US Nationals 2009

The 27 move solution found by both me and Michael Young. It was my first full solution (almost linear, I messed up doing the block the first time so I just speedsolved it and rescrambled), found in less than 2 minutes, then I spent 45 minutes checking it over and over again. Michael found it in like 4-5 minutes (I think) and spent the rest of the time checking it as well.

scramble: D L2 R2 U B2 F L B' U B2 R D F2 D' R' U F2 U'

2x2x3: D' R' F' U2 L' F U F2 R2

F2L + OLL: B D B2 D B2 D B R D2 R'

PLL: R D2 R' D2 R F' R' D' R D R F R2 D'

R D2 R' R D2 R' cancels to nothing, resulting in a 27 move solution. Pretty lucky, but given the ease of the first block I think I could have done well either way. Tim Sun found a 5-corner skeleton in 22 moves, and his insertions canceled 5 and 3 moves, resulting in 30.

The funny thing is, for the past two days I had been saying "Well, I'm going to get a 27 on the first scramble..." etc. so now I have been saying that I am going to get 21 on the second scramble :D

Hi Americans,

Very nice result at this tournament,
Also FMC results are quite remarkable.
Congrats to Michael & David for their 27-movers.

I tried the first scramble, after 20 minutes or so I got:
F2L minus pair: D' R' F' U2 L' F U F2 R2 B D B2.D B2 D B (16)
all but 3 corners: D R D R' D' (21)
at dot insert B' D F D' B D F'D', 3 moves cancel, resulting in 26 moves.

David, Michael you missed that 21-move frame by only 5 moves!

The inverse scramble is even more promising especially with premove D...
Did anybody tried already?

Now I'll give the second scamble a try

Gus
 
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Nice scramble. I tried it and got my second sub-30 ever:

z2 y L' F2 d' F y2 L U L' f2 L U' l (11) corners + 4 edges
L' E' L (4) 5th edge
u' L E' L' (5) 6th edge
U' L' E' L (5) 7th and 8th edge
L' E L B2 L' E' L B2 D2 U' (12) middle layer
Total 37 - 8 moves canceling (L' E' L L' E L) = 29 HTM (and 25 STM).
 
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I wish I could do that every weekend. Thanks for the great time you guys! Oh, and on an unrelated note, I've come to a realization: this forum for me is like nicotine gum is for a smoker. If I'm actually with cubers, I don't really care about it, but as soon as I don't have people to cube with anymore, I'm back online. Thanks to everyone who attended and to the organizers!
 
Just got home a few hours ago, I had a great time. In addition to what's been said already, congrats to Rowe for doing 227 3x3s in an hour, and to Dan for doing 200.

Unfortunately there's no prize for just barely missing top 3 in a large number of events...
7x7: 4th place by .19 seconds
clock: 4th place by .42 seconds
pyraminx: 4th place by .29 seconds
megaminx: 4th place by .33 seconds
 
Ok I admit I took the comment the wrong way, but I don't understand why 22:00 is a strange time. You all do realize that the time is marked incorrectly right? It will be recorded as 22:00 because it was timed with a stopwatch.

I guess I wondered why solving anytime between 22:00.00 and 22:00.99 would be considered "conspicuous".

Apologies.

Chris

Sorry - I didn't see this whole thing the first time I looked at this thread. Still working on hotel computers - no time to look over much.

The actual time was 22:00.43 (I checked my receipt - I love the receipts, Adam!). I actually thought that meant the time recorded was wrong, because I thought we always rounded up on stopwatch times. But I see now the regulations say we round normally to the nearest second, so it looks like 22:00 is the correct time. They must have entered 22:00.00 just because they knew about the rounding rule.

I would think the more conspicuous thing was how outrageously slow this was. I was tired of DNFs, so I actually double-checked every piece to make sure I memorized correctly. That's why it was so slow.
 
(Originally posted at http://www.speedsolving.com/forum/showthread.php?t=14916, since I somehow didn't see this thread. The video I mentioned is there.)

Just a comment from a fellow competitor... we solved two at a time in the finals, but the "races" became staggered over time. So when I came up, Rowe was starting each solve about five seconds before me, and the audience enthusiastically applauded for him during my solves (you can see this in the second video.) As you can imagine, there's a lot of applause during an 11.64 average, and it is incredibly distracting. That's why I (and Rowe, with whom I chatted as the first few finalists competed) really disliked the idea of competing two at a time. I'm not claiming that this actually affected my ranking (since Rowe and Mitchell both beat me pretty convincingly) but I think that's one thing to adjust in future competitions.
 
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