My Second WCA Competition Recap: Sowega Solving 2023
This afternoon I returned from a weekend trip to Albany, Georgia, at which I competed in my second WCA competition. A few months ago when I first signed up, I had been practicing very consistently, but the past month has been very busy (job, school, college applications, sports). As a matter of fact, out of the six events that I was competing in, the only one that I had practiced in the past week was 3x3. Hence, I didn't expect to meet many of the goals that I had set earlier on. Also, the day before we went to the competition, my family stopped by a very cool state park known as "the Grand Canyon of Georgia". I thought that it was worth mentioning, I'll share some photos in another post.
3x3
At the time of the competition, I was averaging roughly 17 seconds. I still haven't learned full PLL or OLL, I procrastinate very much when it comes to learning new algorithms. My goal was to get a sub-16 average, sub-14 single, and to make finals. You can see all my exact times in the above screenshot. First round was alright, but in the second around I made a PR average of 15.71 and PR single of 13.21! I was very happy with these times, as it met my goals and passed me to finals. Nothing exciting happened in finals except for another 13 second single, overall, I'm very happy with my 3x3 performance.
5x5
Despite being my main event, I hadn't practiced 5x5 intentionally in several weeks, because of how time consuming it was. I average 1:50, and my goal was for a sub-1:50 average and sub-1:40 single. I had a slow start with the first two solves and knew that I would have to push for a much faster time if I wanted to meet my average goal. And out of the blue, I had a 1:30.52 solve! My pb single at home is 1:29.17, so almost breaking it without any practice was a very pleasant surprise. The next two solves were sub-par, so I finished with an incredible single but poor average. Overall, I am very happy with the single, and since the average is top-10,000, I can call it a day.
7x7
I had bought my first 7x7 only 3 weeks ago, and in that time I only did 30 solves. Cutoff was 6 minutes, and I averaged 7 minutes. Bottom line is, I just wanted a decent single and move on to the next event. What I wasn't expecting was for me to beat my overall pb single by 20 seconds. I still missed cutoff by six seconds (6:06.90 was the time), but I am still very happy with coming so close.
3x3 Blindfolded
Of all six event, 3 blind was the one I had dreaded the most. A month ago, I had been averaging 4 minutes and had roughly a 50% success rate. I thought that by the time of the competition, I could even try to get a mean. But as I have said several times already, it's been a busy few weeks, and I have only done one or two blind solves all month. The time limit was 10 minutes, meaning I only expected myself to have two attempts. The first one went very poorly, but because I forgot to record, I do not recall how far off I was from a success. I was sitting at one of the tables in the front, and as I was inspecting, I realized that a dozen people were sitting in front of me, watching and recording. I found this to be both cool and terrible. On one side, I was doing something that many people don't think is possible, and now I had a bunch of non-cuber and cubers watching me with fascination. On the other hand, the pressure increased ten fold. I was shaking miserably, and no joke, felt sweat running down my sides. It was too much, and failed the 5 minute long attempt. On the following attempt, I DNF-ed 20 seconds in, because the scramble wasn't good.
I was down to my third attempt, with 4 and a half minutes remaining. Before I started, I noticed the crowd surprised, and I turned around to find that a fellow cuber that I had sat down with had gotten a success behind me. At this, I suddenly felt much more confident and relaxed, and dove straight into my last attempt. Long story short, I solved corners, but had 6 swapped edges. At the end of the day, I shouldn't be surprised after the lack of practice, and I'm feeling motivated to focus on my blind solving and try to podium at my next competition.
3x3 One Handed
OH was another event that I hadn't practiced in several weeks. My average had dropped several seconds to 35 seconds, and my goals for the comp was sub-35 average and sub-30 single, as well as to make finals. First round went quite decent, but on the final round I was able to shave off a second and get a 33 average and 29 single. I really wanted a sub-30 single, and entered my final solve without any. I focused very heavily and solved the cube in 2 seconds! I dropped the cube and went for the timer, but my hands made a sub-conscious decision to stop. I then realized that the cube was one turn away, so my left hand shot forward to make the final turn and stop the timer. I was sure that I had the mistake had cost me, but I was able to keep it a sub-30.
Clock
I had purchased my first clock three weeks ago along with the 7x7, and I hadn't practiced it in two weeks. Thankfully, in that first week I brought my average down to 17 seconds, which wasn't far off from my current average. I didn't really have any goals for the comp: I just didn't want to flop. But flop I did. The first solve was 11 seconds, which beat my pb single at home by a second. But several minutes later when I was in the waiting area, one of the delegates came and told me that I had solved to 6 o'clock and resulted in a DNF. I had two more DNFs resulting in a DNF average, and PR single of 14 seconds. I DNFed the two other solves on the back side of the clock because I forgot the beginners method. I can't say that it wasn't disappointing, but I'm not bothered too much, because I know that I'll smash my times at my next comp.
Final Words
I apologize for the lengthy post, I didn't want to leave anything out. I did record all of my solves, so let me know if you would like for me to upload any of them to YouTube. Another important thing that I haven't mentioned yet is that Tommy Cherry and Sean Hartman were both at this competition, which was super cool. I watched a lot of Sean's videos when I was improving at 5x5, and I got to witness Tommy get a 14 second blind solve and 3.6 second clock solve. You'll be seeing a new pfp on my WCA soon of Tommy judging me in 3x3, which has got to be one of my favorite cubing photos to date. Also, though I didn't get to see it myself, a female WR clock single of 3.77 was made at the competition.
There's just too much that I want to say, so I'm going to stop myself there. Thank you for your time, happy cubing!
