They have 3BLD with a cummalitive time for all (up to 3) attempts of 15 mins... this could be a real chance for me to get a couple shots at a success. It’s in April after my upcoming March attempt in Charleston, SC.

I’m trying to convince a buddy of mine that enjoys Cubing but has never entered a comp to sign up and come along. He actually prefers 5x5 as his, but is a casual solver and really hasn’t taken to “speed solving” . But he’s actually interested at the idea of learning BLD. I’m going to work on him a little in that area, but hopefully I can swing this trip.

How far have/will you guys travel for a comp?

I know we have an international group here, sonas a point of reference, Charleston is a 7-8 hour drive for me whereas the Chicago area one would be closer to 13–Id actually fly and visit my friend, but 13 hours of driving is a good “reference”.

Welcome back and congrats to @cmhardw on the little guy!!

@newtonbase i probably wouldn’t answer the phone if I were in the middle of my memo phase!! Good on you and well done with the 13:30 outright. I’m still blown away with the Big BLD stuff.
Click to expand...

2 East coast comps for me. I live in Ontario so Moncton is about 11 hours away. Halifax is 14-15 hours away.
I didn't drive for either though. Trains and Planes!

Edit: I forgot! I went to Boston for one. I drove the 6-7 hours for that one.
 
Last edited:
Mike Hughey said:
@SpartanSailor: Are you talking about Dixon Spring 2018? I delegated the first couple of Dixon competitions. Things are pretty hectic with my daughters these days, but I might see if I can come to that. It's only a 4 hour drive for me.

Back when I first got into cubing, my daughters were younger so it was a little easier to get away by bringing them with me, so I made quite a few 8 hour trips for competitions. But I rarely went farther than that unless it was for Nationals.

We used to organize our summer family vacations around US Nationals. We'd do sightseeing along the route there and back, and drive to wherever it was. Those are some of our most memorable vacations:

2009 (Stanford, CA): From Indiana pretty much direct to Salt Lake City, where we stayed a day with my best friend from high school, then onto San Francisco for several days, then the competition. Then on to Yosemite, then the Grand Canyon, then the Painted Desert, then through New Mexico and Texas to visit relatives.

2010 (Cambridge, MA): straight to Virginia to visit my parents, then up through Maryland and Delaware to New Jersey to visit a Filipino restaurant and grocery, then to New York City for a day, then on to Boston for the competition and a little sightseeing, then up to Maine for some fresh lobster, then through Vermont and New Hampshire into upstate New York to Niagara Falls for a day, then up to Toronto for a Canadian cubing competition before heading home.

2012 (Las Vegas, NV): through South Dakota for the Badlands and Mount Rushmore, to the Devil's Tower, to Teddy Roosevelt National Park in North Dakota, to Montana, down to the Grand Tetons, then up through Washington State to Mount Rainier and then to Seattle, then back down through Boise Idaho to the Craters of the Moon National Park, then down to Salt Lake City to visit my friend again, then on to Las Vegas for the competition.
Click to expand...
Yes. That’s the one in Dixon. I’m trying to convince my friend to join in the fun. He feels like he wants to be faster before going.... I may just go anyway, but having decided yet.
 
SpartanSailor said:
... He feels like he wants to be faster before going ...
Click to expand...

Which is how he'll feel forever because he'll be constantly improving if he keeps at it :D.

SpartanSailor said:
I’m not opposed to Great Lakes in May either. My son and I went to Nationals there in Fort Wayne and really enjoyed ourselves.
Click to expand...

Mike and I are already signed up for that one, so barring any emergency I'll definitely be there. I'm seriously considering Dixon, I'll have to keep an eye open so I know to make some decision before it gets close to full.
 
I have a buddy that lives in Aurora, so another incentive. I could stay the night there on the 20th and meet up, then it's just a little over an hour to Dixon Sat. Gonna have to put that one as "highly likely" now.
 
SpartanSailor said:
How far have/will you guys travel for a comp?
Click to expand...

@SpartanSailor / I'm lucky in that department. I have all the excuses = my son :-)
Usually, bottle neck is his school schedule. We can leave Friday evening and need to comeback Sunday but not when he has lots of school stuffs. So, it's not that easy. Other than Nats, flew once, mostly driving (between 3~ 15 hrs). This March, there are couple of flying-distance comps we'd like to join : one in Florida, one in SC. We have the next Monday off for both weekends.
 
openseas said:
@SpartanSailor / I'm lucky in that department. I have all the excuses = my son :)
Usually, bottle neck is his school schedule. We can leave Friday evening and need to comeback Sunday but not when he has lots of school stuffs. So, it's not that easy. Other than Nats, flew once, mostly driving (between 3~ 15 hrs). This March, there are couple of flying-distance comps we'd like to join : one in Florida, one in SC. We have the next Monday off for both weekends.
Click to expand...
My son cubes too... so my excuse is to give my wife a quiet weekend while my son and I go off for some father-son bonding.

I’ll be seeing you in SC... I’ll be sure to come say HI.
 
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