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Should Speed FMC be added to the Weekly Competition?

Should Speed FMC be added to the Weekly Competition?


  • Total voters
    74
  • Poll closed .

Mike Hughey

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Four polls are being posted; note that only a maximum of two events will be added to the weekly competition.

This thread will be open for 15 days.

Vote yes ONLY if you BOTH want the event added AND intend to compete in it if possible.

Vote no if you specifically don't want the event added.

If the event receives at least 22 Yes votes (10% of the weekly average of participants) AND ALSO has more Yes votes than No votes, and is one of the top 2 events chosen, it will be added to the competition.

Responses other than Yes or No will not have any impact on the decision. Your response can be changed up until the poll closes.

Note that for this event, the proposed scoring suggested by the original suggester (Kit Clement) is:
final score = number of moves in HTM * ln(time to write down valid solution in seconds)
 
Last edited:

Mike Hughey

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I would say the rules should be exactly as regular FMC other than the scoring issue. Three cubes allowed, stickers allowed, no other materials allowed, theoretically must write the solution down on paper, then stop the timer. Then hopefully transfer that result to the comments section of the entry form (this part would be done after the timer is stopped). I would still prefer to have it necessary to provide the solution and check that solution on submission, just as is currently done with regular FMC. Of course, as is true now, if someone chooses to type their result in instead of using paper and pen, I don't see that as a big deal, and I wouldn't want to DNF someone for using that approach instead of paper and pen. But I would think the "proper" way to compete in this would be paper and pen, as is the case with regular FMC.

If this makes it in, I will try to have a working timer ready by the end of the year, but if I run into problems and am unable to get it working in time, I'm sure I should be able to at least provide the ability to manually enter the results, and I can add the timer later when I am able.
 

Mike Hughey

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I feel like the suggested rules would emphasis speed too much; 60 moves in one minute (should be doable) would be judged just as good as 30 moves in two minutes (very hard).
60 * ln(60) = 245.66
30 * ln(120) = 143,62

The 30 moves in 2 minutes wins hands down over the 60 moves in 1 minute?
 

irontwig

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Oh, missed that logarithm, my bad. Is there any upper time limit? As it is now, 38 in two minutes would be about the same score as 20 in three hours. One of these sound more like speed FMC than the other.
 
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Kit Clement

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Oh, missed that logarithm, my bad. Is there any upper time limit? As it is now, 38 in two minutes would be about the same score as 20 in three hours. One of these sound more like speed FMC than the other.

Unless I'm doing something incorrectly here:

20*ln(10800) = 185.75
38*ln(120) = 181.92

But either way, the point stands (EDIT: I see you're claiming "about the same score" not that one is better, my fault for misinterpreting). I had only really compared "reasonable" results when evaluating the formula, so maybe it should be restricted to some time limit. 10 minutes seems long enough to value the need to be efficient without allowing too many advanced FMC techniques to be leveraged.

Say you find 25-3c and finish for a 33 in 5 minutes:

33*ln(300) = 188.22

But you could spend the time to do a quick 3c insertion in the next 5 minutes, which usually cancels 2 more moves:

31*ln(600) = 198.30

The typical result seems to make you do worse than if you had turned in the simple solution earlier. It would take a cancellation of 4 or more in this time, making this a fairly risky move. Maybe you're insanely quick at a 3c insertion - but in this specific instance, if you get the typical 2 move cancellation, you'd need to be able to insert it in about 2 minutes and 13 seconds or less to do any better than the original solution.

I think this fits the idea of speed FMC though - you can try to do something fancy in a short amount of time, but you only get rewarded for it if it works out well (get lucky) or you are able to do it quickly.
 

irontwig

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How about score=moves+k*time, where k is some number. It has the pros that

* Easier for competitors to gauge their score during an attempt.
* Allows us to carefully choose a k which we feel gives a good balance between speed and movecount.
* Should discourage multi-hour attempts, unless k is small.
 

Kit Clement

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How about score=moves+k*time, where k is some number. It has the pros that

* Easier for competitors to gauge their score during an attempt.
* Allows us to carefully choose a k which we feel gives a good balance between speed and movecount.
* Should discourage multi-hour attempts, unless k is small.

From my limited experience of trying this at home, the thing I like about a non-linear function of time is that you are essentially not penalized drastically for using some extra time to find efficiencies. Your score decreases for each additional second, but it is not decreasing as fast as it was previously. And by the examples above, this also seems to make it so that you can't spend a drastic amount of time more unless the payoff for solution improvement is drastic. I hadn't considered using an excessive amount of time in this event in my testing of different formulas, but with a reasonable time limit I think that this would work okay.

If we were to use this system, I would like to significantly nerf typical FMC techniques unless they are implemented extremely quickly - thus, considering that 3c insertions will on average reduce 2 moves and rarely reduce more than 4, and the typical insertion time is around 5min for an FMC pro, an increase in 300 seconds should offset moves by 5. That would give a k of 1/60 in seconds, or just 1 in minutes.

Given that moves+time (in minutes) is actually fairly understandable, I could be on board with the idea.

Another thought: Mike said he would likely not implement this in time for the beginning of 2020, so if it passes and doesn't get implemented, we should propose some different formulas and run test contests to see how they would work with real results.
 

Mike Hughey

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Since it seems a very popular idea and I like the idea, I think I intend to implement this by the beginning of 2020 even if I cannot get the timer page working by then. Since it seems the only real debate here is the scoring, that can be back-adjusted after the beginning if it is absolutely necessary - I will make sure to store both time and solution, so the calculation can be redone. But it will be a little unfair to change it after the fact like that, so it would be nice to try it beforehand. Perhaps we should start a competition over the next few weeks just for this event on a separate thread?
 

kubesolver

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I like @irontwig formula more than the logarithm one. I think there should be a constant penalty for using fixed amount of time, as opposed for a constant penalty for doubling your time.

The "moves+k*time" formula is super easy to understand and also I think is more in the spirit of speed FMC.
If k = 1/60 then you have a simple tradeoff : "Can I gain an extra 1 move by thinking extra 1 minute?"


Logarithm function will promote super fast speed solving with no FMC (because logarithm grows so fast at the beginning)

Say you find 25-3c and finish for a 33 in 5 minutes:
33*ln(300) = roughly 69 moves in 15 seconds = 78 moves in 11 seconds.
so basically if someone is fast there is no incentive for him to waste time on finding efficient solution.

And on the other hand it will promote super long solving (becuase if you spent 60 minutes thinking than there is very little penalty for extra 20 minutes).

And with logarithm is very hard to calculate your score in your head during the competition.
 

Kit Clement

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33*ln(300) = roughly 69 moves in 15 seconds = 78 moves in 11 seconds.
so basically if someone is fast there is no incentive for him to waste time on finding efficient solution.

If someone could find and write a solution down in 15 seconds, let alone one that exceeds 60 moves, then I'd be thoroughly impressed.
 

Mike Hughey

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If someone could find and write a solution down in 15 seconds, let alone one that exceeds 60 moves, then I'd be thoroughly impressed.
I personally would love to see someone who is really fast at this show what they can do (on video, if possible). The assumption is that you would be solving with one hand while writing with the other, and as you find moves for the next CFOP (or Roux, or whatever method you use OH) step, be writing as you are executing.

Of course, it needs to be remembered that there is no inspection time for FMC. The scramble is revealed at the time the timer starts (so obviously, no preparation allowed), and the cube is still fully solved. The person must first apply the scramble, then let go with one hand to pick up the pen to begin writing the solution. This certainly does add a significant amount of time to the solve.

Somehow it seems like 30 seconds should be fairly doable for people who are really good at OH, although I think it would require some practice. 15 seconds might be possible with real practice, but I wonder if someone already has all the skills to be able to pull this sort of thing off. I think of back when I first did the one-handed solve blind behind my back while juggling two balls - someone happened to suggest it here, and I just happened to realize that I had recently been practicing all the skills required to do it (practicing juggling 4 and 6 balls, so two in one hand was ridiculously easy, and practicing solving one-handed blind, using my weaker juggling hand), so it was actually fairly easy for me and I was able to video it in just a few tries.

If someone is already good at solving with no inspection, good at OH, and good at writing with one hand while somewhat distracted, they might already be quite good at this. I can't help wondering what the right person might be able to do right now with this.
 

ProStar

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I personally would love to see someone who is really fast at this show what they can do (on video, if possible). The assumption is that you would be solving with one hand while writing with the other, and as you find moves for the next CFOP (or Roux, or whatever method you use OH) step, be writing as you are executing.

Of course, it needs to be remembered that there is no inspection time for FMC. The scramble is revealed at the time the timer starts (so obviously, no preparation allowed), and the cube is still fully solved. The person must first apply the scramble, then let go with one hand to pick up the pen to begin writing the solution. This certainly does add a significant amount of time to the solve.

Somehow it seems like 30 seconds should be fairly doable for people who are really good at OH, although I think it would require some practice. 15 seconds might be possible with real practice, but I wonder if someone already has all the skills to be able to pull this sort of thing off. I think of back when I first did the one-handed solve blind behind my back while juggling two balls - someone happened to suggest it here, and I just happened to realize that I had recently been practicing all the skills required to do it (practicing juggling 4 and 6 balls, so two in one hand was ridiculously easy, and practicing solving one-handed blind, using my weaker juggling hand), so it was actually fairly easy for me and I was able to video it in just a few tries.

If someone is already good at solving with no inspection, good at OH, and good at writing with one hand while somewhat distracted, they might already be quite good at this. I can't help wondering what the right person might be able to do right now with this.

Or we could revive Albert Einstein and have him just do the solve in his head, without the need of scrambling/solving a real cube. Then we would need a magician to instantly input the moves into the computer without a bunch of typing.

I believe my solution is much more feasible and easy then Mike's above suggestion. Why practice when you can bring a genius back from the dead?
 

Mike Hughey

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I want to make sure everyone understands, because my original post here was originally improperly worded in one place - no more than 2 events will be added this year. Since it seems likely that more than two events will have enough votes to meet the minimum requirements, this becomes a race for the most votes - only the top 2 according to yes votes will be added. Fewer no votes will be used to break ties.
 
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