Older cubers discussions

A few reminiscences from the weekend comp.

First off, good venue. Really well-run 2-day comp with a good selection of events.

I made a few competition PB's:
Saturday
- 2x2 average - was 12.86, now 12.11 - I don't practice 2x2, don't know Ortega or anything, not really fussed in any way on this, it's just an event I may as well compete in. I thought I'd got a PB in 2x2 single too but I misread my WCA profile.
- 5x5 single - was 5:10.02, now 4:03.15 - big improvement, practice is paying off, hopefully I can keep chipping away at those times.
Sunday
- 3x3 single - minor improvement from 26.74 to 26.68, I can do better
- 3x3 average - better improvement from 32.91 to 29.84. Again, I can do better but it's good to have the official sub-30 average that I thought I could get at the Exeter comp.
- Clock single - good improvement from 33.84 to 19.32.
- Clock average - didn't have an average before, now it's 22.49. And no DNF's!

I might retire from Clock now I have an average in it, but I find it quite entertaining and it's not something I need to practice for more than 5 minutes or so on the day of a competition.

Also competed in 4x4, but first solve was 12s over my comp PB and the second was a DNF after I screwed up an adjacent parity swap into something so weird I showed it to others so they could have a chuckle. :D

One thing I do find with comps is the repeated find-somewhere-to-solve, do-a-solve, wait & repeat process takes me somewhat "out of the zone" with solving the shorter events in comparison to spending longer periods of time doing back-to-back solving at home. (Clock is probably different as the lower number of competitors meant I could just sit down and wait for the judge to find me.) Not sure what the solution is to this other than more competition practice. I might need to volunteer less with judging during periods right before I'm about to compete in events I care about so I can warm up more.

Really hoping to see 6x6 at the next UK competition. I'm a long way from the average cut (see also: 4x4 and 5x5!) but have had solves within the 6x6 hard cut now, so I know I have a shot at recording an official time in that. And overall, I really like 6x6 as a puzzle.

Great to see Mark and Mark again. I got to judge some of their solves too. Think I brought them the occasional piece of good fortune, but the skill's all theirs. :)

Cheers.
 
newtonbase said:
It always helps to have a friendly face at the table. You must have done more judging than anyone.

Results are on the WCA. Mark is 12th in UK for 3BLD.
Click to expand...
Yeah definitely, a friendly judge helps to dispel the nerves a bit.

12th is cool, representing the elderly :)

Not sure what my focus speed events will be for next comp. Maybe 4x4 again. Definitely either MBLD or 4BLD though, whichever is held.
 
newtonbase said:
It always helps to have a friendly face at the table. You must have done more judging than anyone.

Results are on the WCA. Mark is 12th in UK for 3BLD.
Click to expand...

I've tried to update the over-40 rankings but it's too big for the new forum.

The content is >4 times larger than the 25,000 character limit. I've asked if the limit can be increased.
 
Shaky Hands said:
I might need to volunteer less with judging during periods right before I'm about to compete in events I care about so I can warm up more.
Click to expand...
I know I take a while to warm up, so at comps I spend a ton of time practicing. Until the last comp it was about all I did. At this one I actually judged for the first time and walked around a bit more than before. But yeah I'd be lost without lots of warm up (especially 3x3).

Mike, if needed could you post the results on another page and link to it? I'd be happy to put it on my blog if needed. I know you shared the scripts a while back but I'm not sure I could find it now. If you want to share again I could probably run it myself.
 
@newtonbase , @mark49152 , @Shaky Hands - Congratulations on the results Mark, Mark and Andy. Some great PBs in there. So disappointed to have missed the comp but hopefully next one. The disappointment has even driven me to start the process of changing my vehicle.

@Jason Green Great video sir as already said elsewhere. Loved the format :)

Couple of PBs today whilst cooking a family roast....

7x7 - 5:58.358 - First ever sub UK mean cut solve. Really pleased with this one and going to be working hard to get down to average cut globally

Gigaminx - 22:07.60 - Really enjoying this puzzle and doing a solve a day at the moment.
 
Yes, again congrats to all @newtonbase, @mark49152 and @Shaky Hands.

I got also some pbs but slower than your Chris in 7x7. I got ao5 6:28 adn ao12 6:40 in 6x6. I like the puzzle. I do practice only this and skewb - my 3bld times are down. And I've finished remebering my cmlls. I think I'll stay with Roux for longer time. I do practice CFOP doing big cubes but in 3x3 Roux gives me so much fun that I dont want to stop it. Doing blocks and finding the shortest way of FB is so creative.

@Jason Green - nice vide. Next time I'm gonna make something like this - driving etc. :)
 
I'm thinking of focusing on 4x4 and 3BLD for a while. I think soft cut is an achievable target for 4x4 but I would have to take 30% off my times. I'd also like to improve my 3BLD ranking as I was showing off to my 10 year old niece that I'm now top 40 in the country then realised that she knows someone in the top 30 so he's my target!
My only concern is the affect that this might have on my 3x3. I've got a PB lower than my global average but I'm hoping that the other practice will help.
 
newtonbase said:
I'm thinking of focusing on 4x4 and 3BLD for a while. I think soft cut is an achievable target for 4x4 but I would have to take 30% off my times. I'd also like to improve my 3BLD ranking as I was showing off to my 10 year old niece that I'm now top 40 in the country then realised that she knows someone in the top 30 so he's my target!
My only concern is the affect that this might have on my 3x3. I've got a PB lower than my global average but I'm hoping that the other practice will help.
Click to expand...
Practising 4x4 definitely helps 3x3. I would hazard a guess that if you work on 4x4 until you are sub-1:30, you will find yourself miraculously low 20s on 3x3.
 
newtonbase said:
That would be dandy. I think I'll learn a few more OLLs which will be good for both. I know less than half currently.
Click to expand...
No harm in that, although OLL parity will mess with half your solves. You could fix it randomly and apply full OLL, but I prefer to solve EO with OLL parity and reduce to an OCLL, so there's only half the benefit to knowing full OLL.

Have you measured your splits on 4x4 to see where your weaknesses are? For me, getting sub-1:30 was about finding centres/edges systems that worked for me then getting fairly fluid with them.
 
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