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World Championships 2013 - Las Vegas

ToastyKen

Member
Joined
Aug 10, 2012
Messages
64
WCA
2012LUKE01
YouTube
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Working on a video of the epic showdown between Mats and Felix, and I thought I'd share some math I worked out:

Feliks took an early lead in the first 3 rounds. Not too much to analyze the

By the time Solve 4 rolled around, Mats needed a 7.7 to have a chance of taking the lead (assuming best and worst solves were tossed after solve 4*, and Feliks gets a terrible solve 4, Mats would still need a 7.7. If Feliks gets something than his worst solve, Mats would need to do even better).

(*Of course, tossing best and worst after solve 4 makes no real sense, but it seems to make more sense to estimate a sense of who has "the lead" than actually using all the solve times?)

Mats gets a 7.31.

So now Feliks needs an 8.2 or better in Solve 4 to keep his lead (again, assuming best and worst at the end of solve 4 were tossed).

Feliks gets a 7.36.

Now at the beginning of Solve 5, Mats, needs an 8.1 or better to have a chance of winning. (That is, assuming Felik gets his worst solve in Solve 5, Mats would still need an 8.1 to win. If Feliks gets something better than his worst solve in Solve 5, Mats would need to do even better.)

So then, boom. 7.76, which is better than 8.1, but possible penalty. At this point:

If there's no penalty:**
Mats Valk: 8.81, (9.52), 7.61, (7.31), 7.76 Avg: 8.06
Feliks Zemdegs: 8.39, 7.95, 8.21, 7.36

Feliks would need an 8.02 on his final solve to tie.

If there is a penalty, then 9.76 is worse than 8.1, and so:
Mats Valk: 8.81, 9.52, 7.61, (7.31), (9.76+) Avg: 8.65
Feliks Zemdegs: 8.39, 7.95, 8.21, (7.36), (x) Avg: 8.18

Feliks would win no matter what.

**Of course, it's also important to keep in mind that "if Mats's solve 5 didn't have a penalty" is a bit more complex than it first appears, in that (a) if there were no penalty, it likely would've been due to him spending slightly more time turning the piece, which means the time would've been slightly higher, and (b) if Mats's solve 5 time were around 8 seconds, Feliks might've tried a bit harder on solve 5 and gotten a better time.

So you can't just blindly say "if there were no penalty, Mats would've won", because neither of the solve 5 times penalty are independent variables from the penalty and would've been different if there were no penalty.

That's my analysis. Let me know if anything seems off?

I think the real lesson here, is that both Feliks and Mats are amazeballs. :)
 

Ton

Member
Joined
Oct 17, 2007
Messages
738
Location
Den Haag, The Netherlands
WCA
2003DENN01
YouTube
Visit Channel
UK please

To increase a selection, there are some check points organisation team uses


- is the country/venue easy international reachable
- a big enough venue should fit 600+ , not to expensive
- is there enough and not expense accommodations near the venue
- and are there enough volunteers in the city/country to setup a local organisation team

The last is a must, without a big enough local team it is very hard to manage a 400+ competition

and last and not least , find enough sponsors to pay for it ...

So take some initiative and setup an UK organisation team ...as always I will advice and help where needed

Have fun
Ton
 

dlo

Member
Joined
Oct 3, 2011
Messages
12
WCA
2005LODA01
Ok, 2 questions...
Why wasn't Alexander Lau at the world championship?
How do people get to compete with 2:00+ times? (3x3x3)

What's wrong with 2:00+ times? The cutoff for 3x3x3 is high so that as many people can compete as possible and we had no problem handling that many competitors.
 
Joined
Jul 12, 2012
Messages
746
WCA
2012TOWE01
I've always thought of 3x3 as the poster event, therefore all competitions would try to encourage as many people as possible to compete in it, regardless of their times. That is why 10 minute cutoff's are commonly seen.
 
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