# Changing Multi BLD format?



## Pedro (Jan 24, 2013)

There is some discussion going on between the delegates about changing multi bld format, lowering the limit (which is 60 min today).

What is your opinion about this? Should the format be changed from 60 min max to a lower time? If so, what would be a good limit?

Please vote.


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## Username (Jan 24, 2013)

I vote for either Change to unlimited time (for fun xD, i know 60 minutes is maximum) or to change it to 45 minutes


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## applemobile (Jan 24, 2013)

Perhaps if a lesser time limit was avaliable for the delegates of certain competitions to choose. I.e they could run either the standard 60min option, or if it was a smaller competition that could not afford the time, they could run a 20min limit. Both of these would be perceived as completely different events, and world records/stats would be recorded accordingly. This way you will not disturb previous records, and if a lesser time restraint was avaliable, then some smaller competitions may be able to offer multi-blind where they previously wold not be able too.


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## Goosly (Jan 24, 2013)

There are two 10-minute-options in the poll.

Should not be changed imo. But applemobile's idea could be a good alternative for small competitions.


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## Pedro (Jan 24, 2013)

Username said:


> I vote for either Change to unlimited time (for fun xD, i know 60 minutes is maximum) or to change it to 45 minutes



It was unlimited in the past (http://www.speedsolving.com/wiki/index.php/List_of_World_Records/Old_Multi), but that was obviously very troublesome, so a limit was adopted. I don't think a reduction to 45 minutes would be enough, considering the purpose, which is making the event easier to hold.



applemobile said:


> Perhaps if a lesser time limit was avaliable for the delegates of certain competitions to choose. I.e they could run either the standard 60min option, or if it was a smaller competition that could not afford the time, they could run a 20min limit. Both of these would be perceived as completely different events, and world records/stats would be recorded accordingly. This way you will not disturb previous records, and if a lesser time restraint was avaliable, then some smaller competitions may be able to offer multi-blind where they previously wold not be able too.



It would be weird to have two types of events both existing at the same time. I'm not sure what would happen to current results if the change is made, but it would probably become an obsolete category, and everything would start over from scratch.



Goosly said:


> There are two 10-minute-options in the poll.
> 
> Should not be changed imo. But applemobile's idea could be a good alternative for small competitions.



Yeah, can a mod please correct it?


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## Mike Hughey (Jan 24, 2013)

I should probably respond to this, since I was the crazy person who initially made the suggestion to change it to 10 minutes on the delegates' list (I suggested it a few months ago).

For all fans of big multi attempts, I hope you'll forgive me - I feel a little like a traitor even suggesting it. And I have to admit I really doubt it's time to take my suggestion yet - I feel like we need more time before we really do it - I doubt we're ready yet as a community. But I thought I'd at least give my reasons for such a crazy suggestion.

1. Multi is causing logistical problems of various sorts. People who travel to competitions find it hard to bring enough cubes, which is apparently causing a number of top people to abandon multi. It is certainly a challenge to organizers to handle competitors with large numbers of cubes. An hour is a very long time to have to judge a single attempt. Keeping the cubes covered with so many cubes is a challenge. And there are certainly other issues I'm not thinking of right now.
2. Multi is the only event that's weird in that, despite our being a *speed*cubing community, the event takes longer to do as you get better at it. That feels very uncomfortable to me, and makes it feel like it doesn't really belong as an event as well as the other events do. A ten minute limit would give the feel of a speed event, even at world-class levels.
3. The best people at multi are capable of quite a few cubes at 10 minutes. I strongly suspect the world record would be 10+ within a couple of years of our adopting such a limit. It's amazing, but people really are that good.
4. It would go along with the other suggestion I made at the time, which was to do away with stopwatches for timing solves at competitions. We could always use a stackmat. The stackmat would be the limit - it would be a nice clean breaking point. It would also give justification for never allowing 6x6x6 BLD as an official event, unless someone gets good enough to do one in under 10 minutes.
5. It could become a standard format (hopefully the preferred format) to hold multiBLD as a best of 3 event. I probably like this part most about the idea.

There are of course some very good arguments against this crazy proposal of mine. To be honest, I'm not sold on it myself - it was just a suggestion. Here are some of the problems:
1. Very very few people are capable of 5x5x5 BLD in under 10 minutes, which makes my suggestion in reason (4) above not such a good idea. My hope is that this will eventually no longer be the case (I really hope I'm sub-10 at 5x5x5 BLD someday - I'm working to try to get there someday), but we're certainly not there yet.
2. It completely changes the character of the event, invalidating some previous amazing results. I would hope that even if we do ever adopt this rule, we'd leave old results around archivally so that they're not lost forever.
3. The event currently is used by some as a way to get more than 10 minutes for a 3x3x3 BLD attempt; this would take that away. I guess I feel that 10 minutes is still sufficiently reasonable for most people to make it, and I don't think we need this extra option, but I know that some people disagree.
4. A number of people who can currently solve 2 cubes in under 20 minutes would no longer be able to reach the requirement of 10 minutes under such a new rule. I do have some sympathy for this perspective.

As you can tell, I'm not exactly a salesman pushing my idea, but I do think it has some merit.

One thing I'd like to point out now, though, is that the rules are currently such that, by applying a time limit to the attempt, an organizer could currently legally hold the multiBLD event under my proposed rules. If I have another Indiana competition this year, it's multiBLD year this year - I'm considering doing exactly this: ten minute time limit per attempt, best of 3 event. I think it's a nice format, and it will be interesting to see what kind of results we get.



Pedro said:


> Yeah, can a mod please correct it?



I changed one of the options to 20 minutes.


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## AlexByard (Jan 24, 2013)

Yeah, i can see the pros and cons of this. Mike, you gave a very good explanation and it has opened my eyes to alot of things, I personally would not like to see the Time limit changed, because of some of the great accomplishments people have made within this area.... But at the same time i would like to see it changed, because it would open up some amazing new opportunity's. I am going to practice with a 10 minute limit (Although i will most likely never attend a competition. So.... I believe it should be lowered to 10 minutes, although it will be upsetting to see it changed.


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## Ollie (Jan 24, 2013)

I'm actually not as against Mike's idea as I thought I would be. I much prefer doing smaller attempts and a best of 3 format sounds appealing at a competition. Though I've yet to compete in an official Multi BLD, the idea that I would go into one for the majority of competitions with only one attempt is daunting, adds pressure and may put other people off doing bigger attempts. And while I would sympathise with the BLD solvers who could no longer try a 2/2, it's merely a motivator for them to get better and protects judges for waiting around only to see a 0/2 in 20:00.

My main worry would be reaching a 'maximum' number of cubes. This sounds silly since it's probably a long time before anyone will reach the limit of human memorization, but unless the 3-style solvers can execute in under 30s or even 20s then there will be a certain amount of cubes a person can execute in a certain time slot. The obvious answer to this is extend the time period, or have 10min multi BLD as a separate event.

The other is what we'd do with the final top 100 because it will contain some pretty damn impressive times and it would be a shame to place them to one side to gather dust in the archives.


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## Mike Hughey (Jan 24, 2013)

Ollie said:


> My main worry would be reaching a 'maximum' number of cubes. This sounds silly since it's probably a long time before anyone will reach the limit of human memorization, but unless the 3-style solvers can execute in under 30s or even 20s then there will be a certain amount of cubes a person can execute in a certain time slot. The obvious answer to this is extend the time period, or have 10min multi BLD as a separate event.



I actually think getting close to this limit could create some excitement, occasionally. Imagine we've hit an apparent limit of, say, 18 cubes, and it just seems impossible for anyone to beat it, and we get stuck there for a number of years. Imagine the excitement when someone suddenly gets 19 at home, and there's video. Now all of a sudden there's this intense excitement every time they go to a competition - can they really get 19? And it's still true that the time counts as a tiebreaker, so a maximum number isn't really a problem.

And I do agree that some of the current results are amazing and I wouldn't want to lose them. Marcin, Marcell, and Zane's results right now (not to mention Tim Habermaas's old-style result) would be a shame to lose. I rather like the way the multi-blind old style results sort of got "promoted" to greater respectability when we discontinued magic and master magic - now they appear on the individual competitor's page again, even in the continental and world records section, which is really nice. I'd hope we'd do the same with any event we ever discontinue.


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## Stefan (Jan 24, 2013)

Mike Hughey said:


> One thing I'd like to point out now, though, is that the rules are currently such that, by applying a time limit to the attempt, an organizer could currently legally hold the multiBLD event under my proposed rules. If I have another Indiana competition this year, it's multiBLD year this year - I'm considering doing exactly this: ten minute time limit per attempt, best of 3 event.



H1b already defines the time limit:

_"H1b) If he is attempting fewer than 6 puzzles, the competitor is allotted a time limit of 10 minutes times the number of puzzles in the attempt, else the time limit is 60 minutes."_


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## antoineccantin (Jan 24, 2013)

Mike Hughey said:


> I actually think getting close to this limit could create some excitement, occasionally. Imagine we've hit an apparent limit of, say, 18 cubes, and it just seems impossible for anyone to beat it, and we get stuck there for a number of years. Imagine the excitement when someone suddenly gets 19 at home, and there's video. Now all of a sudden there's this intense excitement every time they go to a competition - can they really get 19? And it's still true that the time counts as a tiebreaker, so a maximum number isn't really a problem.



Isn't this kind of the reason Maskow had quit in the first place? Too much stress to get the WR in competition?


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## BlueDevil (Jan 24, 2013)

Stefan said:


> H1b already defines the time limit:
> 
> _"H1b) If he is attempting fewer than 6 puzzles, the competitor is allotted a time limit of 10 minutes times the number of puzzles in the attempt, else the time limit is 60 minutes."_



I think Mike was arguing that since organizers can make cutoffs, one could do this for mbld, but i think you are correct because the mbld-specific regulations in article H trump any preceding regulations, right?


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## ben1996123 (Jan 24, 2013)

imo if it gets changed at all, then it should be 30 minutes, but 1 hour is fine.


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## Maskow (Jan 24, 2013)

My official declaration: Please, don't do it. It will kill this event completely.
MBLD with 10 minutes limit is like extended single when you're going to do it as fast as you can. It isn't fun and I don't see anything special in solving ~8 cubes. MBLD is the only one event where your memory is more important than time of your solve (I did official 21/25 using only TuRBo for edges and only perm Y for corners ^^). Do we really need to change it?


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## qqwref (Jan 24, 2013)

What? Why? If you do all multiBLD solves at once, best of 1, it's shorter than many other events. And it's the same length as FMC. Remember you can call up any competitor to judge and kick them from the competition if they refuse. If you want to hold two or three multiBLD or FMC solves, it's your job as organizer to plan enough time for that, and not something wrong with the event if you can't manage it. And if the event takes too long to even do one solve, then ignore it! They are both uncommon side events after all... and I have been to competitions that didn't even hold main staples like 5x5x5 because of time constraints, so consider yourself lucky.

I know people like Maskow are fast, but suppose we bring down the limit to 20 or even 10 minutes. Now people like me (noobs - yes, I am a BLD noob!) can't even try 2 or 3 cubes safely. Getting two cubes done in 10 minutes is not so easy - just look at the percentage of people who attempted 2 cubes in competition and got under that limit. All this change would do is make multiBLD even less accessible to newer people, and also arguably less fun for people who have a different reason to enjoy BLD solving - because of the memory-sport aspect and not the "turning the cube really fast" aspect. Why push people away from the event at a time when only a few people really care about it anyway?

And about the problem of bringing so many cubes to competition... nobody ever said you had to. Just because you are good at an event doesn't mean you have to win at every competition. You can do three cubes in 3 minutes or five cubes in 8 and people will respect you just as much as the guy who finishes his FMC solve ten minutes in and still gets his sub-35. If you put too much pressure on yourself to compete to a given standard, you will just make yourself unhappy. I've seen it many times, and I even think that was what led to the downfall of a certain cheater several years ago...


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## Ickathu (Jan 24, 2013)

I think it should stay the same. It just seems... nice right now.


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## Kirjava (Jan 24, 2013)

I'd rather we removed it altogether.


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## Mike Hughey (Jan 24, 2013)

Stefan said:


> H1b already defines the time limit:
> 
> _"H1b) If he is attempting fewer than 6 puzzles, the competitor is allotted a time limit of 10 minutes times the number of puzzles in the attempt, else the time limit is 60 minutes."_



I would really like clarification on whether or not this really does what you're saying it does. Does this rule trump rule A1a? Or does A1a apply on top of this rule? To me, it could be interpreted either way.

I'm pretty sure hard limits have been imposed on multiBLD at previous competitions (with an older set of regulations). I remember seeing at least one competition that had a hard cutoff of 10 minutes. But I don't remember where that was, and I can't seem to find it - I thought it was a US competition. Am I remembering it wrong? Is it possible it got invalidated because someone decided it was against regulations?

I'd also like to point out that I see the justification in all of qqwref's comments. And I even understand Kirjava's comment, although for me it's 3x3x3 OH that I'd rather remove altogether.  So I'd rather not remove any event - for each event, there are people who hate it and wish it were removed.


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## Stefan (Jan 24, 2013)

Mike Hughey said:


> Does this rule trump rule A1a?



As I understand it, article H (multiblind) explicitly takes+supersedes article B, which explicitly takes+supersedes article A.

H1) Standard speed solving procedures is followed, as described in Article B (Blindfolded Solving). Additional regulations that supersede the corresponding procedures in Article B are described below.
B1) Standard speed solving procedures is followed, as described in Article A (Speed Solving). Additional regulations that supersede the corresponding procedures in Article A are described below.


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## Bob (Jan 24, 2013)

Stefan said:


> As I understand it, article H (multiblind) explicitly takes+supersedes article B, which explicitly takes+supersedes article A.
> 
> H1) Standard speed solving procedures is followed, as described in Article B (Blindfolded Solving). Additional regulations that supersede the corresponding procedures in Article B are described below.
> B1) Standard speed solving procedures is followed, as described in Article A (Speed Solving). Additional regulations that supersede the corresponding procedures in Article A are described below.



I also interpret it this way. I do not think the current regulations allow organizers to decide upon their own time limits for MultiBLD.

I do think the time limit for multiBLD should be changed to 10 minutes, though...but I wouldn't mind Kir's suggestion, either, that we remove it completely.


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## Noahaha (Jan 24, 2013)

I've never organized a competition with multi, so yell at me if I'm totally wrong about this, but it seems like you only need 3 things to make multi easy:

1. A side room
2. Each competitor in multi must have an event that they are not competing in.
3. Each multi competitor finds their own judge.

Once you have those three things it seems like multi practically runs itself.


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## Mike Hughey (Jan 24, 2013)

Does anyone remember the competition where there was a 10 minute multiBLD limit? I really thought it was in the US, although I'm sure I wasn't there for it. It seems like it may have been a west coast event.


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## pedrinroque (Jan 24, 2013)

5 minutes per cube
and a maximum time of 30
if you wanna try 3 cubes you have 15 minutes,and if you wanna do more then 6 you have 30 minutes
the same idea that we are using now but with half of the time


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## ducttapecuber (Jan 25, 2013)

Noahaha said:


> 1. A side room
> 2. Each competitor in multi must have an event that they are not competing in.
> 3. Each multi competitor finds their own judge.
> 
> Once you have those three things it seems like multi practically runs itself.



Exactly. If we don't run multi like this, we should. It doesn't slow down the competition.

We should keep the limit to an hour, as that seems fair. Yes, very time consuming, but worth it.


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## tim (Jan 25, 2013)

Mike Hughey said:


> 2. Multi is the only event that's weird in that, despite our being a *speed*cubing community, the event takes longer to do as you get better at it.



Actually it takes longer *and* you get faster the better you get. Saying the better you get, the longer it takes isn't entirely true. Plus: Isn't this argument in a similar manner valid for FMC as well? It takes longer to find shorter solutions and therefore leads to better results. At the same time you get faster at finding short solutions the better you get.


I actually like the idea of a "speed"-multi. I have two concerns, though:
1.) Since the orientation in which you get your cubes is considered to be random, they might be different for different people in the same round. Cuber A might need the extra 10s to orient his cubes while Cuber B might get lucky and doesn't need to orient his cubes at all. The shorter the time limit is and the more cubes people try the bigger this disadvantage gets.
2.) I wouldn't consider the way MulitBLD is currently held to be fair. People entering the room/solving their cubes in an unpleasantly loud manner are very distracting and you easily lose focus (another cuber sitting away from the door might not get distracted, though). This is currently not a big deal since 60 minutes is plenty of time to make up for it. But since the distraction itself takes constant time lowering the time limit will make this event even more unfair.

IMO these points should be addressed before changing the time limit drastically.


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## Bob (Jan 25, 2013)

tim said:


> Actually it takes longer *and* you get faster the better you get. Saying the better you get, the longer it takes isn't entirely true. Plus: Isn't this argument in a similar manner valid for FMC as well? It takes longer to find shorter solutions and therefore leads to better results. At the same time you get faster at finding short solutions the better you get.
> 
> 
> I actually like the idea of a "speed"-multi. I have two concerns, though:
> ...



Assuming everybody uses a format in which they use a specific orientation, each cube only has a 1/24 chance of being correctly oriented. If solving two cubes, there is only a 1/24^2 = 1/576 chance of both cubes being correctly oriented. As we go further, it becomes even more drastically more unlikely that a competitor has their cubes in the orientation they prefer.


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## tim (Jan 25, 2013)

Bob said:


> Assuming everybody uses a format in which they use a specific orientation, each cube only has a 1/24 chance of being correctly oriented. If solving two cubes, there is only a 1/24^2 = 1/576 chance of both cubes being correctly oriented. As we go further, it becomes even more drastically more unlikely that a competitor has their cubes in the orientation they prefer.



In practice, every cube usually has the same orientation. And even if each cube's orientation is entirely random, it's still not fair.


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## Micael (Jan 25, 2013)

I totally prefer 60min, but I think 10 min per cube is to long. That could ease running the event if it was, say, 5 mins per cubes.


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## qqwref (Jan 25, 2013)

Bob said:


> Assuming everybody uses a format in which they use a specific orientation, each cube only has a 1/24 chance of being correctly oriented. If solving two cubes, there is only a 1/24^2 = 1/576 chance of both cubes being correctly oriented. As we go further, it becomes even more drastically more unlikely that a competitor has their cubes in the orientation they prefer.


Wait, what? Have you ever seen a multiBLD scrambler randomly throw every cube up in the air individually? I mean, sure, you could do that, but it's extra work for no real reason, and that risks damaging a cube. It's much more likely to have all the cubes in the same orientation, and that orientation is most likely to be white top green front (or white top blue front if the competitor sat on the opposite side of the table).


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## A Leman (Jan 25, 2013)

I am very inexperienced about competitions so correct me if I am wrong to think this, but would it be possible to create another event that is 10Min MBLD. Then Organizers could choose to run the quicker paced multi to simplify competitions, but the choice(and records) of the 1Hr MBLD would still be avalible for those who wish to organize and compete in it. BLD is a lot like memory sports and they don't always organize 1Hr #'s and use 5min #'s instead, but the option of running 1Hr #'s is still avalible.

@Mike Hughey: I understand you point about 10 minutes/cube being too long, but that could be changed by making it 5min/cube. a change like that would act like a cut off to help organizers for most cubers until they reached a competitive level.
PS: I am still looking forward to the day that someone comes around and solves 60/60 MBLD.


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## tx789 (Jan 25, 2013)

This must of been said before 


One solution have 2-4 judges that switch every so often say every 2 cubes, 5 min or 10 min those at large comps this could be a problem


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## MaeLSTRoM (Jan 25, 2013)

tx789 said:


> This must of been said before
> 
> 
> One solution have 2-4 judges that switch every so often say every 2 cubes, 5 min or 10 min those at large comps this could be a problem



The problem isn't the judging, as this can be worked around using a music stand with the card on it, or similar. The problem is that it takes too much time in a competition.

Personally, I think it should stay as it is, so that there is variation in the types of memory used in competition. I see it like 3BLD trains memo speed, 4 and 5BLD train accuracy, and multi trains capacity, so if you lower the limit, it becomes much more about speed than the number of cubes.


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## tx789 (Jan 25, 2013)

MaeLSTRoM said:


> The problem isn't the judging, as this can be worked around using a music stand with the card on it, or similar. The problem is that it takes too much time in a competition.
> 
> Personally, I think it should stay as it is, so that there is variation in the types of memory used in competition. I see it like 3BLD trains memo speed, 4 and 5BLD train accuracy, and multi trains capacity, so if you lower the limit, it becomes much more about speed than the number of cubes.



Yeah I guess so but watching it would get boring 
Still FMC takes 1 hour max like multi shorting it to 45 wouldn't be the worst but I think the best solution is to see how the event goes and how long the average attempt takes more so world record ones


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## Ranzha (Jan 25, 2013)

tx789 said:


> Yeah I guess so but watching it would get boring



Irrelevant.

I say keep it as is. If you're hosting a competition and you want Multi, set aside time for it.


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## Marcell (Jan 25, 2013)

I actually like the idea of having best of 3 with 10 minute limit. But I reckon this has barely anything to do with what we now call MBLD. This would be much more like 5BLD.
Multi does focus on a different aspect of blindfolded solving than the other events. But I fail to see why this is a downside - I actually think this is great. This makes blindfolded cubing all the more interesting.
My opinion is: keep it as it is.


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## ottozing (Jan 25, 2013)

I think the way MBLD is right now is the best possible way to have it. If you're worried about MBLD taking up time at a comp, don't host MBLD. I also think the idea of having optional time limits (Lower than 1 hour) is good too for smaller comps where there aren't going to be any instances of people doing more than 5 or 6 cubes.


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## Zane_C (Jan 25, 2013)

My 2 cents.

I quite like the proposed 10 minute limit (best of 3 format) and the reasons put forth by Mike. If it were to go ahead, it would however be a shame for the many cubers who enjoy the event and will no longer be able to compete due to the strict limit. But the one positive side of this is that it would only affect current cubers, and not new ones, since new cubers would emerge into the cubing community under the impression that multi BLD has always had a 10 minute limit. Being able to stackmat multi would be an intrinsic part of the event, and if they can't do multi in under 10 minutes, I don't see why there would be much emotional repercussions. As a comparison, I suppose this isn't really any different from when 'old-style' multi BLD was abolished in 2008. At the time, cubers that could attempt >6 cube attempts in over 60 minutes may have been a little saddened, but fairly new cubers like myself have grown used to the 60 minute format from the very beginning, and aren't bothered that more cubes can be attempted in over 60 minutes. 

If a new time limit is to be chosen, I don't like the idea of cutting the total limit down to 45, 30, 20 mins... or any other limit that isn't 10 minutes for several reasons. It'll obviously be more convenient to use a stackmat and have the competitor stop their own timer, rather than the usual confirmation to the judge with the stopwatch. A 10 minute limit will also make the event a lot more manageable, as there won't be huge amounts of cubes that will need to be transported/handled/scrambled, and also this - 


Mike Hughey said:


> 1. Multi is causing logistical problems of various sorts. People who travel to competitions find it hard to bring enough cubes, which is apparently causing a number of top people to abandon multi. It is certainly a challenge to organizers to handle competitors with large numbers of cubes. An hour is a very long time to have to judge a single attempt. Keeping the cubes covered with so many cubes is a challenge. And there are certainly other issues I'm not thinking of right now.


Reducing the limit to a figure other than 10 minutes seems very arbitrary to me. Firstly, nothing has changed to benefit the time keeping of the event (no convenience of a stackmat). Secondly, there will still be competitors attempting large amounts of cubes. Even cutting the limit in half to 30 minutes will not solve the complications caused by competitors attempting many cubes. And as for cutting the limit down to 20 minutes, well, if it's going that low I feel as if it may as well be cut all the way down to 10 minutes.

In discussing this, I think it is may also be worth considering the future of multi BLD solvers. As the cubing community grows, and more information becomes available on the topics of memory methods, BLD solving methods, and multi BLD techniques, there will no doubt be a lot more BLD solvers emerging, and with them - comes more skill. In a few years time there may very well be a number of new people who are even more enthusiastic with memory sports than Maskow, and who also apply their memory skill to multi BLD. If the 60 minute limit remains unchanged, I foresee a future where 30 to 40+ cube attempts will be common (well, for those competitions that will tolerate multi). The complications caused by large attempts is one of the main concerns for why this thread was made in the first place...

In regards to cutoffs not being alloted for multi BLD, I originally thought it would be a good idea to allow for cutoffs in regulation H1b, but then I realised the whole point of the 60 minute limit in the first place was to make multi a fair event, so that all competitors at any competition had an equal time. 

Although I do like the idea of a 10 minute limit, and it may sounds like I'm all for it, as others have already addressed, the current format for multi BLD makes it unique, in that it focuses on memory capacity and endurance. If the limit were to be dropped to 10 minutes, those attributes would be badly damaged, and the event would indeed become much like big cubes BLD. Multi BLD can certainly be a hassle for organisers, but the solution to this is easy - don't run the event. As for the competitions that do host multi BLD, as long as there is an allocated time slot, a dedicated judge(s), an unused table/area, a cooperative competitor, and lots of scrambles, it should be fine.  

So I say keep it how it is. And if the current format is to change, would that turn 'old-style' multi BLD into 'older-style'?


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## StephenC (Jan 25, 2013)

I am a total noob at BLD, so I am probably saying something very noobish. I think that having a time cutoff for BLD is a good idea, but 1 hour also seems like it could be a limiting in the same way that having a 10 minute limit is limiting (admittedly not for many people). If a competition has the ability to hold a multi-BLD event that is longer then an hour, and they have the necessary judging capacity to go for longer then an hour (judges that are willing to judge for more then an hour), I think that we should allow them to hold multi-BLD attempts with a longer time limit. Not totally eliminating the time limit, but allowing competitions to extend the time limit to their capacity.


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## Zane_C (Jan 25, 2013)

StephenC said:


> If a competition has the ability to hold a multi-BLD event that is longer then an hour, and they have the necessary judging capacity to go for longer then an hour (judges that are willing to judge for more then an hour), I think that we should allow them to hold multi-BLD attempts with a longer time limit.


This used to be the official multi BLD format. The limit was determined by multiplying the cubes attempted by 10 minutes, with no maximum limit (also, competitors who did not achieve 100% accuracy got a DNF result). The current format was adopted because many rightfully felt that it was unfair that some people could attempt more cubes than others due to the circumstances of the competition. For example, someone at a competition with the venue hired all day and a dedicated judge could spend the entire day memorising. Whereas someone else who may be more experienced can only spend a couple of hours on the attempt due to circumstances at a completely different competition.


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## aronpm (Jan 25, 2013)

10 minute best of 3 sounds cool

doing a 60 minute attempt is boring as ****


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## omer (Jan 25, 2013)

qqwref said:


> Wait, what? Have you ever seen a multiBLD scrambler randomly throw every cube up in the air individually? I mean, sure, you could do that, but it's extra work for no real reason, and that risks damaging a cube. It's much more likely to have all the cubes in the same orientation, and that orientation is most likely to be white top green front (or white top blue front if the competitor sat on the opposite side of the table).


IMO cubes should be oriented randomly. Having a cube oriented a specific way means the solver knows what orientation it is in which means he can quickly rotate to fit his orientation. This is an unfair advantage, when you solve a cube it should be completely random, you shouldn't know anything about how it's scrambled and how it is oriented.

Regarding the fact that orienting the cube takes some time: if it's such a big problem for a competitor, maybe he should try to become color neutral, otherwise he'll have to rotate the cube.
Becoming BLD color-neutral is crazy, but this is just how it is, that's just how it works. We shouldn't change the rules because of that, cubes should be random.

The only option you thought about to rotate the cube randomly is throwing it up in the air? really? we could have a computer generate a random orientation, just like we do with scrambles, this is really not the problem.


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## Mike Hughey (Jan 25, 2013)

Regarding orientation issues, I've often received my cubes for multi in an envelope or wrapped in a towel, so that they were fully covered before my attempt. In those cases, I certainly had a random orientation! That happened at US Nationals this year, for instance.

It was a bit of a pain having to remove them from the envelope or the towel, but given that I had a whole hour for the attempt, I really didn't mind the few seconds at the beginning arranging the cubes.


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## CarlBrannen (Jan 26, 2013)

I don't do this, but if you're going to make such a radical change to the time, I think you should give it a different name. "Fast Multi-BLD", for example, and use the 10 minute time limit. Some meets might include both 10 minute and 60 minute limits.

As far as reducing speed cubing to eliminate stop watches (so as to have all competitions under 10 minutes), I think this is misguided for a number of reasons:

(1) New timers will likely be able to go over 10 minutes.
(2) This puts a limit on how big a cube you can solve in speed competition.

Just because it's "speed" doesn't mean it has to happen in under 10 minutes. A marathon is also a speed competition but takes a lot more than 10 minutes. The bigger cubes are legitimate competitions. I'd like to see 8x8, 9x9 and 10x10 competitions. Heck we should try speed solving the petaminx.


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## qqwref (Jan 26, 2013)

I've already showed there's nothing wrong with a 60-minute event, but if you guys really want to make a 10-minute multi category, how about this: we add it as a NEW event, alongside the 60 minute one. Yeah, this is also a bad idea (I mean, do we really need another BLD category when speedsolving categories are disappearing?) but at least it's less dumb than scrapping a perfectly fine endurance event just because some people don't like it.




omer said:


> Having a cube oriented a specific way means the solver knows what orientation it is in which means he can quickly rotate to fit his orientation. This is an unfair advantage


Unfair to whom?



omer said:


> Regarding the fact that orienting the cube takes some time: if it's such a big problem for a competitor, maybe he should try to become color neutral, otherwise he'll have to rotate the cube.


Great idea! And hey, if cutting multi from 60 minutes to 10 is such a problem, maybe competitors should just learn to memorize each cube in 5 seconds. Oh wait, no, that's totally unreasonable, just like your suggestion.



omer said:


> We shouldn't change the rules because of that, cubes should be random.


Except that competition rules have *never* been to put all the cubes in a random orientation. Sometimes scramblers randomize the orientation, and it's good practice to expect any orientation, but it's certainly not a rule. Go to a competition sometime and you'll see what I mean. I'm not suggesting we change the rules, you are.



CarlBrannen said:


> Heck we should try speed solving the petaminx.


Very few people have even bothered doing that unofficially. And the problem with events like that is that it's too hard to get a good puzzle - maybe one company produce it, and if their puzzle is bad, there's no alternative. Even for Gigaminx there is only one acceptable brand - and only a few people have gotten reasonably fast at speedsolving it.


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## A Leman (Jan 26, 2013)

qqwref said:


> I've already showed there's nothing wrong with a 60-minute event, but if you guys really want to make a 10-minute multi category, how about this: we add it as a NEW event, alongside the 60 minute one. Yeah, this is also a bad idea (I mean, do we really need another BLD category when speedsolving categories are disappearing?) but at least it's less dumb than scrapping a perfectly fine endurance event just because some people don't like it.



I suggested this Idea 2 pages ago but it was at the end of the page so people missed it. I am glad to see that someone else considered doing this before planing to get rid of an established event.


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## Escher (Jan 26, 2013)

I'm surprised to see the discourse here is ruled by 'adding events is generally bad' and 'modifying things is bad', when I think adding them should be among it's highest priorities. Diversify and survive, or end up with a pool of stagnant events that are fought over by a small number of hyper-experienced cubers, leaving no room for newer people to catch up. 

I don't think I can contribute much that hasn't already been said, but I think *adding* the 10mins x 3 attempts format would be really good fun, stretching BLD talent in a slightly different direction to what has been done before. Execution stage would be really exciting for a large attempt  

I don't think 60min multi should be dropped since it is our biggest and most obvious gateway to other memory sports. Thinking of it, I'm actually somewhat surprised that there hasn't (publicly) been much contact with any memory sports associations.

Besides that, it would be good if this was introduced. The more the community grows and the greater the availability of competitions, I think the more demand there is for a diverse event list.


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## cubecraze1 (Jan 26, 2013)

But is it really needed to have another mbld? This would make it five blind events. It would be more useful to add a more 'wanted' event. If we have spare event spots I think they would be happily replaced with something like skewb. I honestly for the time being we don't need another event. This may happen later on though.


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## Ranzha (Jan 26, 2013)

cubecraze1 said:


> If we have spare event spots I think they would be happily replaced with something like skewb.



There's no such thing as a "spare event spot".
An event's removal does NOT mean that there is a spot to be filled.

The 10m x3 idea is cool. I'm still wondering why a lot of the current official events are even official (like 6x6, 7x7, Clock, 5BLD, and maybe even feet). What separates these official events from the multifarious and already discussed unofficial events? What makes these official events worthy of being official, and what makes the unofficial events unworthy?


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## thatkid (Jan 26, 2013)

don't change the format

if a competitor really wants to do multi then make them give up their lunch break. That's what I did for 4bld at the last competition I went to


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## Ickathu (Jan 26, 2013)

I'd be good with us adding a 10minute x 3 thing, but I don't want to get rid of 60min MBLD, since, as already stated, it's the largest connection that we have to memory sports. I think 10min x 3 would be pretty fun, actually.


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## applemobile (Jan 26, 2013)

A Leman said:


> I suggested this Idea 2 pages ago but it was at the end of the page so people missed it. I am glad to see that someone else considered doing this before planing to get rid of an established event.



I pretty much suggested this as in the second reply of this thread :|


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## benskoning (Jan 27, 2013)

have the organizer decide.


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## Ranzha (Jan 27, 2013)

benskoning said:


> have the organizer decide.



Have the organiser decide an arbitrary time limit? How about no.


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## BillyRain (Jan 27, 2013)

Please... do not change.


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