# Extend the concept of Twin competitions



## abunickabhi (Jul 4, 2021)

Original Discussion: https://forum.worldcubeassociation.org/t/extend-the-concept-of-twin-competitions/14508 by Kerrie Jarman.

Comps have resumed now in several countries, and a lot of organisers are adopting the concept of twin competitions to keep less participants at a venue.

Kerrie has come up with an interesting proposal,

"I would like to start a conversation about changing the model of WCA competitions to provide flexibility to local communities and to better meet the WCA mission of “more competitions, more people”

*The problem*
In Australia we have experienced a huge demand for cubing competitions and we are not able to adequately service the community under the current competition model. We have tried holding bigger competitions but for a range of reasons that is not really working for us and even then many cubers are still missing out. Bigger competitions are challenging to organise, larger venues are are almost impossible to source and are often prohibitively expensive. Our geography and population spread in Australia further compounds this issue as we have only a few concentrated large cities on our eastern seaboard and large distances between them, so the current proximity policy works against us.

*Existing options*
Under the current WCRP 5 we have the option to run twin competitions - two separate competitions on the same weekend (or less than 5 days apart) where competitors are only allowed to compete in one.
This style of competitions has become popular to cope with venue and density restrictions in a post Covid world. However, twin competitions only allow for limited events and still involve a great deal of coordination.

*Proposal*
I would like to see the twin competition concept extended and have the WCRP allow “series” competitions. That is, have multiple competitions several weeks apart and have registration restrictions that allow competitors to only compete in only one competition in a series (e.g. a Summer Series over 2 month period that allows you compete in 1 out the 3).

*Why do this*
I feel a “series” of competitions would allow us to better meet the community demand, lower the barrier for new organisers and place less burden on key organisers. Having the flexibility to have 3 different people organise a 100 person competitions on different weekends is far easier than coordinating one large 300 person competition. It will also mean that we give a lot more cubers a chance to compete (not just the same people competing at every competition).

As competitions are starting to return in other jurisdictions we are seeing competitions sell out in seconds and organisers struggling to find suitable venues. We need to have a way to let all cubers to participate in our competitions. I think we need to *urgently* look at our current competition model and find a model that will suit our new reality - huge demand for cubing competitions in a Covid restricted environment.

I see this an exciting opportunity to ensure sustainable growth of speedcubing and that the WCA continues to fulfil its mission of more competitions for more people.

*Tell me what you think*
I am interested in what others think and if you see merit in this proposal or why it might not be a good idea."


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## OreKehStrah (Jul 4, 2021)

I like the idea but the problem you run into is that scramble fairness. Let’s say you have a 3 week series so a comp a,b, and c happen over 3 weekends. 

If you use the same scrambles for all 3 comps to be fair, the scrambles coupe leak in many ways such as people recording and posting their solves, just by accident, or leaked on purpose. 

Conversely, if you use different sets of scrambles, it wouldn’t be fair since everyone wouldn’t be competing on the same scrambles. 

It wouldn’t be fair to ask people not to record their solves, and there’s no real way to enforce that they don’t post them if they do. 

The cubing community had been relatively good about maintaining integrity from what I can tell, but even still it’s an issue that is inherent to this sort of comp idea.


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## kubesolver (Jul 4, 2021)

Do twin comps really must have same scrambles?

I hope not as that sounds like a terrible idea.
It sounds like enough of a challenge for wca to ensure delegates integrity but expecting competitors to not leak scrambles is unrealistic.

Using different scrambles is non issue relatively and happens already on many comps anyway (e.g. due to shortage of scramblers)


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## Sub1Hour (Jul 4, 2021)

kubesolver said:


> Do twin comps really must have same scrambles?
> 
> I hope not as that sounds like a terrible idea.
> It sounds like enough of a challenge for wca to ensure delegates integrity but expecting competitors to not leak scrambles is unrealistic.
> ...


No, Twin competitions are their own separate entity, and therefore generate different scrambles


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## Matt11111 (Jul 4, 2021)

OreKehStrah said:


> If you use the same scrambles for all 3 comps to be fair, the scrambles coupe leak in many ways such as people recording and posting their solves, just by accident, or leaked on purpose.
> 
> Conversely, if you use different sets of scrambles, it wouldn’t be fair since everyone wouldn’t be competing on the same scrambles.



On any given weekend (under normal circumstances) there's plenty of competitions going on at the same time, and all of them generate their own scrambles. It'd basically be the same idea as that, I'm not gonna lose any sleep over getting a hard scramble in a competition in the US when someone got an easier one in Poland. Similarly I don't think it's that big a deal if I get a scramble in the morning and other people get an easier one in the afternoon. Two competitions, two sets of scrambles is fine by me


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## kubesolver (Jul 4, 2021)

I am really happy that this proposal is coming from a WCA delegate and that it gets mostly positive feedback on the WCA forum. It gives some hope to improve the situation.

We had this discussion in some other thread recently and I personally believe that the only limit to number of competitions should be organizational capacity and competitors.

The main arguments against frequent comps I heard are that:
1) it gives too many opportunities to break records
2) it reduces the specialness of big / special competitions.

and 1) is in my opinion a bad argument as right now nothing stops a kid with rich supportive parents to visit 50 comps a year. So a limit to how many competitions can a person go would be better than limit for organizing comps.
2) is basically wrong as shown by experience from other sports / activities where there is no such limitation.


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## OreKehStrah (Jul 4, 2021)

I should clarify my idea: 

I meant that the need for the same scrambles only applies to split comps that pool all competitors in one result pool. If the podiums/results pools is also kept separate then it's fine to use different scrambles.

Although if that's the case I don't see the point in calling them twin comps. There would be no difference from just calling it a separate comp from what I can tell.


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## kubesolver (Jul 4, 2021)

The difference is that one competitor can not compete in both twin comps but can in two separate competitions even if they are one day apart


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## Waffles (Jul 4, 2021)

I just want to say...

I may have been one of the people who inspired this idea, I was eating dinner and mentioned to my mum (she’s good friends with Kerrie) an idea about having a large series of competitions on one day, like having A, B and C on the one day, with the same scrambles and stuff in nearby venues.

It was just a thought, and it might be completely unrelated, but to think I possible had a say in this is just cool. 

I think that this would help the situation in Australia a lot, (another one bites the dust with QLD) hopefully at this rate Cranbourne isn’t cancelled. The COVID situation over here (in Victoria anyway) isn’t too bad, I believe it’s the density limits that are forcing the cancellation of the competitions. I know somewhere in Australia there’s still COVID (NSW, QLD, WA, NT from what I can tell) and personally I think this has some potential, at least.


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## CodingCuber (Jul 5, 2021)

I can see so many benefits from this idea. Even if you have sport on one weekend, you could always come on the 2nd or 3rd weekend. Plus, it allows for more competitors and smaller venues. I can also see how this might reduce the risk of COVID-19 transmission at competitions, which plays a large part in whether large competitions get cancelled or not.


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## abunickabhi (Jul 5, 2021)

Waffles said:


> I just want to say...
> 
> I may have been one of the people who inspired this idea, I was eating dinner and mentioned to my mum (she’s good friends with Kerrie) an idea about having a large series of competitions on one day, like having A, B and C on the one day, with the same scrambles and stuff in nearby venues.
> 
> ...


Oh good to hear that. 

Thanks for introducing a nice idea. It might change the way comps happen in the future, if we get more positive feedback from twin competitions.


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## SH03L4C3 (Jul 5, 2021)

we kind of have twin comps here, AM and PM:


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