Where does the WR go from here?

[backjaum33]

In light of Yiheng Wang's new WR, i was incredibly curious where the 3x3 single record stands to improve. Do we think it will be weeks before the first sub-3? Months? Years? Are we buckling in for another Yusheng Du situation where we had to wait years for a new record? What do we think?

 

[qwr]

By the end of this year

 

[LukasCubes]

To me it depends on if yiheng improves his efficiency, which i bet we can all agree is pretty bad. 45 moves is preffy inefficient for a WR. Imagine if he used that TPS or anything close to it on a sub-30 move solve. Max’s 3.13 was sub-30 moves. If yiheng gets stupid high TPS on under 30 moves, he will probably end up with a low-mid 2. We have seen mid-2s on stupid-low movecount solutions before so it’s definitely possible.

For example. I had a 19-move solve back in October. You only need 6.17 TPS to beat that (mine was 4.8 tps on a 3.99)

WITH HIS 3.08 SCRAMBLE, I found a 35-mover with the waterman record that only requires 11.37 TPS to beat (solution is on the 3.08 thread)

Moving on to realistic solutions, I went on speedcubedb.com’s scramble analyzer and they found this 33-mover on yellow cross with his scramble

R' D L D2 B' F // Yellow Cross
S' L' S // Pair 1
S RS' // Pair 2
R’ U R y' U2 L' U L // Pair 3
U’ L U2 L' // Pair 4
F’r U R' U' r' F R // OLL
U' // AUF (pll skip)

This only requires 10.72 TPS to beat, and still, there are probably more efficient solutions

All yiheng needs is low movecounts. I would probably compare yiheng to Shaquille O’Neal, who could do literally anything, except shoot the basketball. Yiheng could literally do anything except get low-movecount solves. However, Shaq still made 58% of his freethrows and has hit 1 three-pointer. I have also seen yiheng get stupid-efficient solves. They’re just rare.

Another comparison would be my favorite track and field athlete, Mutaz Barshim (the GOAT of High Jump). Early in his career, Mutaz was beating basically everyone in high jump, but he had a reputation. He would enter in contests way too early and use all of his stamina and energy before getting to the big 2.40+ meter heights. If. Barshim wouldn’t have entered in so many contests too early, he could have broken the WR (2.45), but his PR stayed at 2.43. Yiheng has the same problem, except he would use way too many moves in his solves. For the majority of their careers, they were/are the best people in their professions, bit had one huge weakness for each of them.

Yiheng’s efficiency is like Shaq’s ability to shoot the ball or young Barshim’s tendency to enter in high jump contests and get tired too early.

Yiheng, Shaq, and Barshim are some of the greatest ever at their professions, but they could have been way better if they had fixed their ONE weakness.

 

[TheSilverBeluga]

To me it depends on if yiheng improves his efficiency, which i bet we can all agree is pretty bad. 45 moves is preffy inefficient for a WR. Imagine if he used that TPS or anything close to it on a sub-30 move solve. Max’s 3.13 was sub-30 moves. If yiheng gets stupid high TPS on under 30 moves, he will probably end up with a low-mid 2. We have seen mid-2s on stupid-low movecount solutions before so it’s definitely possible.

For example. I had a 19-move solve back in October. You only need 6.17 TPS to beat that (mine was 4.8 tps on a 3.99)

WITH HIS 3.08 SCRAMBLE, I found a 35-mover with the waterman record that only requires 11.37 TPS to beat (solution is on the 3.08 thread)

Moving on to realistic solutions, I went on speedcubedb.com’s scramble analyzer and they found this 33-mover on yellow cross with his scramble

R' D L D2 B' F // Yellow Cross
S' L' S // Pair 1
S RS' // Pair 2
R’ U R y' U2 L' U L // Pair 3
U’ L U2 L' // Pair 4
F’r U R' U' r' F R // OLL
U' // AUF (pll skip)

This only requires 10.72 TPS to beat, and still, there are probably more efficient solutions

All yiheng needs is low movecounts. I would probably compare yiheng to Shaquille O’Neal, who could do literally anything, except shoot the basketball. Yiheng could literally do anything except get low-movecount solves. However, Shaq still made 58% of his freethrows and has hit 1 three-pointer. I have also seen yiheng get stupid-efficient solves. They’re just rare.

Another comparison would be my favorite track and field athlete, Mutaz Barshim (the GOAT of High Jump). Early in his career, Mutaz was beating basically everyone in high jump, but he had a reputation. He would enter in contests way too early and use all of his stamina and energy before getting to the big 2.40+ meter heights. If. Barshim wouldn’t have entered in so many contests too early, he could have broken the WR (2.45), but his PR stayed at 2.43. Yiheng has the same problem, except he would use way too many moves in his solves. For the majority of their careers, they were/are the best people in their professions, bit had one huge weakness for each of them.

Yiheng’s efficiency is like Shaq’s ability to shoot the ball or young Barshim’s tendency to enter in high jump contests and get tired too early.

Yiheng, Shaq, and Barshim are some of the greatest ever at their professions, but they could have been way better if they had fixed their ONE weakness.

I’m not quite sure I follow. Why is the fact that this solve was less lucky in this solve being used as an argument that he’s worse? Yiheng is actually quite efficient overall due to his insane inspection capability allowing him to choose pairs and pair solutions that set up other pairs nicely (see, for example, his choice to do green/red on his second pair in this solve, instead of the green/orange pair that’s right there.)

His average move count is 55.93. For comparison, Max Park’s is 58.95 and Tymon’s is 53.23 with the advantage of full ZBLL.

Also, his solutions are incredibly ergonomic. Sure, you might save 12 moves with your proposed solution, but the cost is ending your cross with a B/F simultaneous move, a rotation, and a freaking S2. That’s not necessarily better. There’s more to speed than movecount.

 

[Clock_Enthusiast]

Given that Yiheng beat the former record by .05, I'm sure we won't see another Yusheng Du scenario. Yusheng beat the previous single (4.22 by Feliks Zemdegs) by nearly a full second, and we know there are several top speedsolvers who can and HAVE achieved low-3 singles.

 

[LukasCubes]

I’m not quite sure I follow. Why is the fact that this solve was less lucky in this solve being used as an argument that he’s worse? Yiheng is actually quite efficient overall due to his insane inspection capability allowing him to choose pairs and pair solutions that set up other pairs nicely (see, for example, his choice to do green/red on his second pair in this solve, instead of the green/orange pair that’s right there.)

His average move count is 55.93. For comparison, Max Park’s is 58.95 and Tymon’s is 53.23 with the advantage of full ZBLL.

Also, his solutions are incredibly ergonomic. Sure, you might save 12 moves with your proposed solution, but the cost is ending your cross with a B/F simultaneous move, a rotation, and a freaking S2. That’s not necessarily better. There’s more to speed than movecount.

I’m not saying he’s worse. I agree that he’s the best cuber, but even the best of the best has weaknesses. That’s all I wanted to point out.

I’m a huge fan of low movecount solves (which is why i main waterman) and my TPS is quite low when I do solves so at my TPS, saving moves is more helpful than ergonomics, but I do agree with you that movecount isn’t everything. Even the first solution I found with waterman was 46 moves, and it took like 2 or 3 tries to get to the 35-mover I found.

I do kinda wish that yiheng would learn ZB. Regardless of TPS I think that will benefit him quite a bit.

 

[abunickabhi]

In light of Yiheng Wang's new WR, i was incredibly curious where the 3x3 single record stands to improve. Do we think it will be weeks before the first sub-3? Months? Years? Are we buckling in for another Yusheng Du situation where we had to wait years for a new record? What do we think?

Yiheng will beat it again. Give him a few weekends yo.

 

[Jorian Meeuse]

I’m not saying he’s worse. I agree that he’s the best cuber, but even the best of the best has weaknesses. That’s all I wanted to point out.

Sure, but it sounds like you are saying his weakness is either an inability to get lucky or not needing to get lucky to still be fast. Neither of these make sense, because the first isn't in your control and the latter isn't a weakness.

I do kinda wish that yiheng would learn ZB. Regardless of TPS I think that will benefit him quite a bit.

Probably not. His OLL and PLL prediction and execution are often near-perfect, so for him it would mostly just reduce alg quality and familiarity, and add a pause for recognition.