# [WCA Regulations 2014] Mean of N for FMC



## Sebastien (Dec 19, 2011)

As most of us know (for example looking at the current WRs) FMC sometimes involves a lot of luck. 

Thus I think, that at least for more important competition (like WC, Euro, etc.) a "Mean of x" format (x being 2 or 3) should be allowed. 

I even propose to make "Mean of x" the prefered format for FMC, but of course having "Best of x" still possible as this will still have to be the format for most competitions.

Tomoaki Okayama encouraged me to make a thread about this idea that I already shared in the "WCA Regulations 2012" Thread.

Please share your opinions about this topic!


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## MaeLSTRoM (Dec 19, 2011)

How would you deal with decimal results?
Assuming someone gets 31, then 32, would the result be 31.5 or rounded in some direction?


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## BlueDevil (Dec 19, 2011)

So how long would they have, 3 hours? That would take up too much time, especially considering FMC competitors probably have many other events to compete in.


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## AustinReed (Dec 19, 2011)

I think time is the biggest issue. 2-3 hours of FMC just takes up way too much time.


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## Cubenovice (Dec 19, 2011)

Time is no issue, those who want to set an average just skip some BLD events like Multi BLD or big cube BLD
Or hold it early / late in the day.


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## bamilan (Dec 19, 2011)

What if 1 hour total? It would up to you how much time you spend on any of them, but after 1 hour you have to be ready with all fo them. Ranking is by the mean of the results.


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## tim (Dec 19, 2011)

Cubenovice said:


> Time is no issue, those who want to set an average just skip some BLD events like Multi BLD or big cube BLD
> Or hold it early / late in the day.


 
That's not really true. We got rid of old multi BLD because of the time issue (http://www.worldcubeassociation.org/node/535).


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## Sebastien (Dec 19, 2011)

Still new MBF was hold as "Best of 2" at WC, meaning 2 hours of time usage



bamilan said:


> What if 1 hour total? It would up to you how much time you spend on any of them, but after 1 hour you have to be ready with all fo them. Ranking is by the mean of the results.


 
I thought about this as well for a couple of minutes, but this (similar to average of 5 for BLD) would change the whole event..


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## Kirjava (Dec 19, 2011)

Would people hold mean of 3 for FMC at comps enough times? I can't see it being very popular.

I don't mind the change, but can't see it being used very often.


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## kinch2002 (Dec 19, 2011)

I think there's very little argument for the community to be against this format proposal. I think it should essentially be up to the WCA board to decide whether they think it's possible to have this format at the major championships. If it is feasible then it should be passed.

Everyone knows that FM is the most unpredictable event bar none (including lucky draw, seeing as the same person always wins that one ). At a major championships where there are over a hundred people a winner can spring from anywhere, and tbh I don't think this is fair enough. Thankfully we got lucky at WC this year because the winner is certainly among the top few people in the world at the event


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## Dene (Dec 19, 2011)

I am initially with Kirjava on this. There is no particular reason to object to this proposal as long as it isn't compulsory. The issue lies in the fact that very few competitions would bother with it. This in itself is not an issue, but then kinch2002 makes the point that it would be held at the major competitions. Would these competitions want to hold it? And more importantly, would the competitors be used to the format and be experienced enough in a mean of 3 format in competition situations for it to be fair to suddenly be thrown in the deep end at a major competition?


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## Tim Reynolds (Dec 20, 2011)

As the person primarily responsible for the schedule for US Nationals, I can say that I'd have quite a bit of trouble trying to find room for another FMC solve. We're always very short-staffed during those events, and honestly my first thought would be just to throw out the second multi blind attempt to make room for it. Normally that's during the lunch break on the third day, and the other FM attempts I try to align with lunch breaks wherever possible. Big side events are hard to fit into the schedule, and it's hard to keep the main stage of the competition running through them. Adding an extra hour+ of that would be difficult.

I agree that this would be a good idea in theory, and would give a better reflection of who's actually the best at FM at the competition. However, I think that until we're more willing to limit the number and/or combinations of events people do, it will be very difficult to hold at any competition that's not being held specifically for the sake of getting a Mo3 for FM. Saying that competitors can choose between big cubes blind and fewest moves is tough because there's a lot of overlap in the people good at those events (at least from my observation in the US). I don't think there would be more than 2-3 American competitions per year that had Mo3 for FM. So at this point, I'm opposed to the idea.


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## okayama (Dec 20, 2011)

Thanks a lot, Sébastien!

I'd like to share some existing posts in WCA-Regulations-2012.



> How many times has FMC been held with "Best of 2" or "Best of 3"?


"Best of 2": many times.
"Best of 3": 10 times or so.



> I prefer Median of 3 rather than Mean of 3.


Of course as long as the WCA has such a format.



> We cannot easily hold multiple attempts for FMC considering a time table scheduling.


That is not a point to be discussed. If that is a problem, why is "Best of 2" legal
and "Mean of 2" illegal?
This change doesn't force organizers to hold 2- or 3-round (or more) FMC,
but just provides an option for organizers. If you don't have a time, you can
still choose "Best of 1."



> How should we deal with decimal results?


See 9f3) in the WCA regulation.

I think we have to discuss: which should we choose, "Mean of 2" or "Mean of 3"?
Only one of these formats should be chosen, not both. It's not fair to compare
the results with "Mean of 2" and with "Mean of 3."


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## hr.mohr (Dec 20, 2011)

With mean of 3 you can spend 3 hours, do a decent solution, break the wr and finish with a dnf and still loose the event. Man that would suck.


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## TMOY (Dec 20, 2011)

Not sure about what you mean. The 1 hour time limit would still apply to each solve individually, so no WR-breaking solution found after 3 hours. And about the fact that you can get a WR single and a DNF mean, well, it may happen as well at any event using a mean or average format.


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## hr.mohr (Dec 20, 2011)

Each attempt is 1 hour making a mean of 3 take 3 hours. My point is that you might filter out luck but then you would suffer more from a dnf.

Another thing:



> There is no particular reason to object to this proposal as long as it isn't compulsory



That is not a good argument because it can also be used for mean of 100 as a format. 

IMHO event formats should be a combination of properties that enable competition, balances skill/luck and at the same time are easy for organizers to implement. Using 3 hours for a single event and that's without counting the time to verify results is not a good idea.


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## Erik (Dec 20, 2011)

I am not very sure what to think of this, although I am a BIG fan of FMC itself (I even plan to hold a competition with 6 attempts this summer). 

Changing the preferred format to a "Mean of x" would mean that FMC takes at least 2 hours at a competition. Though I personally like the event, I am quite sure not a lot of organisers would want to spend that much time on FMC. Of course you could not follow the preferred format and still do a best of 1, but then the opportunities to have a result in the 'preferred format' are limited. One of the goals of a preferred format is that this format is the one used most of the time (imho).

With competitions lasting more than 12 hours a day already, I would feel forced to not compete in other events. Luck is partly an issue I agree, but look who's World Champion now  it's far from a lucky draw. A mediocre CFOP solve with a PLL skip is _mostly_ still longer than a good blockbuilding-solution with an insertion. 


A preferred format of Best of 2 instead of best of 1 would still mean that you get more attempts, plus all results from all competitions would count for the rankings. In the 'mean of' format, only those few competitions that hold it would get the chance to get such a result.
(also: if you are satisfied after your first attempt, you can just skip the 2nd and relax with a 'best of' format)


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## ASH (Dec 20, 2011)

To Eriks "only a few get the chance to get such a result":

Same holds for feet, doesn't it?
I guess the only comp I've been which held feet at all were nats and WC and I've been to 18 comps...


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## Erik (Dec 20, 2011)

Yes it does, and it's not a good thing that it's so rarely held. You can have a whole new discussion about feet, but it would not be nice if this 'no chance to compete' thing would happen for another event like FMC too :S


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## okayama (Dec 20, 2011)

I think

Add "Mean of X" as a possible format
Make "Mean of X" as a preferred format
are different points. Erik seems to discuss mainly the second one.
That doesn't deny the first point.

As for the first point, the question is simple: why is "Mean of X" illegal, whereas "Best of 2" and even "Best of 3" legal?


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## Erik (Dec 20, 2011)

Because having a different format would also mean that you have a WR for that format. i.e. there would be 2 rankings for FMC. All 3 results of a best of 3 can be submitted to the main rankings whereas a mean would mean that your mean would count for a seperate list which not many people would have the chance to be on. 

It does not matter if it is preferred or not, the fact that it's possible means there would be another ranking system for FMC. Therefore they are not really different points, the effect would be the same.


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## okayama (Dec 20, 2011)

Of course I understand this change makes another ranking for FMC, but is that itself so bad idea?
I think it's quite meaningful that WCA provides a better "possible" format to select a champion in each competition.

And I expect that if Mean of 2 is added, it will become popular, held in more competitions than at present, like Mean of 3 in 333feet.


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## Erik (Dec 20, 2011)

Is it a bad idea? If people don't get the chance to compete in it: yes.
Not everyone is as FMC crazy as Sébastien, you and me. Most cubers think it's a fun event, but after one attempt they've had enough. I highly doubt that the mean of 2/3 would be used by organisers for this reason. I hope it will, but if I have to be honest I am pretty sure it wont.


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## okayama (Dec 20, 2011)

Does anyone have data how many FMC events with "Best of 2" have ever been held in each year so far...?

AFAIK three-round FMC events in 2010 have been planned 2 times, and 8 times in 2011. Becomes popular.


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## Erik (Dec 20, 2011)

Cubing in general is becoming more popular. Of course there will be more rounds of everything, there are simply more competitions organised every weekend. Saying that more attempts of FMC means that it is becoming a more popular event is not necessarily the right conclusion.

Of course I would favor a 'best of 2' as preferred format btw. This way all results go to 1 rankings list.


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## kinch2002 (Dec 20, 2011)

How about leaving everything as it is, and just encouraging the 'high-authorities' to hold best of 2 at major championships?

I think (as many people do) that mean of 2/3 wouldn't be held at many events and even when it is held most people will be fed up after 20 minutes of the first attempt. We'd end up with a ranking list of 20 or 30 people which makes it a bit of a farce given the number of official cubers. At least the only really short rankings list atm (5bld) is so because it's a very difficult event to get a result in, even when people try (which lots more people have).


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## oranjules (Dec 20, 2011)

i think that making mean of 2 the preferred format isn't a big issue : i assume there will be 2 rankings : single and mean... So if an organiser wants to do only one try, competitors won't be ranked in mean. So ? There were best of 1 for master magic in the Blind Open 2011, and it wasn't a big deal... With the time limits, there are also a lot of people who are ranked for single and not average... There are 2 rankings for all events, so i don't understand why you (Erik) still disapprove.
This change is also one of the only ones that would not perturb the actual ranking... (not like the pyraminx's tips for example)


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## kinch2002 (Dec 20, 2011)

Too many people would have no average, so the average rank wouldn't mean as much as one might hope it would. At least in other events anyone who is vaguely decent will have an average.

There was a best of 1 at blind open for master magic, but that's a one-off thing that doesn't really happen often (99% of comps with single also have a master magic avg). Here, we'd get something like 5% having average, and 95% just single


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## okayama (Dec 20, 2011)

I understand that not so many people may have a chance to get the average record.

But still let me remark: "Best of X (with big X)" increases the potential of win with a single lucky solution.
So essentially that is not an remedy to prevent such an unfavorable situation...


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## Kirjava (Dec 20, 2011)

If one procedure is bad, that does not make the other good.


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## cuBerBruce (Dec 20, 2011)

With a mean of 3 (or mean of 2), there is an issue that if someone makes a small mistake in writing down their solution on just one of the attempts, that person automatically will be in last place with a DNF mean-of-N result. I presume this is why someone said they would prefer median of 3 to mean of 3, as you can still possible to place well, even if you make a small error on one solve. That's seems to be why generally WCA prefers a best-of format (rather than average/mean) in events where there is significant chance of a small error resulting in someone getting a DNF.

Assuming a competition would use the mean of N format, I also wonder about if a competitor gets a DNF on one attempt, would he/she still be allowed to do the remaining attempts even though he/she would have no chance to win? (The competitor might want to do so for the possibility of getting a record or PB.) Would it be the choice of the organizer whether or not such further attempts are allowed?


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## irontwig (Dec 20, 2011)

Yeah, I think the risk of DNFing makes Mean of 3 too harsh, then only Median of 3, Mean of best 2 or Best of 3 remains.


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## Zarxrax (Dec 21, 2011)

I'm not really big into FMC, so maybe this is a really ignorant comment, but, do competitors REALLY need a full hour? This just seems excessive to me, and seems to just encourage lots of trial and error to look for lucky stuff. Wouldn't a half hour be sufficient?


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## cubernya (Dec 21, 2011)

Zarxrax said:


> Wouldn't a half hour be sufficient?


 
Lots of times, no. Many of my attempts take 45-50 minutes, and I know people like Tim with the NAR is still putting stuff together in the last 2-3 minutes.


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## Mike Hughey (Dec 21, 2011)

Zarxrax said:


> I'm not really big into FMC, so maybe this is a really ignorant comment, but, do competitors REALLY need a full hour? This just seems excessive to me, and seems to just encourage lots of trial and error to look for lucky stuff. Wouldn't a half hour be sufficient?


 
The truth is that it becomes more "luck" if you make it shorter. An hour is sufficient that a good person can almost always come up with a semi-decent solution.

I've had several competitions where I've wanted to compete in both fewest moves and something else (usually something BLD), and the overlap required me to do fewest moves in shortened time (20 to 30 minutes). I can always find something in that time, but my expectations have to go down. Normally I'm happy with anything sub-35 (because I'm not very good), but if I only have 20 to 30 minutes, I'll usually be satisfied with anything sub-40, or maybe even sub-45.


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## okayama (Dec 21, 2011)

@cuBerBruce , @irontwig
I also hope like Median of 3, Mean of best X if possible. Such formats are clearly better than the simple Mean of X in view of that point.


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## mycube (Apr 22, 2013)

*Mean of N for official FMC?*

~sorry for my englisch - I have many ideas about this and I hope you can understand what I wanted to say. If not, feel free to ask~

Because of personal reasons and current occasion I want to start this discussion about Means for FMC. So let‘s get started:

I know this is a result of personal frustration in official FMC but nevertheless I am interested in what you think about this because I am surely not the only one thinking about this.

I often compare FMC with 2x2x2 Singles in a higher level - you all know the discussion about easy scrambles and luck. I think I don‘t have to tell you more about this.

So what‘s about the idea changing the official rating system of FMC in competitions? What about a mean of 2 attemps for official Fewest Moves? 
You do not just need luck (e.g. LL-Skips) but also skill to win. So one lucky single would not be the garant to be definite on the podium. Yeah I know it‘s true - getting lucky is not a crime, but what can we do to get an better balanced FMC-system without luck as a main factor? Today FMC is the only event beside BLD which has not the Best-of-system. So why not change this to a mean of 2 or 3?
With this change you can prevent winning a competition with pure luck. You really need beside luck also skill to find two or three good results in a row. So the better persons in FMC have to pay attention not to DNF an attempt because of already a good solution. 

This - in my opinion - would lead to „fairer“ results in FMC.

I know there are some arguments against this:
you need much more time for two attempts, but just a little note: there are already many competitions who not just have one attempt of FMC but two or three
there would be less means because many people DNF one of their attemps - what about this: they have to pay attention not to DNF, if they do it‘s their own fault . I bet, if we will have the mean system, there would be much less DNFs than there are now
less people doing FMC: if you really want to do FMC, another system is not a reason to stop doing it. It is much more a motivation to be more effective and to find a solution in every attempt

BUT: I see there also a lot of pros for official FMC-means:
you really need skill to have more good solutions than just a lucky one
you have to do both (or three attemps) to win; you not just have one good solution and DNF or DNS the second one.
no more lucky solutions which will stay in the world ranking forever without a high chance to be better
the means would be much more clearly about skills: you have to do another good attempt after you had a really good solution in the first one


my personal suggestion:
I would prefer to have the Single AND the Mean-system for WCA-Competitions:
both count for the WCA-statistics and results but it would be like in any other event: a Single is more meaningless than the mean. Why not change the score to mean of 2/mean of 3. So you can do two or three attemps in competitions and they both count in the same record statistic.
Or the second way to handle with this: you get two scrambles in the limit of one hour. The mean of these two is the final result. But I think this is not a good way of doing FMC. Everyone who does FMC and want to get a nice result need the full hour. So there would be less good solution.

Another example for means: in the german forum we are testing the mean-system for FMC in the weekly competition since last week (3 scrambles) - successfully. The competitors really try to find a solution for every scramble to have a mean. I am not sure if this will last for long or it is just a motivation at the beginning but I like it.

So what do you think about it? I am really interested in different opinions about this topic.


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## JianhanC (Apr 22, 2013)

Dein Englisch ist sehr gut, keine Sorgen 

3 rounds of FMC takes too long, and the number of participants aren't very numerous. These are the only cons that I can think of, but otherwise it's a pretty good idea.


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## irontwig (Apr 22, 2013)

This has been discussed before, I stand by my conclusion that median of three (so basically just the second best result) would be almost as indicative of skill as a mean would, but without being so punishing if you DNF for what ever reason. But yeah, (sadly) few comps have 3 (or more) FMC attempts.


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## tim (Apr 22, 2013)

A mean of N would require N hours of competition time to determine a winner for FM. I think that's neither practical nor should it be required for such a niche event (keep in mind that FM is also the only event you can't watch as a spectator).

Another suggestion I have:
Everyone gets two (or three?) scrambles and 60 minutes time to submit solutions for both of them. The mean of both solves determine the winner of the event.
This adds some interesting tactical challenges (how much time do you want to invest in cube x?) while reducing the luck factor considerably.

I really think this event needs to be changed. I've been to too many competitions where the winner of FM didn't "deserve" it according to some skilled people. (The hostility these "undeserved" winners get is still extremely unnecessary!)


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## toruu (Apr 22, 2013)

In my opinion, a mean of x (2 or 3) would reduce most of the complaining about lucky scrambles or finishes. Also good people like Sébastien could achieve a better rank than they have now. I mean Sébastien is one of the world's best in FMC,
but doesn't even have the NR. Don't get me wrong, I don't say Moritz 21 was totally unfair/lucky. Looking at the German FMC-Thread , Moritz often posted sub-30 results,so I can't say he got noob luck. But a system like that and a time limit of 60 min or one attempt per day would imo show who has real skill. And for god's sace the shitstorm of what is a lucky result and what isn't would finally stop.


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## qqwref (Apr 22, 2013)

I would only be interested in a fewest moves mean if we can get 2 or 3 attempts done in one hour.


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## okayama (Apr 22, 2013)

irontwig said:


> This has been discussed before, I stand by my conclusion that median of three (so basically just the second best result) would be almost as indicative of skill as a mean would, but without being so punishing if you DNF for what ever reason. But yeah, (sadly) few comps have 3 (or more) FMC attempts.


FYI: previous discussion thread: Mean of x for FMC
I also still hope mean of x (2 or 3) or median of 3 format.
NB: not banning "best of x", but just adding an option to choose for organizers.
If organizers do not have enough time, of course they can choose best of 1.

More NB: increment of x in "Best of x" does not prevent winning with a lucky solution,
but just enhances the odds of such an win by someone.




tim said:


> Another suggestion I have:
> Everyone gets two (or three?) scrambles and 60 minutes time to submit solutions for both of them. The mean of both solves determine the winner of the event.
> This adds some interesting tactical challenges (how much time do you want to invest in cube x?) while reducing the luck factor considerably.


FYI: previous discussion thread: 1 Hour FMC is a Luck Based Event


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## ThomasJE (Apr 23, 2013)

I think we can just add Mean of 2 or 3 to available formats and have 3 separate WR lists (1, Mo2 and Mo3). This way, if there is time for two or three, we can use the means and where only time for 1 is available we can use the Best of 1 system; so it is flexible.


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## Sebastien (Apr 23, 2013)

To have 2 different average rankings for one event makes absolutely no sense...

An Mean of 2 ranking would work quite well though I think.


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## Noahaha (Apr 23, 2013)

I might be biased, but I think 3BLD deserves a mo3 category before FMC does. I mean, we already do the means. They just aren't ranked for some reason.


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## Sebastien (Apr 23, 2013)

This is not only biased but also very unreflected.

Two things are absolutely obvious:

1. Luck is a bigger factor in FMC than in BLD.
2. It is easier to get a valid solve in FMC than in BLD.

Apparently this qualifies FMC more for a Mean than BLD.


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## qqwref (Apr 24, 2013)

Maybe it does on the basis of the qualities of the solve itself. But you forget that for a top solver BLD takes a minute (including scrambling, even) and FMC takes an hour. If you want to hold mean of 3* that will take 3 hours, so now you're telling organizers that they can't give people an FMC average unless they have time to hold a 3 hour event. That is a lot of time to have competitors sitting in a room unable to compete in other stuff (or judge). I seem to remember multiBLD having to be fundamentally changed because it was getting into that kind of length.

As far as BLD is concerned, I would even consider averages of 5. Organizers can always do combined finals, for top people it's faster than 5x5x5 (which has been avg5 for ages), and it would allow for a DNF. But I think we'd really have to think hard about whether we should rank people by single first or not.


*Come on, let's be honest, no other event has ever even considered mean of 2 - for a reason. The fact that anyone thinks it makes more sense than mean of 3 just shows how much of a problem super-long events are. And, with mean of 2, if you get super lucky on one solve, you don't need to be all that good to beat a truly skilled person. Suppose someone gets a 20 move solution on solve 1; now they only need to get under 35 or so to beat someone else who averages just under 30. Mean of 2 doesn't solve the problem and is a silly idea by itself.


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## Noahaha (Apr 24, 2013)

Sebastien said:


> This is not only biased but also very unreflected.
> 
> Two things are absolutely obvious:
> 
> ...



1. I agree, but luck is a HUGE factor in BLD as well. At this point, even Marcel needs a lucky scramble to break the WR.
2. That's why BLD mo3s deserve recognition.

NOTE: I am NOT saying competitions should be based on mo3s, just that there should be a WR and world rankings for it. Just like how for 3x3 there is a single WR but having the best 3x3 time won't win you a competition.

Also... the FMC thing would fundamentally change the way FMC is run at certain competitions, whereas BLD would change nothing except make it more fun for top BLDers. Imagine if 3x3 were based on single and there were no average rankings... it would suck because everyone would just go to each competition hoping for a PLL or OLL skip. That's how I feel about BLD, like the results I get are very much out of my control.


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## tim (Apr 24, 2013)

Noahaha said:


> 1. I agree, but luck is a HUGE factor in BLD as well.



There are actually two types of results in every event:
- the result of the competition itself
- the world rankings

I'd argue that BLD is the fairest (read: basically no luck involved) WCA event when you consider competition results. (Everyone benefits from the same kind of scramble since everyone uses roughly the same method. Compare that to 3x3x3 where you could get all kinds of skips depending on how you approach your solve.)
On the other hand, an easy scramble/luck obviously helps to improve your world ranking in BLD. But everyone who went to more than three competitions did very likely get one of those easy scrambles. I also don't see anyone in the top-10 who doesn't deserve to be in there (everyone's second best time is very close to his PB — except for Aaron's, he dnfed a lot).
Compare that to the top-10 FMC rankings (best solve, second best solve):
(20, 26), (21, 33), (22, 34), (22, 32), (23, 31), (24, 26), (24, 24), (24, 25), (24, 26), (24, 28)



Noahaha said:


> At this point, even Marcel needs a lucky scramble to break the WR.



Actually, I don't think that's true.

Anyway: I don't see how we could get rid of lucky competition winners/record holders in FMC without either changing the nature of said event significantly or requiring more time for it. Since saving time was one of the major arguments for removing old multi BLD I don't see how adding more time could be justified for FMC.
Therefore I'd like to suggest an alternative to FMC:
Every competitor gets one scrambled cube and 5-10(?) minutes time. Every move the competitor does counts towards his result and he can't undo any move (so he does a so called linear solve). In the end an average of five attempts determines the winner. Here's a video of how it might look like (just ignore the stupid chess clock and the second cuber ^^). I can totally see myself watching a final on stage while rooting for my favorite block building geek.


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## Noahaha (Apr 24, 2013)

Ok... you're right. I was biased after all, but I still think that adding mo3 rankings to the official rankings section of the WCA would be a very easy way to make a lot of people happy.


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## irontwig (Apr 24, 2013)

Mean of 3 for BLD just makes sense as an interesting statistic rather than a way to decide who wins a competition, I mean would you really want to see a 1:57.21 2:01.22 2:31:98 win over 31.75 29.72 DNF?


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## Sebastien (Apr 24, 2013)

tim said:


> Anyway: I don't see how we could get rid of lucky competition winners/record holders in FMC without either changing the nature of said event significantly or requiring more time for it. Since saving time was one of the major arguments for removing old multi BLD I don't see how adding more time could be justified for FMC.



Who talks about adding time? A Mean would of course just be an option as for all the other events. You know that most WCA events could be held as "Best of", right?

So no need to add time, just rank by "Mean of 2" instead of "Best of 2" when 2 attempts are planned anyway and do "Best of 1" when only one attempt is planned. There would be enough competitions where you can do a Mean I guess. Of course the important major competitions should have a Mean. But the upcoming WC for example has 2 attempt already.



tim said:


> Therefore I'd like to suggest an alternative to FMC:
> Every competitor gets one scrambled cube and 5-10(?) minutes time. Every move the competitor does counts towards his result and he can't undo any move (so he does a so called linear solve). In the end an average of five attempts determines the winner. Here's a video of how it might look like (just ignore the stupid chess clock and the second cuber ^^). I can totally see myself watching a final on stage while rooting for my favorite block building geek.



That's for sure a funny event but no accurate replacement for FMC. FMC is absolutely not linear and as long as you don't want to ban the use ofall the amazing theoretical knowledge good FMCers have, please don't propose a linear replacement. Also, this event would we painful to judge.


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## Kirjava (Apr 24, 2013)

Sebastien said:


> That's for sure a funny event but no accurate replacement for FMC. FMC is absolutely not linear and as long as you don't want to ban the use ofall the amazing theoretical knowledge good FMCers have, please don't propose a linear replacement. Also, this event would we painful to judge.



I would be for changing to a linear format if we were changing to some kind of mean or average as it would greatly reduce the required time taken. It changes the event a lot, but it's no different than changing the format of multibld - like we have done and like the WCA are considering doing yet again.

Who are you to say that FMC is not linear? That is totally a matter of opinion.


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## Sebastien (Apr 24, 2013)

Kirjava said:


> Who are you to say that FMC is not linear? *That is totally a matter of opinion.*



Taking "FMC" as the current official event, it is a fact and absolutely not a matter of opinion.


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## Kirjava (Apr 24, 2013)

Sebastien said:


> Taking "FMC" as the current official event, it is a fact and absolutely not a matter of opinion.



The current event uses this format, but that is subject to change.

The idea of solving in the fewest number of moves does not itself denote a lack of linearity


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## Sebastien (Apr 24, 2013)

Sure. I just wanted to explain what I was talking about before and that it differs from what you understood.

anyway: Proposing linearity for the official event is just not practical because of the judging aspect.


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## tim (Apr 24, 2013)

Sebastien said:


> Who talks about adding time? A Mean would of course just be an option as for all the other events. You know that most WCA events could be held as "Best of", right?



I'm aware of that and I think it's bad that different organizers could determine the winner of an event differently.



Sebastien said:


> as long as you don't want to ban the use ofall the amazing theoretical knowledge good FMCers have



e.g.? I think you overestimate the amount of theoretical knowledge required for being good at FMC. I just looked through the last five pages of our local FMC thread and the only two theoretical concepts people seem to use are commutators (for insertions) and switching to the inverse scramble. Both are concepts which could be learned in a day. Being efficient at/experienced in block building seems to be much more important. And these are things which would be encouraged in a linear format.
(Besides, I always feel cheap for using theoretical knowledge (commutators and knowledge about permutations) when solving a new puzzle since it doesn't actually require me to gather a deeper understanding of the puzzle itself.)



Sebastien said:


> Also, this event would we painful to judge.



That's the only point I could agree with. But it's not as bad as it might seem. You need one judge for each competitor and one mechanical counter. 10 minutes (the upper bound of my proposed time limit) is shorter than your average Multi/Big Cubes BLD attempt (where you theoretically also have look at your competitor's cube during memo). By using cutoffs (Best of 2 / Average of 5 (< 60 moves)) like we already do you can also quickly reduce the amount of required judges.


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## Noahaha (Apr 24, 2013)

*[WCA Regulations 2012] Mean of N for FMC*



irontwig said:


> Mean of 3 for BLD just makes sense as an interesting statistic rather than a way to decide who wins a competition, I mean would you really want to see a 1:57.21 2:01.22 2:31:98 win over 31.75 29.72 DNF?



Not sure if you think I was implying that, but as I've already said, competitions would still be based on singles in the same way. There would just be a new WR and a new set of world rankings. It is already an interesting statistic, but is there any reason not to make it an official interesting statistic?


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## Kirjava (Apr 24, 2013)

Sebastien said:


> anyway: Proposing linearity for the official event is just not practical because of the judging aspect.



Agree. 

However, I don't believe mean of 3 is practical either due to time restrictions. Some comps may have it, but entire countries will go without it indefinitely.

Are we honestly still bothered by perceived "luck"?


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## Sebastien (Apr 24, 2013)

tim said:


> That's the only point I could agree with. But it's not as bad as it might seem. You need one judge for each competitor and one mechanical counter. 10 minutes (the upper bound of my proposed time limit) is shorter than your average Multi/Big Cubes BLD attempt (where you theoretically also have look at your competitor's cube during memo). By using cutoffs (Best of 2 / Average of 5 (< 60 moves)) like we already do you can also quickly reduce the amount of required judges.



Makes about an hour *per group*. Sounds very much impractical to me.



Noahaha said:


> Not sure if you think I was implying that, but as I've already said, competitions would still be based on singles in the same way. There would just be a new WR and a new set of world rankings. It is already an interesting statistic, but is there any reason not to make it an official interesting statistic?



But is there a reason to do so? The single ranking displays skill well in BLD, so there is no other ranking needed. 




Kirjava said:


> However, I don't believe mean of 3 is practical either due to time restrictions. Some comps may have it, but entire countries will go without it indefinitely.



I fully agree, even though I'd be happy if a Mean of 3 would be allowed, even it would be used not very often, as long as major important competitions like EC or WC would use this format to determine the winner.

Another option would be a "Mean of 2", which has again other issues. 

Either way, I'd be happy with one of both options to be implemented.



Kirjava said:


> Are we honestly still bothered by perceived "luck"?



Can you precise this?


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## Kirjava (Apr 24, 2013)

I understand wanting to minimise 'luck' by using different formats, but luck is an intrinsic aspect of any event and cannot be eliminated. Is adding a format that most people do not have access to and takes an inordinate amount of time to execute really worth it to attempt to decrease it?

Some events are inherently more difficult to implement than others - FMC and multi are the worst.


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## Sebastien (Apr 24, 2013)

Kirjava said:


> Some events are inherently more difficult to implement than others - FMC and multi are the worst.



That's the issue. If it would be different, we would have an average for FMC for a long time already. Now FMC is the only event where luck is an intrinsic aspect, which is not ranked by some kind of average. This is obviously bad, so I and others try to seek for a way to fix the event.


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## Kirjava (Apr 24, 2013)

Sebastien said:


> Now FMC is the only event where luck is an intrinsic aspect, which is not ranked by some kind of average.



BLD?


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## Sebastien (Apr 24, 2013)

just no.

http://www.speedsolving.com/forum/s...n-of-N-for-FMC&p=846680&viewfull=1#post846680


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## Kirjava (Apr 24, 2013)

Sorry, are you trying to claim that luck has no effect on BLD whatsoever?


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## Sebastien (Apr 24, 2013)

I claim that luck is no factor in BLD in a way, that makes ranking BLD by singles inadequate.


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## Kirjava (Apr 24, 2013)

Possibly, but BLD is still an event where luck is an intrinsic aspect, which is not ranked by some kind of average.


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## qqwref (Apr 24, 2013)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/False_dilemma

Of course BLD involves luck. Maybe FMC involves more luck - maybe not - but they're very different things and neither are consistent.


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## Cubenovice (Apr 24, 2013)

In BLD there is luck as in "some pieces already solved" or "lol, these three edges are a U perm from solved" but there is no luck as in "skipping a step".
For the same scramble all BLD solvers will have the same cycles to go through.

Another way to look at it::
In BLD you will not unexpectedly find yourself with a solved cube after having solved all corners. Your solving steps did not affect edges (ib4 parity...)
In a very lucky FMC solve this *could* happen. 
I now TMOY would love this


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## Noahaha (Apr 24, 2013)

*[WCA Regulations 2012] Mean of N for FMC*

I didn't mean to start a BLD vs FMC argument here. I think both events would benefit greatly from ranked mo3s. I should have said that BLD mo3s would be easier to implement given that all that would happen would be a new page on the WCA site. 

I think the argument that mo3s are not needed in BLD is fairly invalid unless you discount the necessity of mo3s in 6x6 and 7x7... the single rankings are plenty to rank people in those events but it's more FUN to have both. Do we really have to have a 100% utilitarian purpose for everything? Is it not enough for something to be completely harmless, no work to implement and desired by many people? I'm sure I'm not the only one who wants this.

My personal reason for wanting it is so that competing in 3BLD is more fun. I go into competitions hoping for one nice scramble. At my last competition I got one, but at others I have not. Adding ranked mo3s would give me another goal that can actually be attained with any set of scrambles.


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## okayama (Apr 24, 2013)

Remark: if the format is best of 3 to decide the winner of the competition, you cannot get any mean result.

For example, let us assume that 3x3 Feet is held with best of 3 format.
In this case, competitors do not get average (see such an example),
even though mean of 3 can be calculated from the results.
In order to get average results, the organizer must choose "mean of 3"
in the competition.

Therefore, as long as "best of 3" is used for 3x3 BLD to decide the winner,
you cannot get any average record, even if "mean of 3" is officially approved.


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## qqwref (Apr 24, 2013)

I consider that a problem with the way things are set up, not a universal constant that cannot be changed. There is no practical reason why we cannot record an average while ranking people by the best single solve.


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## okayama (Apr 24, 2013)

qqwref said:


> There is no practical reason why we cannot record an average while ranking people by the best single solve.


I agree. I don't know why the current system does not calculate average in that situation.
(But this seems off-topic... sorry for my interruption)


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## ErikJ (Apr 29, 2013)

I posted a thread about this quite a while ago and it didn't get much attention so I'm glad to see some really talented FMCers going after the issue. I approve :tu

anyway, here are my thoughts...

From my experiences in WCA and "no time limit" FMCs, I think the problem is the time limit. When an FMCer is given more time they will have more opportunities to find the lucky cases. obviously the best way to prevent them from trying to find lucky cases is to make the event a linear FMC. This however is not possible in competition for reasons I don't think I should have to explain. Linear style solving would be the extreme way to fix FMC but since it is not possible, a compromise must be made: 

In my opinion, the best way to fix FMC is to decrease the time limit thus making it feasible to do more than one attempt. I believe adjusting the time limit (up or down) involves a trade off. When a solver is given less time, they have a smaller probability for finding the lucky cases (ex: solving F2L pairs in different orders) but they will also have less time to explore complicated techniques involving insertions and inverse scrambles. 

I propose an FMC event in which solvers are given at least two scrambles and must solve all of them within one hour. This adds an interesting concept of time management while adding the ability to take a mean and not increase the duration of the event. Since there will be less time for solving, It will be harder to achieve the move counts we are used to seeing on the podium. This brings up some fundamental changes that would really help FMC:

1. Raise the skill ceiling 

2. Widen in skill gap

Quick definitions: 

Skill Ceiling: the best score someone can possibly achieve

Skill Gap: the difference in scores between noobs and pros


In the current FMC format, it isn't hard for the average CFOP solver (lesser skilled) to get 40s or even high 30s while the best of the best FMCers can get mid 20s to low 30s. The problem with letting lesser skilled solvers get scores that close to the top solvers is that they are only a PLL skip away from a podium score. If the time per solve is decreased the scores of all solvers will become worse. This in effect raises the skill ceiling by making it require more skill to achieve low move counts. The other effect the new time constraint will have on scores is the move counts of the lesser skilled solvers will increase much more than those of the truly skilled FMC solvers. Thus, the skill gap is widened, which means a PLL skip wont become a podium solution. these concepts are evident in the results of online linear FMCs (assuming the results are legitimate). 


sorry for all the text. I hope I made some good points. have a nice day.


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## mycube (Apr 29, 2013)

I think the change of the event FMC in your way would change it much more to a luck challenge.



ErikJ said:


> From my experiences in WCA and "no time limit" FMCs, I think the problem is the time limit. When an FMCer is given more time they will have more opportunities to find the lucky cases. obviously the best way to prevent them from trying to find lucky cases is to make the event a linear FMC. This however is not possible in competition for reasons I don't think I should have to explain. Linear style solving would be the extreme way to fix FMC but since it is not possible, a compromise must be made:
> 
> In my opinion, the best way to fix FMC is to decrease the time limit thus making it feasible to do more than one attempt. I believe adjusting the time limit (up or down) involves a trade off. When a solver is given less time, they have a smaller probability for finding the lucky cases (ex: solving F2L pairs in different orders) but they will also have less time to explore complicated techniques involving insertions and inverse scrambles.



Not just the FMCer have the chance to try move opportunities but also everyone else. The more time they have the more they can find a PLL skip and a shorter solution. And I think the lucky solves from non-FMCer were found in less than half an hour so a decrease of time would change just nothing.




ErikJ said:


> I propose an FMC event in which solvers are given at least two scrambles and must solve all of them within one hour. This adds an interesting concept of time management while adding the ability to take a mean and not increase the duration of the event. Since there will be less time for solving, It will be harder to achieve the move counts we are used to seeing on the podium. This brings up some fundamental changes that would really help FMC:
> 
> 1. Raise the skill ceiling
> 
> ...



In my opinion this just changes the movecount of FMC upward because the most FMCer need for their solutions for one scramble the full hour. And why should we change the way of doing FMC fundamental? We just need a way to do it like we do it now with a better balanced result system.
And I think, your idea just would give the luck solutions more importance. Many people would try to do a first, short and lucky solution and use the remaining time to find a really good solution. I can't imagine to do two real FMC Solutions within an hour which will be sub30 without a lot of luck.
The skill gap would not appear because everyone just can search for two PLL-Skip (or whatever) solutions to have a good mean. Luck would be a much more important aspect




ErikJ said:


> In the current FMC format, it isn't hard for the average CFOP solver (lesser skilled) to get 40s or even high 30s while the best of the best FMCers can get mid 20s to low 30s. The problem with letting lesser skilled solvers get scores that close to the top solvers is that they are only a PLL skip away from a podium score. If the time per solve is decreased the scores of all solvers will become worse. This in effect raises the skill ceiling by making it require more skill to achieve low move counts. The other effect the new time constraint will have on scores is the move counts of the lesser skilled solvers will increase much more than those of the truly skilled FMC solvers. Thus, the skill gap is widened, which means a PLL skip wont become a podium solution. these concepts are evident in the results of online linear FMCs (assuming the results are legitimate).



No, the movecount of the lower skilles FMCer would not change in this way. It would be still nearly the same.
Yes, this is true. You really need more skill to get the same results such as in an hour. But how many of the good FMCer are able to do this twice in an hour?


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## Sebastien (Aug 12, 2013)

I'm intending to push towards "Mean of 3" being a possible format for FMC in 2014's regulations, just like for 6x6x6, 7x7x7 and feet. Nowadays ~30% of the competitions hosting FMC have 2 attempts or more. I imagine that the number of competitions having 3 attempts would increase if this gives the possibility to the competitors to get a result for one more ranking. Especially major competitions should use a Mean to etermine the winner of FMC.

Any thoughts/comments?


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## Mike Hughey (Aug 12, 2013)

I would love that too. It certainly would have been nice to have had that at the World Championship this year. (Although fairness dictates that I mention you would have probably been world champion this year with that format!  27.5 mean of 2 going into the third, with your historical performance, would have been very hard to beat!)


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## kinch2002 (Aug 12, 2013)

In summary, yes please!

I would certainly like to see a mean format in major championships. I don't mind in smaller competitions, because I don't mind if somebody gets lucky and wins - that's just pretty cool. But in a major championship, I go in feeling like I need to get some luck in order to beat the inevitable few who get really really lucky (given there's hundreds of people doing it). A mean of 3 format 
would leave me feeling a lot more satisfied that the winners deserve their place on the podium. Even a mean of 2 would make me considerably happier.

As a side note, I couldn't even be bothered to do my insertion on the second attempt at Worlds (hence the DNF), because I knew I was highly unlikely to beat my 29 in the first round, and even that wouldn't get me on the podium. If it was a mean of 2/3, I certainly would have finished and gotten a 30/31 mover, keeping me in the hunt for medals.


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## okayama (Aug 12, 2013)

Sebastien said:


> I'm intending to push towards "Mean of 3" being a possible format for FMC in 2014's regulations, just like for 6x6x6, 7x7x7 and feet. Nowadays ~30% of the competitions hosting FMC have 2 attempts or more. I imagine that the number of competitions having 3 attempts would increase if this gives the possibility to the competitors to get a result for one more ranking. Especially major competitions should use a Mean to etermine the winner of FMC.
> 
> Any thoughts/comments?


Great, but how about Median of 3 if possible?
For example:

Which competitor should win: (a) 28, 29, DNF, (b) 30, 40, 50
Which competitor should win: (a) 28, 29, 31, (b) 21, 32, 34
I hope (a) wins with the result 29.
Related comments for the first example: cuBerBruce and irontwig


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## Sebastien (Aug 12, 2013)

I don't think that "Median of 3" is better than "Mean of 3". Also I want to stay consistent with the formats we already have.

There is no event where it is easier to not DNF than FMC if you really want to not DNF. I think that someone getting a 28 and a 29 would never DNF the last solve if the format was "Mean of 3".


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## Stefan (Aug 12, 2013)

Three attempts are rarer than two, though, and no world or continental competition has had three attempts. How about mean of 2?


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## Noahaha (Aug 12, 2013)

Stefan said:


> Three attempts are rarer than two, though, and no world or continental competition has had three attempts. How about mean of 2?



Then what happens when you get 3 attempts? Do you count the best mean of two? I assume you wouldn't do the mean of the best two...


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## Stefan (Aug 12, 2013)

Noahaha said:


> Then what happens when you get 3 attempts?



Meh... maybe not offer three attempts in one round anymore? Has been offered rarely anyway.



Noahaha said:


> Do you count the best mean of two? I assume you wouldn't do the mean of the best two...



I feel like this is a trick question cause I don't see the difference . Is there any?


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## Noahaha (Aug 12, 2013)

Stefan said:


> I feel like this is a trick question cause I don't see the difference . Is there any?



If your score is 30, 50, 40, the best mean of 2 is 40, but the mean of your best 2 is 35.


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## Stefan (Aug 12, 2013)

Noahaha said:


> If your score is 30, 50, 40, the best mean of 2 is 40, but the mean of your best 2 is 35.



Ah, ok... best mean of two *consecutive*. Yeah, I now realize it's just like the rolling ones we're doing in cubing sessions, but somehow I didn't think of it here.

Why not mean of the best two?


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## Noahaha (Aug 12, 2013)

Stefan said:


> Why not mean of the best two?



Because then there is a huge advantage of getting 3 attempts over two. In best mean of two, 3 solves would be almost like having two rounds where one round is your first two solves and one round is your last two.


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## MaeLSTRoM (Aug 12, 2013)

Noahaha said:


> Because then there is a huge advantage of getting 3 attempts over two. In best mean of two, 3 solves would be almost like having two rounds where one round is your first two solves and one round is your last two.



Also there is a slight luck element introduced. If you get lucky once on a Mo2, then it won't count as much, but more scrambles means more chances to spam for a skip.
I think only having one possible format would be the best course of action, also because it would make the rankings a bit more consistent.

On a related point, how many competitions have actually held 3 attempts of FMC, and how many have held 2?


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## Stefan (Aug 12, 2013)

Noahaha said:


> Because then there is a huge advantage of getting 3 attempts over two.



So people who do better are rewarded? Isn't that good?

And best mean of two has the huge problem that if you happen to DNF the middle one, you're totally screwed (and having one with many moves is bad, too).


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## Ton (Aug 12, 2013)

Sebastien said:


> I'm intending to push towards "Mean of 3" being a possible format for FMC in 2014's regulations, just like for 6x6x6, 7x7x7 and feet. Nowadays ~30% of the competitions hosting FMC have 2 attempts or more. I imagine that the number of competitions having 3 attempts would increase if this gives the possibility to the competitors to get a result for one more ranking. Especially major competitions should use a Mean to etermine the winner of FMC.
> 
> Any thoughts/comments?



For FMC is not uncommon to get a DNF , a mean of 3 it is quite harsh when you made one mistake like an error in notation in your solve. 
For a mean of 3 , you need to get 3 FMC correct ! This is quite a challenging
To use a mean of 3 in a schedule is also challenging , it will take at least 3 hours 15 min in a schedule. 

A mean of 3 will require a different approach for your solves, now you must to make sure you have at least one correct solve for each attempt then look for a better one and always make sure you hand in a correct solve 

A mean of 3 should be allowed for FMC , why not, but you will get surprise winners. Not always the best will win as one little notation error will result in a DNF, in this case a DNF mean of 3 can be quite harsh


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## Sebastien (Aug 12, 2013)

Stefan said:


> Three attempts are rarer than two, though, and no world or continental competition has had three attempts.



As I said, I assume that lots of competitions would host 3 attempts instead of 2 then to make a Mean possible. And I want to stay consistent with the formats we already have, as also already said.

Also Noah is right, that your proposal results in different conditions for different numbers of attempts. That's definitely a bad thing. 

To clarify: I didn't want to restart this whole discussion and I'm not seeking for more possible formats, even though they might make sense in some way. I have the clear intention to get FMC moved from 9b3 to 9b2. Not more, not less. I want to rearrange the current universe, not expand it.

I don't really see the problem to host 3 FMC attempts for most competitions btw. FMC requires the least staff ressources from all events. Yes, maybe competitor's will have to skip other events if they want to use the full hour or to attend quite early/late on the day. I think that's fine though.



Ton said:


> For FMC is not uncommon to get a DNF , a mean of 3 it is quite harsh when you made one mistake like an error in notation in your solve.
> For a mean of 3 , you need to get 3 FMC correct ! This is quite a challenging
> To use a mean of 3 in a schedule is also challenging , it will take at least 3 hours 15 min in a schedule.
> 
> ...



You are right that a DNF would be harsh if the format is Mean of 3. But that's something that also goes for 6x6x6, 7x7x7 and feet. And it doesn't seem to be a problem there. And as I said before, I think that is far easier to not DNF in FMC than at every other event. As far as you don't do crazy last minute finishes, you can finish your solve in FMC and check your solution multiple times before the attempt ends. This is a benefit that you don't have for any other event.

I also don't think that it is a common thing that "better" FMC competitors hand in a solution which is supposed to work and then doesn't. I haven't had a single DNF like this in my whole cubing career.


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## Benyó (Aug 12, 2013)

i'm not sure it is a good idea. fmc is already a very time consuming event. i always feel sad when i see two attempts in fmc on a smaller comp (like on czo13), because instead they could easily fit a 6x6, a 7x7 and even a 2x2/pyraminx final in that one hour. of course, i'd like to have events i love, but a two (or three)-hour-event is just a waste of time.
i agree the thing that fmc results don't show the skill of the competitors most of the time, but 1 hours per attempt is too much, if you want more attempts, than limit the time to 30 minutes or less.


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## Noahaha (Aug 12, 2013)

Benyó said:


> i'm not sure it is a good idea. fmc is already a very time consuming event. i always feel sad when i see two attempts in fmc on a smaller comp (like on czo13), because instead they could easily fit a 6x6, a 7x7 and even a 2x2/pyraminx final in that one hour. of course, i'd like to have events i love, but a two (or three)-hour-event is just a waste of time.
> i agree the thing that fmc results don't show the skill of the competitors most of the time, but 1 hours per attempt is too much, if you want more attempts, than limit the time to 30 minutes or less.



The other option is to roll means across competitions.


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## Sebastien (Aug 12, 2013)

Sebastien said:


> To clarify: I didn't want to restart this whole discussion and I'm not seeking for more possible formats, even though they might make sense in some way. I have the clear intention to get FMC moved from 9b3 to 9b2. Not more, not less. I want to rearrange the current universe, not expand it.





Noahaha said:


> The other option is to roll means across competitions.



Stop. Making. Weird. Format. Proposals. Please!

It might be nice to think of weird stuff that might somehow make sense, but all of you should just realize that a proposal is less likely to be realized the less it fits into the current WCA universe.


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## kinch2002 (Aug 12, 2013)

Time-wise, I don't see a problem. I would still only hold one attempt at UK comps, and I assumed that other comps would also. I see the mean of 3 as very useful for major championships only, where there is enough time.

With regards to DNFs, I don't see a problem. Writing stuff down correctly isn't hard imo. I fail to see how people write things down wrong. Even if you do, just check your solution.


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## Benyó (Aug 12, 2013)

Noahaha said:


> The other option is to roll means across competitions.



you only care about wca rankings. rankings (including wrs) are not as important as the results of competitions, because you'll always get some kind of result at the end of a comp, but might not break pb, nr, cr, wr all the time. if we would have this kind of ranking, we still had the luck-problem in every single fmc event.
your idea is good, but it's enough if we sometimes check it in the stats request topic.


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## Noahaha (Aug 12, 2013)

Benyó said:


> you only care about wca rankings. rankings (including wrs) are not as important as the results of competitions, because you'll always get some kind of result at the end of a comp, but might not break pb, nr, cr, wr all the time. if we would have this kind of ranking, we still had the luck-problem in every single fmc event.
> your idea is good, but it's enough if we sometimes check it in the stats request topic.



I understand. My perspective is different from yours for two reasons:

1. I get to compete way too often.
2. I don't have a lot of competition in the blindfolded events.

Because of that podiums have never meant as much to me as world rankings.


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## Sebastien (Aug 12, 2013)

kinch2002 said:


> Time-wise, I don't see a problem. I would still only hold one attempt at UK comps, and I assumed that other comps would also. I see the mean of 3 as very useful for major championships only, where there is enough time.



Major championships are those, where it would be primilary important to have a mean, yes. But it would be useful for all others as well, even though by far less because the importance of who wins at a random competition is clearly lower. 

Still you are pointing to the absolutely only issue I see: "Mean of 3" for FMC means a new ranking, and if only major competitions would host that format, many people wouldn't get a chance of getting into this ranking. this would be a bad thing. BUT: I claim that it wouldn't be like this. As already said many competitions have more than 1 attempt for FMC already and I think many organisers would host 3 attempts so that people can do a Mean if that format would be official. Most competitions hosting FMC would still have only Best of 1, true, but I'd expect 20-25% of the competitions with FMC to provide Mean of 3 after the change.


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## Mike Hughey (Aug 12, 2013)

I've been contemplating putting together a "Missing Averages" competition in Indiana (independent of my regular yearly Indiana competition) where we would allow competitors to have the chance to make the "Missing Averages" page in the Misc section of the WCA site. This would make that competition more attractive.

By the way, my competition would hopefully also allow a mean of 3 for multiBLD (which really should be added to that Missing Averages page, by the way - at least we could have a point total average).  It would be a very long day if you did them all.


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## joey (Aug 12, 2013)

Should multi be mean of 3 too?


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## Ton (Aug 12, 2013)

Sebastien said:


> You are right that a DNF would be harsh if the format is Mean of 3. But that's something that also goes for 6x6x6, 7x7x7 and feet. And it doesn't seem to be a problem there. And as I said before, I think that is far easier to not DNF in FMC than at every other event. As far as you don't do crazy last minute finishes, you can finish your solve in FMC and check your solution multiple times before the attempt ends. This is a benefit that you don't have for any other event.
> 
> I also don't think that it is a common thing that "better" FMC competitors hand in a solution which is supposed to work and then doesn't. I haven't had a single DNF like this in my whole cubing career.



As I wrote, sure mean of 3 should be allowed, but I judged many FMC attempts and many DNF's where written mistake , where R' it says R like mistakes, still they did check many times. So you might be very accurate in writing down your solve, but you do not want to pay lunch for every DNF in the past by a small write error... But yes a mean of 3 in large competitions would for sure be an addition for the top FMC cubers . 
I do not think a mean of 3 will work for smaller competitions, where there is just no room for a 3+ hour event. But than again this is up to the organizers


----------



## Sebastien (Aug 12, 2013)

Ton said:


> As I wrote, sure mean of 3 should be allowed, but I judged many FMC attempts and many DNF's where written mistake , where R' it says R like mistakes, still they did check many times. So you might be very accurate in writing down your solve, but you do not want to pay lunch for every DNF in the past by a small write error... But yes a mean of 3 in large competitions would for sure be an addition for the top FMC cubers .
> I do not think a mean of 3 will work for smaller competitions, where there is just no room for a 3+ hour event. But than again this is up to the organizers



Seems that we are in agreement here. Sure, I acknowledge that I also checked lots of DNFs like this. I can't help imagine any other reason though then that those people were too sloppy when writing down their solution and while checking it. I mean, we all know that notation, don't we? I guess those people where just going though their solution like "ok, T-Perm, I do a T-perm now and I wrote down a T-Perm, fine" missing that they wrote down one move wrong within their algorithm, instead of checking the solution move per move. I don't see how it is possible to get a solved cube 2-3 times in a row when checking a solution move per move that is indeed written down wrongly.


----------



## amostay2004 (Aug 13, 2013)

Sebastien said:


> Seems that we are in agreement here. Sure, I acknowledge that I also checked lots of DNFs like this. I can't help imagine any other reason though then that those people were too sloppy when writing down their solution and while checking it. I mean, we all know that notation, don't we? I guess those people where just going though their solution like "ok, T-Perm, I do a T-perm now and I wrote down a T-Perm, fine" missing that they wrote down one move wrong within their algorithm, instead of checking the solution move per move. I don't see how it is possible to get a solved cube 2-3 times in a row when checking a solution move per move that is indeed written down wrongly.



In my last comp, I double and triple checked my solution on the cube, move by move, and I still got 1 move wrong lol

Then again I suck at FMC


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## Sebastien (Aug 13, 2013)

cubizh said:


> *Competitions with FMC event divided by 'Best of'*
> 
> 
> 
> ...



Thought I should quote this here.


----------



## okayama (Aug 25, 2013)

Result from Cube Camp in Kanazawa 2013, maybe a good example to see a difference between the formats.

Best of 3

25 (25, 33, 33) Yuki Tanaka
26 (28, 26, 35) Hideki Niina
27 (30, 40, 27) Wataru Hashimura
28 (28, 29, 30) Tomoaki Okayama
29 (29, DNF, DNF) Fumiya Matsui
30 (30, 38, 35) Shuto Ueno
32 (32, 37, 38) Takayuki Ookusa
37 (DNF, DNF, 37) Taku Yanai
38 (44, DNF, 38) Nobuaki Suga
39 (42, 39, 42) Ryo Ito
41 (DNF, DNF, 41) Takafumi Seki
42 (42, DNF, 42) Yuuki Kobayashi
43 (43, 46, 47) Sinpei Araki
43 (43, 47, 53) Takayuki Matsumoto
49 (49, DNF, DNF) Sanae Koseki
DNF (DNF, DNF, DNF) Jin Mochizuki
DNF (DNS, DNF, DNF) Kou Oobatake
DNF (DNF, DNF, DNF) Yuki Matsuba
DNF (DNF, DNF, DNF) Yusuke Morikawa

Mean of 3

29.00 (28, 29, 30) Tomoaki Okayama
29.67 (28, 26, 35) Hideki Niina
30.33 (25, 33, 33) Yuki Tanaka
32.33 (30, 40, 27) Wataru Hashimura
34.33 (30, 38, 35) Shuto Ueno
35.67 (32, 37, 38) Takayuki Ookusa
41.00 (42, 39, 42) Ryo Ito
45.33 (43, 46, 47) Sinpei Araki
47.67 (43, 47, 53) Takayuki Matsumoto
DNF (29, DNF, DNF) Fumiya Matsui
DNF (DNF, DNF, 37) Taku Yanai
DNF (44, DNF, 38) Nobuaki Suga
DNF (DNF, DNF, 41) Takafumi Seki
DNF (42, DNF, 42) Yuuki Kobayashi
DNF (49, DNF, DNF) Sanae Koseki
DNF (DNF, DNF, DNF) Jin Mochizuki
DNF (DNS, DNF, DNF) Kou Oobatake
DNF (DNF, DNF, DNF) Yuki Matsuba
DNF (DNF, DNF, DNF) Yusuke Morikawa

Median of 3

28 (28, 26, 35) Hideki Niina
29 (28, 29, 30) Tomoaki Okayama
30 (30, 40, 27) Wataru Hashimura
33 (25, 33, 33) Yuki Tanaka
35 (30, 38, 35) Shuto Ueno
37 (32, 37, 38) Takayuki Ookusa
42 (42, 39, 42) Ryo Ito
42 (42, DNF, 42) Yuuki Kobayashi
44 (44, DNF, 38) Nobuaki Suga
46 (43, 46, 47) Sinpei Araki
47 (43, 47, 53) Takayuki Matsumoto
DNF (29, DNF, DNF) Fumiya Matsui
DNF (DNF, DNF, 37) Taku Yanai
DNF (DNF, DNF, 41) Takafumi Seki
DNF (49, DNF, DNF) Sanae Koseki
DNF (DNF, DNF, DNF) Jin Mochizuki
DNF (DNS, DNF, DNF) Kou Oobatake
DNF (DNF, DNF, DNF) Yuki Matsuba
DNF (DNF, DNF, DNF) Yusuke Morikawa

I like Median of 3, next Mean of 3. Best of 3 is not good.


----------



## ThomasJE (Aug 26, 2013)

okayama said:


> I like Median of 3, next Mean of 3. Best of 3 is not good.



I agree. We are allowed 1 DNF in most events, so if we use Median of 3, we are allowed a DNF in FMC as well; especially as DNF's are very common.

Because of this; could Median of 3 be a possible format for BLD as well? This could be a possibility if we want to place emphasis on accuracy and consistency rather than on one lucky scramble so that you need 2 successes instead of just 1. Maybe not for 4BLD and 5BLD, but for 3BLD and MBLD possibly.

Back to FMC; we're talking about medians of 3, but what for competitions where there is only time for 2 attempts? Do we use best of or median (mean in this case) to decide a winner (if we were to impliment this new format)?


----------



## okayama (Aug 26, 2013)

ThomasJE said:


> I agree. We are allowed 1 DNF in most events, so if we use Median of 3, we are allowed a DNF in FMC as well; especially as DNF's are very common.
> 
> Because of this; could Median of 3 be a possible format for BLD as well? This could be a possibility if we want to place emphasis on accuracy and consistency rather than on one lucky scramble so that you need 2 successes instead of just 1. Maybe not for 4BLD and 5BLD, but for 3BLD and MBLD possibly.
> 
> Back to FMC; we're talking about medians of 3, but what for competitions where there is only time for 2 attempts? Do we use best of or median (mean in this case) to decide a winner (if we were to impliment this new format)?



NB: I understand that Sébastien prefers Mean of 3, mainly because WCA already has the format,
and thus it's relatively easy to push for the format rather than to make a completely-new format.
However, as ThomasJE and many others said, Median of 3 has such a great advantage (one DNF
is allowed), and furthermore IMO it fits FMC in view of the results above.

As for BLD, it's worth considering, actually I think the idea has been proposed somewhere,
but I couldn't remember the thread. Personally I think Median of 5 fits 3BLD.

I don't think it's good that the mean (or median) result of 2 attempts and 3 attempts go to
the same ranking. If Mean (or median) of 3 is introduced, 2 attempts should be Best of 2.


----------



## AvGalen (Aug 26, 2013)

ThomasJE said:


> I agree. We are allowed 1 DNF in most events, so if we use Median of 3, we are allowed a DNF in FMC as well; especially as DNF's are very common.
> 
> Because of this; could Median of 3 be a possible format for BLD as well? This could be a possibility if we want to place emphasis on accuracy and consistency rather than on one lucky scramble so that you need 2 successes instead of just 1. Maybe not for 4BLD and 5BLD, but for 3BLD and MBLD possibly.
> 
> Back to FMC; we're talking about medians of 3, but what for competitions where there is only time for 2 attempts? Do we use best of or median (mean in this case) to decide a winner (if we were to impliment this new format)?


We are allowed 1 DNF in all events that are Average of 5, but in not in 666 or 777. Blind events are not averages so they are different

Most competitions don't have FMC
Most competitions with FMC only have 1 attempt
Most competitions with FMC have lots of DNF's for many reasons.

Making FMC a 3 attemps event would take away time from other events, would put a lot of pressure on people that have to check the results and would only benefit the top FMC people. It would also force many people to change the way they do FMC. Instead of going for "1 good solve" it would force people to do safetysolves for 3 hours.
I am an FMC lover and I think this is a bad idea for almost all people


----------



## ThomasJE (Aug 26, 2013)

AvGalen said:


> We are allowed 1 DNF in all events that are Average of 5, but in not in 666 or 777. Blind events are not averages so they are different



BLD's are not averages, but there has been talk of ranking averages for BLD I think. This could be done in the same way that 3x3 is ranked by average in competitions, but we have a world ranking for single.



AvGalen said:


> Most competitions don't have FMC
> Most competitions with FMC only have 1 attempt
> Most competitions with FMC have lots of DNF's for many reasons.
> 
> ...



The 'Median of 3' only really applies to major competitons such as Worlds where more time is available for an event like this. I think that would also be good if for a major competition, someone who consistently gets a low count (around 25ish) wins rather than someone who gets a lucky 20/21 and wins. The smaller competitions are fine as they are; but an optional format for large competitions is a good idea, even if it is used only 2 or 3 times a year.


----------



## AvGalen (Aug 26, 2013)

ThomasJE said:


> BLD's are not averages, but there has been talk of ranking averages for BLD I think. This could be done in the same way that 3x3 is ranked by average in competitions, but we have a world ranking for single.
> 
> 
> 
> The 'Median of 3' only really applies to major competitons such as Worlds where more time is available for an event like this. I think that would also be good if for a major competition, someone who consistently gets a low count (around 25ish) wins rather than someone who gets a lucky 20/21 and wins. The smaller competitions are fine as they are; but an optional format for large competitions is a good idea, even if it is used only 2 or 3 times a year.


Let's do average of 12, but only during Worlds.
And for the 100 meter sprint during the Olympics we make it 125 meters okay?
Rules should be the same for all competitions...that is in the rules!


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## Sebastien (Aug 26, 2013)

AvGalen said:


> It would also force many people to change the way they do FMC. Instead of going for "1 good solve" it would force people to do safetysolves for 3 hours. I am an FMC lover and I think this is a bad idea for almost all people



I think you should question how you do FMC then. In every other event, I finish my attempts with the best result I can achieve within that attempt. Nowadays, when I do FMC, I try to handle it the same way. So I don't do safety solves, I just finish with the best result that I can get within the time limit. 



ThomasJE said:


> The 'Median of 3' only really applies to major competitons such as Worlds where more time is available for an event like this. I think that would also be good if for a major competition, someone who consistently gets a low count (around 25ish) wins rather than someone who gets a lucky 20/21 and wins. The smaller competitions are fine as they are; but an optional format for large competitions is a good idea, even if it is used only 2 or 3 times a year.



That's the wrong way of thinking. Mean of 3 should be applied if an organiser decides to have 3 attempts. And Major Competitions should have 3 attempt anyway imo. That's it.


----------



## Stefan (Aug 26, 2013)

ThomasJE said:


> The 'Median of 3' only really applies to *major competitons such as Worlds where more time is available for an event like this*. I think that would also be good if for a major competition, someone who consistently gets a low count (around 25ish) wins rather than someone who gets a lucky 20/21 and wins. The smaller competitions are fine as they are; but an optional format *for large competitions* is a good idea, even if it is used only 2 or 3 times a year.



I repeat: no world or continental competition has had three attempts.

What makes you think major/large competitions have more time for it than smaller ones? The actual data suggests the opposite - the largest competition with three (or more) FMC attempts had only 68 competitors (overall competitors, not just FMC competitors). And WC2003, WC2007, WC2009 and WC2011 even just had a single attempt each.

Top 200 competitions sorted by attempts, then competitors:


```
+----------------------------+-------------+----------+
| competitionId              | competitors | attempts |
+----------------------------+-------------+----------+
| MovesN00bs2012             |          20 |        6 |
| TwenteOpen2012             |          68 |        3 |
| UAMOpen2013                |          52 |        3 |
| SpanishChampionship2012    |          51 |        3 |
| MurciaOpen2013             |          50 |        3 |
| BerlinOpen2013             |          48 |        3 |
| CampeonatoSudamericano2013 |          41 |        3 |
| GranadaOpen2012            |          36 |        3 |
| ValenciaSummerOpen2013     |          33 |        3 |
| DualGames2013              |          33 |        3 |
| AlaniaOpen2011             |          32 |        3 |
| VelbertOpen2013            |          32 |        3 |
| PuydeDomeOpen2012          |          31 |        3 |
| MolinaOpen2013             |          29 |        3 |
| DolmenOpen2012             |          26 |        3 |
| DolmenOpen2011             |          25 |        3 |
| ClermontOpen2009           |          24 |        3 |
| GernikaOpen2013            |          21 |        3 |
| ValgameOpen2012            |          21 |        3 |
| CastellonOpen2012          |          20 |        3 |
| CastellonOpen2013          |          19 |        3 |
| PKUFMC2010                 |          16 |        3 |
| ChinaFM2011Xian            |          15 |        3 |
| PuydeDomeOpen2011          |          15 |        3 |
| BeijingFootsteps2011       |          14 |        3 |
| ChinaFM2011Beijing         |          13 |        3 |
| ChinaFM2011Shanghai        |          13 |        3 |
| PKUFM2012                  |          12 |        3 |
| ChinaFM2011Guangzhou       |           6 |        3 |
| ChinaFM2011Shenyang        |           3 |        3 |
| ChinaFM2011Zhengzhou       |           3 |        3 |
| WC2013                     |         580 |        2 |
| USNationals2012            |         259 |        2 |
| USNationals2010            |         227 |        2 |
| USNationals2011            |         204 |        2 |
| WC2005                     |         149 |        2 |
| USNationals2009            |         135 |        2 |
| SpanishChampionship2011    |          93 |        2 |
| MITSpring2012              |          92 |        2 |
| BWOpen2013                 |          76 |        2 |
| PolishOpen2007             |          76 |        2 |
| PolishOpen2006             |          72 |        2 |
| France2013                 |          66 |        2 |
| Poland2009                 |          63 |        2 |
| PolishNationals2010        |          62 |        2 |
| NacionalPerubik2013        |          61 |        2 |
| ZonhovenOpen2013           |          58 |        2 |
| BarcelonaSummerOpen2011    |          57 |        2 |
| GermanOpen2013             |          56 |        2 |
| BWOpen2012                 |          55 |        2 |
| PoznanOpen2009             |          55 |        2 |
| Euro2004                   |          53 |        2 |
| SpolsOpen2011              |          53 |        2 |
| BerkeleyWinter2012         |          53 |        2 |
| DanishOpen2011             |          52 |        2 |
| CzechOpen2012              |          50 |        2 |
| CubeCampKanazawa2012       |          47 |        2 |
| CubeCampKanazawa2011       |          45 |        2 |
| Rubikaz10thAnniversary2012 |          44 |        2 |
| LyonOpen2011               |          41 |        2 |
| MontpellierOpen2011        |          41 |        2 |
| DanishOpen2012             |          41 |        2 |
| RomanianOpen2011           |          41 |        2 |
| Altbier2012                |          38 |        2 |
| CzechOpen2013              |          37 |        2 |
| HelsinkiOpen2011           |          35 |        2 |
| CastellonOpen2011          |          34 |        2 |
| MontpellierOpen2010        |          33 |        2 |
| BasauriOpen2012            |          32 |        2 |
| MIROpen2013                |          31 |        2 |
| LaMontagneOpen2012         |          30 |        2 |
| BarcelonaWinterOpen2012    |          30 |        2 |
| WasedaBrainChallenge2012   |          28 |        2 |
| AlaniaOpen2010             |          28 |        2 |
| LyonSpringOpen2009         |          27 |        2 |
| ErfurtOpen2013             |          26 |        2 |
| DiamondBarSpring2013       |          26 |        2 |
| BlindOpen2011              |          25 |        2 |
| LyonSummerOpen2010         |          25 |        2 |
| FinnishOpen2010            |          24 |        2 |
| MagicCubeDays2012          |          24 |        2 |
| BasauriOpen2011            |          23 |        2 |
| RubikkuChamp2013           |          19 |        2 |
| ShanghaiSpring2011         |          17 |        2 |
| RenoWinter2010             |          16 |        2 |
| DanishSpecial2011          |          16 |        2 |
| GuangzhouFMC2012           |          16 |        2 |
| ZhengzhouOpen2011          |          12 |        2 |
| JavaFMCCubeDay2010         |          12 |        2 |
| WC2009                     |         327 |        1 |
| WC2011                     |         292 |        1 |
| Euro2012                   |         285 |        1 |
| AachenOpen2011             |         230 |        1 |
| Euro2010                   |         227 |        1 |
| WC2007                     |         214 |        1 |
| PolishNationals2013        |         181 |        1 |
| IndianCubeChallenge2013    |         179 |        1 |
| MPEIOpen2012               |         166 |        1 |
| AachenOpen2010             |         154 |        1 |
| JakartaOpen2010            |         152 |        1 |
+----------------------------+-------------+----------+

SELECT tmp2.competitionId, count(distinct personId) competitors, attempts
FROM
(SELECT competitionId, sum(attempts) attempts
FROM
(SELECT competitionId, roundId, max((value1<>0)+(value2<>0)+(value3<>0)+(value4<>0)+(value5<>0)) attempts
FROM Results
WHERE eventId = '333fm'
GROUP BY competitionId, roundId) tmp1
GROUP BY competitionId) tmp2,
Results
WHERE Results.competitionId = tmp2.competitionId
GROUP BY competitionId
ORDER BY attempts desc, competitors desc
LIMIT 100
```


----------



## Lucas Garron (Dec 10, 2013)

Sébastien has written a proposal to make this change for 2014.

The WRC is unclear exactly how much of the community would support this, so I've added a poll to the first post. We'd love to see a lot of votes to help make a decision.


----------



## Kirjava (Dec 10, 2013)

I worry I wouldn't get a chance to do a mean of 3


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## kinch2002 (Dec 10, 2013)

I would definitely like to see it in major championships. It's going to be very hard to schedule it in other competitions, so the rankings won't be a great reflection of anything. But the podiums in championships would be a lot more based on skill at FMC than luck and that's a great thing.


----------



## Carrot (Dec 10, 2013)

I don't see how this would work... at all!

Look at this scenario:
You have a competition with FMC and you decide mean of 3? oh that sounds awesome, let's do that.
Competitors who are fighting for podium will now need to have stability and high success rate, fair enough.
Wait, the competitors needs to do 3 attempts at the same competition? spending up to 3 hours?
Well, so far so good, now we get to winner's ceremony "And as the only person to actually make a succesful mean of 3 we have John Doe!"

Guys, mean of 3 is fine, but I don't think we have enough fmc enthusiasts too make it a feasible format at most competitions. (best of 3 is NOT comparable to mean of 3 as best will make you able to say "ohh I think I'll stop here, because I already got a 29 in my previous attempt". I'm not saying mean of 3 is a bad format, I'm just saying I can't see how it would work around realistically speaking.


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## kinch2002 (Dec 10, 2013)

kinch2002 said:


> Time-wise, I don't see a problem. I would still only hold one attempt at UK comps, and I assumed that other comps would also. I see the mean of 3 as very useful for major championships only, where there is enough time.
> 
> With regards to DNFs, I don't see a problem. Writing stuff down correctly isn't hard imo. I fail to see how people write things down wrong. Even if you do, just check your solution.


My thoughts haven't changed in the last 4 months.


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## Piotr (Dec 10, 2013)

I thinkt 30 minutes per cube for an experienced person is fairly enough. This will give 1.5h in total, which is comparable to the current 1h fmc attempt. Mean of 3 will also lower the impact of lucky solves I think. One will need to be really good at fm to acheive a decent result. Instead of something like 'hmm, let's try with fridrich. maybe i wll get LL skip and win'. I don't mean that a lucky solve is bad or something. But I think that's why in other events averages and means are being used instead of 'best of x' format.


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## Kirjava (Dec 10, 2013)

kinch2002 said:


> It's going to be very hard to schedule it in other competitions, so the rankings won't be a great reflection of anything. But the podiums in championships would be a lot more based on skill at FMC than luck and that's a great thing.



Convinced me.


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## Kit Clement (Dec 10, 2013)

I like the idea for championships, but not in general. I know that it has been mentioned that the FMC Mean rankings "wouldn't mean anything," but I still don't like having formats appear on a WCA profile that are so rare, as a significant amount of competitors simply wouldn't have the resources to attend a competition where an FMC Mean of 3 is offered. 

Since awards can be given at the organizer's discretion, why not simply award the winners based on Mean of 3? I know the WCA competition results page will not reflect the actual award winners, but I think at a major championship with large prize money at stake, this will be the competitors' main goal rather than appearing on the WCA page.


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## Julian (Dec 11, 2013)

Kit Clement said:


> I like the idea for championships, but not in general. I know that it has been mentioned that the FMC Mean rankings "wouldn't mean anything," but I still don't like having formats appear on a WCA profile that are so rare, as a significant amount of competitors simply wouldn't have the resources to attend a competition where an FMC Mean of 3 is offered.
> 
> Since awards can be given at the organizer's discretion, why not simply award the winners based on Mean of 3? I know the WCA competition results page will not reflect the actual award winners, but I think at a major championship with large prize money at stake, this will be the competitors' main goal rather than appearing on the WCA page.


I like this. Or maybe the competition results page could sort by best mo3, and display the mo3s, but not actually have mo3 results come up on competitors' pages/rankings pages?

EDIT: or maybe just in the missing averages section.


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## AvGalen (Jan 6, 2014)

So the first competition with Mean of 3 was held this weekend. It proved just how bad this Mean-of-3 idea is:

What Sebastien said would happen: Good solvers would not be pushed down by lucky solvers (true) and the results will be a better representation of the skills of people (this is false)
This is what actually happened:
New system;
1 30,00 Sébastien Auroux
2 30,33 Marcel Peters
3 32,67 Jan Bentlage
4 51,00 Leon Schmidtchen
5 52,67 Willi Mickein
6 DNF Andreas Pohl
7 DNF Laura Ohrndorf
8 DNF Heike Zbierski
9 DNF Adrian Lehmann

Old system;
1 27 Sébastien Auroux
2 29 Marcel Peters
3 32 Jan Bentlage
6 36 Andreas Pohl
7 43 Laura Ohrndorf
4 48 Leon Schmidtchen
5 49 Willi Mickein
8 56 Heike Zbierski
9 DNF Adrian Lehmann



The ranking for the top cubers would have been exactly the same with the old and the new rules
The ranking for the mid-level fmc-ers changed. They became bottom level fmc-ers because of DNF's
The ranking for the low-level fmc-ers change. They became mid-level fmc-ers because they got 3 solves.

This is what Sebastien said: FMC is the event where you are least likely to have a DNF if you pay attention to time and writing. For the top that turned out to be true but not for the middle-class
The amount of DNF-results is much bigger than normal, as is expected

This is what Sebastien said: This will not influence the results because of "safety solves". Yet he and the top 3 got worse results than normal. Apparently all scrambles were really hard. But then the difficulty of the scrambles seems to be what influences the results and not the luckyness

Also, the poll was about ADDING mean of 3 as an option, but in reality mean of 3 has now replaced best of 3 so we now basically have 2 different FMC events:
Best of 1 and Mean of 3: You need to solve all attempts, so you have to show up for all solves to get a ranking, maybe do a safety solve, cannot make a single error in writing it down or do anything else that would cause a bad result or DNF
Best of 2: This is suddenly still like the old event, where you can choose to skip a solve (because you have to catch a train or can't make it on a Friday-night) or can have a DNF but still win the event. 

I couldn't make this competition on Friday, so I had no chance of getting into the ranking for FMC. Because of that I also choose not to do the 3rd solve on Saturday morning, although I love FMC.

Sebastien keeps saying that there is lots of community support for this, but I claim he has tunnel vision and didn't listen or even respond to most of the comments in this thread. Especially the ones about there never having been 3 attempts at a major competition (quite the opposite actually, most competitions with 3 attempts were small and some specialised for FMC and some (co)organised by him) and the different approaches to allow for a DNF. He keeps saying that he wants to make it more in line with blind and 666/777 but those are not events that are taking 3 hours and spread over several days. He should compare FMC to bigblind and there a single is what counts and DNF's are acceptable.

The retro-active awarding of records has no support as far as I have heard. Not even by people that got some of those WR's!

If it looks like I am personally attacking Sebastien that is partly true because it was his suggestion and support for this proposal that made it all happen. I strongly believe he is misrepresenting facts (asking about adding a format but instead replacing a format) and that is not acceptable for a man in his position.

I believe this rulechanged (and many others that are off-topic here) was "for the few, by the few" and not "for the people, by the people". It changed my view of the WCA from a group of fun-loving-hard-working-volunteers to a dictatorship


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## Stefan (Jan 6, 2014)

AvGalen said:


> the first competition [...] proved



You've got to be kidding.



AvGalen said:


> The retro-active awarding of records has no support as far as I have heard. Not even by people that got some of those WR's!



I support it.

And it's consistent with the retro-active acceptance of old multiblind results as new multiblind results.


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## qqwref (Jan 6, 2014)

Wow, really interesting post Arnaud. It's very cool to see how a change like this actually influences results. A few things I have comments about:



AvGalen said:


> you can choose to skip a solve (because you have to catch a train or can't make it on a Friday-night) [...]
> 
> I couldn't make this competition on Friday, so I had no chance of getting into the ranking for FMC. Because of that I also choose not to do the 3rd solve on Saturday morning, although I love FMC.


Does this mean that even with these European competitions that manage to hold three solves of FMC, they are still not done in one round, but rather spread throughout the competition? It seems crazy to me to consider something a single round, and take a mean, when the solves are on different days. Especially since, as you said, many people are not present for the entire competition. A round of any other event would not do this.



AvGalen said:


> Especially the ones about there never having been 3 attempts at a major competition (quite the opposite actually, most competitions with 3 attempts were small and some specialised for FMC and some (co)organised by him) and the different approaches to allow for a DNF.


Being used to 3-FMC-attempt competitions seems to only really exist in Asia (specifically China and Japan) and western Europe. The only person outside Europe/Asia to ever complete an FMC mean was José Garrido of Chile, who was the single FMC competitor at a Peruvian competition exactly a year ago. (I wonder what was the situation behind that - very weird to give someone 3 attempts and not have anyone else who's interested.)

I'm sure the number of FMC means will increase in 2014, but I think at the moment the people who want FMC means form small groups concentrated in a few areas of the world. The majority of serious cubers who regularly attend competitions have never done an FMC mean, and maybe have never even been to a competition which offered it.


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## AvGalen (Jan 6, 2014)

Stefan said:


> You've got to be kidding.
> 
> 
> 
> ...


I am not kidding of course. I meant the normal human being meaning of proved, not the mathematical meaning. You can call it a wrongly oversimplification if you want. However I would appreciate a response that is more content based. Just because of 1 word the content of my post doesn't change and there is a lot in there that addresses the issues.

I am unhappy to hear that you support them, but that makes 1 now. I am very interested why you think that is a good idea but maybe that belongs in another topic? Even Sebastien told me that he didn't really like them. So did everyone else I asked about it at that competition. I would like to compare it with highjumping. That is also a sport where you get a fixed amount of attempts and only the best result counts. Participants use that knowledge and then determine a strategy that might include trying a height, skipping another and then trying for the best (all-or-nothing). I don't think anyone would consider it a good idea to change the preferred format for that to "the average height of all your jumps and if the bar wobbles and falls of your entire result is DNF" and "also, we calculated who would have had the best average in the past and made those WR's"

Answer to qqwref: 3 solves are mostly done in 1 round, but spread over multiple days (this weekend it was 2 on Friday-night and 1 on Saturday). However there have also been comps where there were 3 solves in round 1 on Saturday and 3 in round 2 on Sunday. Or a comp where round 1 is only 1 solve and round 2 is only 1 solve on the same day. Basically it is done "whichever way is legal, suits the organiser and delegate and fits the schedule". Because of this variety and the fact that best of 3 is only rarely held it makes no sense to me that suddenly mean-of-3 became the preferred format


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## Noahaha (Jan 6, 2014)

I think it's too early to say anything about frequency of FMC means because they were only just introduced. I think that the fact that they exist means that more of them will happen. For example, if an FMC mo3 does not show up in New England within the next six months, I will happily include it in the next competition I organize. I'm sure other people feel the same way. There was simply no reason to do it before.

EDIT: However, I strongly believe that the infrequency of FMC means in pre-2014 competitions is grounds for not counting retroactive WRs in FMC. 3BLD ones make a little bit more sense because people have always been doing 3BLD means, but I don't think it is good to have so many records where the people setting them did not know that anything was at stake.


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## tim (Jan 6, 2014)

AvGalen said:


> So the first competition with Mean of 3 was held this weekend. It proved just how bad this Mean-of-3 idea is: [...]
> 
> What Sebastien said would happen: [...]
> 
> ...



I don't think it's fair quoting Sébastien after just one(!) competition with nine(!) competitors and trying to disprove his statements based on that extremely low sample size.


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## Bob (Jan 6, 2014)

qqwref said:


> I'm sure the number of FMC means will increase in 2014, but I think at the moment the people who want FMC means form small groups concentrated in a few areas of the world. The majority of serious cubers who regularly attend competitions have never done an FMC mean, and maybe have never even been to a competition which offered it.



Quite an understatement. I've been to more cube competitions than almost anyone else in the world, but not a single one of them offered 3 FMC solves. I agree that it is easy enough to avoid DNF in FMC (just look at my results), but I still find mean of 3 in FMC to be ridiculous because *no event should take 3 hours for so few people*. There are better uses for time. Even at LSC 2013, it took less time than this for 135 competitors to compete in 3x3.



Noahaha said:


> I think it's too early to say anything about frequency of FMC means because they were only just introduced. I think that the fact that they exist means that more of them will happen. For example, if an FMC mo3 does not show up in New England within the next six months, I will happily include it in the next competition I organize. I'm sure other people feel the same way. There was simply no reason to do it before.
> 
> EDIT: However, I strongly believe that the infrequency of FMC means in pre-2014 competitions is grounds for not counting retroactive WRs in FMC. 3BLD ones make a little bit more sense because people have always been doing 3BLD means, but I don't think it is good to have so many records where the people setting them did not know that anything was at stake.



There was a reason not to do it before and there's still a reason not to do it now: *it takes three freaking hours*.


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## Noahaha (Jan 6, 2014)

Bob said:


> There was a reason not to do it before and there's still a reason not to do it now: *it takes three freaking hours*.



I'm just saying that the frequency will go way up because of the regulation. 

It's also pretty easy to run FMC alongside other events, given that it only needs one judge.


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## AvGalen (Jan 6, 2014)

tim said:


> I don't think it's fair quoting Sébastien after just one(!) competition with nine(!) competitors and trying to disprove his statements based on that extremely low sample size.


It wasn't just based on this sample, it was also based on historic knowledge. Sebastien basically claims that if you care for FMC and are somewhat decent at it you will not DNF. I think this previous World Record holder has a different opinion: https://www.worldcubeassociation.org/results/p.php?i=1982RAZO01#333fm
Sebastien also claimed that safety solves are not needed, but yet he needed a 33 moves solution. For most people that is good, but for him we have to go back 40 competitions and almost 70 solves to see him do so badly (ignoring the 6 DNF's in there)

mean of 3 changes the way you have to approach fmc when you compare it to best of 3. That is obvious for blind, bigblind and should be obvious for fmc as well. Making it the preferred format is absurd. Giving retro-active world records is absurd. Having this rule so suddenly implemented and implemented differently than suggested (replacing best of 3, not adding best of 3) by a board member that feels robbed of his 2013 WR-title reflects horribly on the WCA

I don't think I have ever been to a competition that has FMC running alongside other events. It is certainly possible, but that would mark it as a freak-event (like bigblind) and that is certainly not what we would like to accomplish. Having it run for 3 hours is a choice of the delegate. If someone wants to organise 3 rounds of best of 3 fmc that is fine by me but don't expect a lot of people to come to that comp


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## Bob (Jan 6, 2014)

Noahaha said:


> I'm just saying that the frequency will go way up because of the regulation.
> 
> It's also pretty easy to run FMC alongside other events, given that it only needs one judge.



Yeah. The problem is that it excludes those competitors from those events. Keep in mind that almost every competition held in North America is a one-day competition. Even the ones that have had FMC as a Best of 2 typically (maybe always? I'd have to double-check) did it over more than one day.


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## uberCuber (Jan 6, 2014)

Bob said:


> *Yeah. The problem is that it excludes those competitors from those events.* Keep in mind that almost every competition held in North America is a one-day competition. Even the ones that have had FMC as a Best of 2 typically (maybe always? I'd have to double-check) did it over more than one day.



I was about to say this as well. From what I've seen, it doesn't seem like there are a whole lot of people (especially in NA) who care enough about FMC and care little enough about other events to want to give up their ability to compete in multiple other events just to get their FMC mean.


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## Noahaha (Jan 6, 2014)

Bob said:


> Yeah. The problem is that it excludes those competitors from those events. Keep in mind that almost every competition held in North America is a one-day competition. Even the ones that have had FMC as a Best of 2 typically (maybe always? I'd have to double-check) did it over more than one day.



I think it's fair to offer a trade off for something that takes as long as FMC, especially if we're offering 3 solves. The people who really want an official FMC mo3 will be happy to give up two or three events that happen way more often than FMC.




uberCuber said:


> I was about to say this as well. From what I've seen, it doesn't seem like there are a whole of people (especially in NA) who care enough about FMC and care little enough about other events to want to give up their ability to compete in multiple other events just to get their FMC mean.



It depends on what the other events are. If they are Megaminx, Clock and Square-1, then I am sure that plenty of people will not care. I guess I have a different perspective because I get to compete often and only care about a few events, but I would give up anything that is not BLD in order to do a FMC mo3.


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## uberCuber (Jan 6, 2014)

Noahaha said:


> It depends on what the other events are. If they are Megaminx, Clock and Square-1 then I am sure that plenty of people will not care. *I guess I have a different perspective* because I get to compete often and only care about a few events, but I would give up anything that is not BLD in order to do a FMC mo3.



Yep, I realized the perspective issue a few seconds before you edited in this comment. I was basing my statement off my own mentality of having comps be a special thing where I need to take every opportunity seriously (a mentality that still persists despite the increased number of comps I can get to now that I'm in California), but I can see how someone who has easier access to a larger number of comps wouldn't necessarily feel this way.


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## Stefan (Jan 6, 2014)

AvGalen said:


> I meant the normal human being meaning of proved, not the mathematical meaning
> [...]
> Just because of 1 word



If I had wanted to complain about the word _"proved"_, then I would have only quoted that. But I also quoted _"the first competition"_, did you think I did that with some extra effort (the two parts weren't together before, I brought them together using "[...]") just for fun? The point is that it's utterly ridiculous to take a single small competition and pretend it is representative for the general case, at least for many of your arguments.

It wasn't just one word, I even quoted four, and those four summarized at least half of your post and what's wrong with it.



AvGalen said:


> I am very interested why you think that is a good idea



I am very interested why you think that is a *bad* idea.

They are/were the best results, thus records, I don't see why we would *not* show that, especially now that we officially have these categories.



AvGalen said:


> I would like to compare it with highjumping. That is also a sport where *you get a fixed amount of attempts*



I believe this is false. What is that fixed amount?



AvGalen said:


> I don't think anyone would consider it a good idea to change the preferred format for that to "the average height of all your jumps and if the bar wobbles and falls of your entire result is DNF"



Right, in high jumping it would make no sense to me. *Because there is no randomness* like we have in cubing. Failed analogy.



AvGalen said:


> However there *have also been comps* where there were 3 solves in round 1 on Saturday and 3 in round 2 on Sunday.



False/misleading. There has only been one such competition.



AvGalen said:


> it makes no sense to me that suddenly *mean-of-3 became the preferred format*



Why do you say it's the preferred format? I'm pretty sure it isn't.


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## Stefan (Jan 6, 2014)

AvGalen said:


> Sebastien basically claims that if you care for FMC and are somewhat decent at it you will not DNF. I think this previous World Record holder has a different opinion: https://www.worldcubeassociation.org/results/p.php?i=1982RAZO01#333fm



How many of those DNFs were mistakes, how many times did he give up? (Or does that not matter? I can't tell because I don't quite understand your point.)



AvGalen said:


> Sebastien also claimed that safety solves are not needed, but yet he needed a 33 moves solution.



You make it sound like that's a contradiction, but I don't see it. What exactly do you mean with a safety solve?



AvGalen said:


> we have to go back 40 competitions and almost 70 solves to see him do so badly *(ignoring the 6 DNF's in there)*



Haha, ignoring the results that don't fit your narrative. Bold step.



AvGalen said:


> Giving retro-active world records is absurd.



Why?

Btw, I don't recall you ever expressing a problem with Minh Thai's record recognized by WCA.



AvGalen said:


> by a board member that feels *robbed* of his 2013 WR-title reflects horribly on the WCA



Robbed? Did he say that?

But if he did, I guess that's the reason [post=684932]he proposed it *in 2011*[/post]? He must have a time machine.


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## AvGalen (Jan 6, 2014)

I don't have time to respond to all your questions right now, but I say it's the preferred format because this is in the guidelines:



9b+) ADDITION The preferred format for the final of an event is "Average of 5" or "Mean of 3", if possible.

Sebastien didn't say the word robbed, but again that is nitpicking on a word.
Sebastien didn't propose mean of 3 in 2011. He just made a remark that he would love mean of 2 or mean of 3. If you read this thread from the beginning you can see that he actually was in favor of mean of 2 at first. Then this thread died out. Then he reanimated this thread just after not becoming the world champion in Las Vegas. Jimmy Coll, István Kocza, Steven Xu and Devin Corr-Robinett are the reasons we are having this discussion.

(for highjumping the rule is "3 failed ones in a row and you are out". The analogy isn't perfect, they rarely are, but if you have ever seen a bar wobble but stay-in-place/drop you know that luck is a factor and that strategies get adopted to it)


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## porkynator (Jan 6, 2014)

Technical question: what does "preferred format" mean? Can I still organize a competition with a "best of 3" FMC round, if I wanted to?


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## Erik (Jan 6, 2014)

Preferred format is what it describes: the format that is adviced/preferred/the better one (if time and resources allow).

So organizers can choose which one to use. 'Best of x' or 'mean of 3'. 
Yes you can use a best of x format, but x can not be 3 anymore. 
You can only do a 'best of 1' or 'best of 2' if you want to do a 'best of' FMC round.


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## mycube (Jan 6, 2014)

AvGalen said:


> Then he reanimated this thread just after not becoming the world champion in Las Vegas. Jimmy Coll, István Kocza, Steven Xu and Devin Corr-Robinett are the reasons we are having this discussion.



You know he wasn't the person who remained this thread but I was? Not after the world champs but 4 months earlier after the BW Open and Moritz Karl's ER - the same frustration he had as a good FMCer

And in LV he first had the chance to talk to other Board Members directly


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## Swordsman Kirby (Jan 6, 2014)

Noahaha said:


> I'm just saying that the frequency will go way up because of the regulation.
> 
> It's also pretty easy to run FMC alongside other events, given that it only needs one judge.



What about the people competing in it? They're now unavailable to judge for three hours.


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## porkynator (Jan 6, 2014)

Erik said:


> Preferred format is what it describes: the format that is adviced/preferred/the better one (if time and resources allow).
> 
> So organizers can choose which one to use. 'Best of x' or 'mean of 3'.
> Yes you can use a best of x format, but x can not be 3 anymore.
> You can only do a 'best of 1' or 'best of 2' if you want to do a 'best of' FMC round.


Ok, this isn't very cool.
I like the idea of "Mean of 3" format for FMC, but I think there are many reasons one may choose to hold FMC as "best of 3" (for example, giving a chance for anyone who wants it to be ranked for the average without forcing everyone to do 3 attempts).
Conclusion: I voted for "Yes, I would like competitions to have this option." but I would also like to have the old format. Was the 9b+ addition necessary?


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## Lucas Garron (Jan 6, 2014)

I was personally pretty neutral about the change.

For one, 3 hours of FMC are fairly impractical in the US.

However, I agree with the argument that the new format should help reduce the role of luck, *at big competitions*. While getting lucky is not a crime, it has not been uncommon for someone to win/podium at FMC at a major championship by pure luck. It is reasonable to try to reduce that.

9b+ is an interesting point that did not occur to me. I think it makes sense to have the mean of 3 preferred, but it is the first example of a "preferred" format that is not expected to be used the majority of the time.


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## Laura O (Jan 6, 2014)

AvGalen said:


> The ranking for the top cubers would have been exactly the same with the old and the new rules
> The ranking for the mid-level fmc-ers changed. They became bottom level fmc-ers because of DNF's
> The ranking for the low-level fmc-ers change. They became mid-level fmc-ers because they got 3 solves.



Because I was one of the competitors you are talking about, I would like to add something to that and explain my results.
I would classify myself in your "mid-level fmc-er" category since my official PB is 36. I am regularly (more or less) attending the FMC competition in the Geman speedcubing forum, where I did some sub30s and I am averaging approximately around 30-32 moves. 

As I already told you yesterday, my current aim is to do a good FMC result in competition officially. I generally do not care about good competition rankings. To be honest they are just another piece of paper I put on a large pile. Hopefully that doesn't sound arrogant, but I think that's a common point of view for many people, who are attending competitions frequently.
That's also the reason why I DNFed the second scramble: after a good beginning I couldn't find a good ending and was angry with myself. If I aimed to do a mean I probably could have done this in about 45 moves, but as I said above, I just don't care.
If you take a look at my results, the majority of my FMC results were DNFs and the reason for that is just what I described above. So mean of 3 did not change anything for me.

Apart from the fact, that one small competition does not prove anything, your description of the changes in the rankings seem to be prejudiced. If you take a closer look at the results, the majority of competitors who got a DNF in Duisburg (Adrian, Andreas and me) also had a lot of DNFs in prior competitions. Thus it is just wrong to compare the results of Duisburg with single (not DNF) results from past competitions.



AvGalen said:


> Sebastien didn't propose mean of 3 in 2011. He just made a remark that he would love mean of 2 or mean of 3. If you read this thread from the beginning you can see that he actually was in favor of mean of 2 at first. Then this thread died out. Then he reanimated this thread just after not becoming the world champion in Las Vegas. Jimmy Coll, István Kocza, Steven Xu and Devin Corr-Robinett are the reasons we are having this discussion.



Linus already pointed out that this is not true.
Furthermore I don't know how you made up the connection to the results of the world championship. This is an unfair statement not based on any facts.

And, btw, to forestall any assumptions: this is my objective view I formed since the FMC mean topic was brought up and is not based on any personal relationships.


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## tseitsei (Jan 6, 2014)

AvGalen said:


> So the first competition with Mean of 3 was held this weekend. It proved just how bad this Mean-of-3 idea is:



No it didn't. It was 1 competition with 9 competitors... So really really small sample. 
Plus it was the first competition under the new rules, so maybe all competitors haven't yet realized how to change their tactics in order to do well.



> This is what Sebastien said: FMC is the event where you are least likely to have a DNF if you pay attention to time and writing. For the top that turned out to be true but not for the middle-class
> The amount of DNF-results is much bigger than normal, as is expected



What Sebastien said is true. Just the fact that people did DNF doesn't necessarily mean that it's hard not to DNF.
Just think about it: If you haven't figured out a good solution in (let's say) 50 minutes, you still have time to write down "easier but longer" solution. That shouldn't take more than 5min tops. And you still have 5 min to scramble your all three cubes and apply the move sequence and fix it if it isn't correct. So plenty of time. 
People DNF because they try to the last minute to find a good solution and fail. Or because they are too lazy to check if their written solution actually works.




> He should compare FMC to bigblind and there a single is what counts and DNF's are acceptable.



Now this line made me extra sad/angry.
Of course FMC IS NOT comparable to big blind in the least. As I explained above you will not DNF in FMC if you just accept a little longer result and CHECK YOUR solution. 
But in BLD if you execute 1 move wrongly you will DNF and there is nothing you can do to fix that.
DNFing is and always will be a part of BLD but it doesn't have to be a part of FMC if you just take some precautions.

So all in all I like the change. (As well as 3bld mean of 3 being recognized as a record)

Just my two cents on the topic


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## Erik (Jan 6, 2014)

I still feel a bit mixed about mean of 3 to be honest. One the one hand it's nice that at least WC and EC (I assume FMC will be at least mean of 3 there) will be less luck-based. 
On the other hand there are the following things con and pro a mean of 3 format:

con-ish: at mean of 3 rounds you *will* have to change your approach. In a few of the FMC-rich competitions I organized the following happens: on solve 1 or 2 you get a mediocre result (30 or so). Then on attempt 2 and/or 2 and 3 you can go all risk and try to force-find an ending to a promising start instead of having to have to find a safety solution. This does change the nature of the event.
con: as competitions can be long and time schedules sometimes too tight for competitors it is nice to be able to skip the morning attempt for example, when knowing there will be another one later. 
con: As I am a club-chess player as well I know how long periods of hard concentration can influence your performance later on the day. So if during a solve you find the scramble hard, it's nice that you can just quit and save your energy for later.
con: A preferred format should in my opinion be the format which will be used for the vast majority of competitions. Especially in regions where there are not a lot of comps, people will not be able to do a mean of 3.

pro: I like FMC so it would be fun to do more of it
pro-ish: the chances of luck interfering in the results drop, though only by that much. Not because a n00b can still win, but because the good FMC-ers mostly already win against a PLL skip.

All in all: I am not sure if the extra 2 hours of competition is worth the effort. IF you want a mean, then a mean of 2 would be a better compromise I think. The fact that mean of 3 would be _consistent _with other mean of 3 events is irrelevant.

Also: retroactive records are really stupid. The fact that a horrible BLD-cuber like me suddenly has had an ER in blind is laughable. ER's and WR's should still have value, even if it are old records.


EDIT:


tseitsei said:


> Now this line made me extra sad/angry.
> Of course FMC IS NOT comparable to big blind in the least. As I explained above you will not DNF in FMC if you just accept a little longer result and CHECK YOUR solution.



If you accept "a little longer result" and check your memo again, or just use a second memo method to double memorize your solution you will also not DNF in BLD.


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## porkynator (Jan 6, 2014)

Erik said:


> If you accept "a little longer result" and check your memo again, or just use a second memo method to double memorize your solution you will also not DNF in BLD.



There are pops, slippery cubes/hands and many other possible errors not related to memorization/recall.


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## Erik (Jan 6, 2014)

And all of those can all be avoided by being careful. A pop? Really? Use a better cube. That's enough off-topic for now...


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## kinch2002 (Jan 6, 2014)

I'm not happy that best of 3 is no longer an option. I didnt realise this. That is not the only thing that was not made obvious at all during the proposal stage e.g. retroactive records, mean of 3 rankings.

Given that there is a mean of 3 ranking now, I'd like to hold a 3 attempt competition in the UK sometime. But I'd much rather rank it by best of 3 because tbh idc whether I get beaten by a lucky solve or another decent solver in a local comp, and it will of course ensure that most people get results.


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## Carrot (Jan 6, 2014)

I'm not organising or participating in fmc anymore. (that's my opinion about the mean of 3)


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## tseitsei (Jan 6, 2014)

> EDIT:
> 
> If you accept "a little longer result" and check your memo again, or just use a second memo method to double memorize your solution you will also not DNF in BLD.



No. Just wrong...

You can make your chances better by memoing longer, but a good part of all DNFs are because of execution mistakes.

See the difference here, as I explained earlier, is that in BLD if you do an execution mistake you cannot fix that simply by spending a little more time in your solve, BUT in FMC if you can easily a) notice if your solution is correctly written, because you should always test if it works and b) you can easily fix it as well.

Can you see the difference?


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## tim (Jan 6, 2014)

AvGalen said:


> It wasn't just based on this sample, it was also based on historic knowledge. Sebastien basically claims that if you care for FMC and are somewhat decent at it you will not DNF. I think this previous World Record holder has a different opinion: https://www.worldcubeassociation.org/results/p.php?i=1982RAZO01#333fm



You can't use historical data for the reason you stated yourself:



AvGalen said:


> mean of 3 changes the way you have to approach fmc when you compare it to best of 3.





AvGalen said:


> Sebastien also claimed that safety solves are not needed, but yet he needed a 33 moves solution.



That's a sample size of like 3(?). Also: He had a 32 moves solution in November last year!

BTW. I should have an even stronger opinion against mean of 3 for FMC as you (I voted against it), but I think you're just jumping to conclusions here.


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## Carrot (Jan 6, 2014)

Interesting fact:

Places with Mean of 3 results:
Japan, China: they have dedicated FMC competitions.
Chile: The weird Sudamericano competition where only one guy competed.
Spain: They seem to like FMC  
Sebastien: Competed in 6, delegated half of them.


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## AvGalen (Jan 6, 2014)

larf said:


> If you take a look at my results, the majority of my FMC results were DNFs and the reason for that is just what I described above. So mean of 3 did not change anything for me.
> 
> Apart from the fact, that one small competition does not prove anything, your description of the changes in the rankings seem to be prejudiced. If you take a closer look at the results, the majority of competitors who got a DNF in Duisburg (Adrian, Andreas and me) also had a lot of DNFs in prior competitions. Thus it is just wrong to compare the results of Duisburg with single (not DNF) results from past competitions.
> 
> ...


Thank you for responding Laura, I was hoping you would write.
I don't understand how you can say "So mean of 3 did not change anything for me". Your approach to FMC seems to be the same as mine and the result is the same as mine: Sometimes you get good results, sometimes you DNF because you can't find a good enough finish. But in the past that didn't matter because your result for the event would be your best of the 3 solves. Now it immediately turns your result into a DNF. How can you still say that it didn't change anything for you.
And that is also why I compare the amount of DNF's from Duisburgs mean-of-3 to previously much lower amounts of DNF's for the entire event. Of course it is not an equal comparison, that is my whole point. Because of the new rule more people get DNF results and that is a bad outcome of a new rule.

Also, I stick with my point that the thread went dead and then came alive again by Sebastien. How can so many people deny that when it is so obvious just by looking back:
29th of April 2013, after about 40 posts in 1 week the thread dies; http://www.speedsolving.com/forum/s...n-of-N-for-FMC&p=848173&viewfull=1#post848173
12th of August 2013, after Sebastien didn't become World Champion he revives the thread; http://www.speedsolving.com/forum/s...n-of-N-for-FMC&p=887963&viewfull=1#post887963

For everyone that thinks it is easy not to DNF: History has shown that lots of competitors make small mistakes in writing down their solution. I mentioned Guus because he is a previous (undisputed/non-lucky) World Record holder that has often missed a podium because of an error in his solution. All it takes is just 1 apostrophe, or being as stupid as writing down the solution to the inverse scramble. Why don't people realise that DNF-ing FMC is extremely common? If you spend 3 hours, spread over 2 days and you are not allowed the slightest mistake that really removes the fun of FMC for me.


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## tim (Jan 6, 2014)

Carrot said:


> Interesting fact:
> 
> Places with Mean of 3 results:
> Japan, China: they have dedicated FMC competitions.
> ...



You are at least missing Germany and the Netherlands. And since when is Sébastien a place?


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## Lucas Garron (Jan 6, 2014)

Carrot said:


> Japan, China: they have dedicated FMC competitions.



Anyone know whether they like/dislike/care about "Mean of 3" vs. "Best of 3"
?


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## Carrot (Jan 6, 2014)

tim said:


> You are at least missing Germany and the Netherlands. And since when is Sébastien a place?



I'm just saying that of all competitions in the world with a competitor that succeeded a mean of 3, only 4 countries managed to not have Sebastien involved to some extend. 1 of them is an odd one out, in other words, only 3 countries in the world actively does FMC 3, the rest just happened to have Sebastien going to the comp. (as it happens, the only reason Danish Special 2011 had 2 attempts for FMC was because Sebastien decided that it should have it, so yes, Sebastien can be persuading, even when he is just a competitor)

Either Sebastien just happens to aim for the 3 attempts competitions else he may have had some influence in the decision of hosting a 3 attempt competition

Sebastien is a place because I wanted to emphasize a point.


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## AvGalen (Jan 6, 2014)

tim said:


> You are at least missing Germany and the Netherlands. And since when is Sébastien a place?


Wasn't it clear what he wanted to say? Let me phrase the results for mean-of-3 this way (no mention of who is the delegate in my way though):
In the past 10 years we only have 8 countries, 22 competitions,
34 people, 54 results for mean-of-3. No big tournament has had 3 attempts.
There simply is no historical support for making the least popular format
(3 attempts) into the preferred format.


Lucas Garron said:


> Anyone know whether they like/dislike/care about "Mean of 3" vs. "Best of 3"
> ?


I really don't know. Of course Tomoaki has expressed that he would like "Median" but other than that I haven't heard much from Japan/China.
From the start of this topic it has been clear that there is no support for holding mean-of-3 in the USA except for Mike Hugheys "missing averages" competition. It was actually mentioned in one of the very first posts that it would be extremely hard to fit it into big US competitions. This "no-3-in-USA" has been repeated over and over but there hasn't been a response.



Carrot said:


> Either Sebastien just happens to aim for the 3 attempts competitions else he may have had some influence in the decision of hosting a 3 attempt competition


I have heard from others that Sebastien has requested extra attempts for FMC and sometimes asked to adjust the time schedule. I want to make clear that he just asks and accepts no without hesitation. Although I think Sebastien is pushing FMC too much we are most certainly not talking about Hayan-situations! I see no problem at all with requesting an extra round or attempt. More fun!


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## Lucas Garron (Jan 7, 2014)

AvGalen said:


> I really don't know. Of course Tomoaki has expressed that he would like "Median" but other than that I haven't heard much from Japan/China.


I actually like "Median of 3". It just seems annoying to argue for it, though.



AvGalen said:


> From the start of this topic it has been clear that there is no support for holding mean-of-3 in the USA except for Mike Hugheys "missing averages" competition. It was actually mentioned in one of the very first posts that it would be extremely hard to fit it into big US competitions. This "no-3-in-USA" has been repeated over and over but there hasn't been a response.


I think that's because Americans understand that it doesn't really affect us. When we know we won't be doing three solves in our competitions (except maybe Nationals), so maybe there isn't much more to say.


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## cubizh (Jan 7, 2014)

AvGalen said:


> Also, I stick with my point that the thread went dead and then came alive again by Sebastien. How can so many people deny that when it is so obvious just by looking back:
> 29th of April 2013, after about 40 posts in 1 week the thread dies; http://www.speedsolving.com/forum/s...n-of-N-for-FMC&p=848173&viewfull=1#post848173
> 12th of August 2013, after Sebastien didn't become World Champion he revives the thread; http://www.speedsolving.com/forum/s...n-of-N-for-FMC&p=887963&viewfull=1#post887963


Just a small note to remind that this thread was posted on the private forum for the majority of its existence, so not everyone was actually allowed to reply to it.


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## Laura O (Jan 7, 2014)

AvGalen said:


> Thank you for responding Laura, I was hoping you would write.
> I don't understand how you can say "So mean of 3 did not change anything for me". Your approach to FMC seems to be the same as mine and the result is the same as mine: Sometimes you get good results, sometimes you DNF because you can't find a good enough finish. But in the past that didn't matter because your result for the event would be your best of the 3 solves. Now it immediately turns your result into a DNF. How can you still say that it didn't change anything for you.



What do you mean by "it didn't matter"? Or what actually matters?

To summarize my point of view again: I have done sub30s at home, so my goal is to do this officially. I think I can solve any scramble in about 35 moves if I have the time to build a promising skeleton and find good insertions. Since I am also doing FMC solves at home, I am constantly improving and becoming faster. But I still do not have the skills to find a (sub)35 moves solution in one hour without having the luck to find the right "path" early.
Nevertheless I can solve a 3x3, I know several methods, substeps, tricks... But in fact I'm too proud to submit such a solution in FMC.
So, the situation for me in a "best of x" format: aim to do a good solution and get that as a personal record in my WCA profile.
Situation in a "mean of 3" format: aim to do a good solution and get that as a personal record in my WCA profile.
The actual difference would be a good ranking in the competition. But as said before: I don't care and that is exactly why it doesn't change anything for me.



> Also, I stick with my point that the thread went dead and then came alive again by Sebastien. How can so many people deny that when it is so obvious just by looking back:
> 29th of April 2013, after about 40 posts in 1 week the thread dies; http://www.speedsolving.com/forum/s...n-of-N-for-FMC&p=848173&viewfull=1#post848173
> 12th of August 2013, after Sebastien didn't become World Champion he revives the thread; http://www.speedsolving.com/forum/s...n-of-N-for-FMC&p=887963&viewfull=1#post887963



And what's your point with that?
Sure, he was the one who revived the discussion in August. In your last post you connected that to the fact that he didn't become the world champion in FMC. You didn't write that clearly, but you seem to implicate that he did that in order to higher his chances to win future championships. I think you mix up personal and (WCA-)official interests in a mean way.
Furthermore the WCA is not some kind of dictatorship, where decisions are made by one single person.


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## tim (Jan 7, 2014)

larf said:


> Furthermore the WCA is not some kind of dictatorship, where decisions are made by one single person.



A dictatorship can consist of more than one person. And the WCA board is actually a dictatorship. (Disclaimer: I don't think that's bad.)


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## Laura O (Jan 7, 2014)

tim said:


> A dictatorship can consist of more than one person. And the WCA board is actually a dictatorship. (Disclaimer: I don't think that's bad.)



I think it's obvious what I meant to say: the rules are not changed because a single person (Sébastien in this case) wants them to be changed.


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## AvGalen (Jan 7, 2014)

mycube said:


> You know he wasn't the person who remained this thread but I was? Not after the world champs but 4 months earlier after the BW Open and Moritz Karl's ER - the same frustration he had as a good FMCer
> 
> And in LV he first had the chance to talk to other Board Members directly


I see you edited your post to say that you reanimated it *first*. Please read more carefully next time. I specifically said "_Then he reanimated this thread *just after not becoming the world champion in Las Vegas.*". _This thread was dead for 4 months and anyone claiming that Sebastien didn't reanimate it is trying to rewrite history.



larf said:


> The actual difference would be a good ranking in the competition. But as said before: I don't care and that is exactly why it doesn't change anything for me.
> 
> And what's your point with that?
> Sure, he was the one who revived the discussion in August. In your last post you connected that to the fact that he didn't become the world champion in FMC. You didn't write that clearly, but you seem to implicate that he did that in order to higher his chances to win future championships. I think you mix up personal and (WCA-)official interests in a mean way.
> Furthermore the WCA is not some kind of dictatorship, where decisions are made by one single person.


Okay, I understand now why you said it didn't change anything for you. You didn't care about getting a mean, you just wanted to get a single and didn't care about your competition ranking.
I actually didn't make the connection between him reviving the thread and him not becoming the world champion in my last post, I did that in the post where I said he revived the thread and much before that as well: http://www.speedsolving.com/forum/s...n-of-N-for-FMC&p=939573&viewfull=1#post939573

I have never said or implicated or even felt that Sebastien did this to higher his chances to win future championships. I have only made the connection to the past. I am not mixing up personal and official interests in any mean way but I cannot stop you from thinking what you think.

The problem is that the proposal (and poll) was about ADDING mean-of-3. I might (or might not) have been in favor of that actually. But as we all know by now the actual change has been to REPLACE best-of-3 with mean-of-3 AND make that the prefered format AND make retro-active results.
I have read https://github.com/cubing/wca-documents/issues/81 and Sebastien nicely proposes the format-change. 
When he is asked to provide proof of community support he adds a poll and soon after writes "the community generally agrees that "Mean of 3" should be a possible format for FMC" which was perfectly true at the time.
Now comes the strange part: Under pros he writes "in contrast to some people's assumptions, organisers will of course still have the possibility to host FMC with a "Best of X" format, just like this is possible for all other events listed in 9b2." This looks like the proposal is about adding mean-of-3
But then comes the twist. He makes another proposal:
"As an addition it bothers me (and others), that Best of 3 is possible for events that can be held using Mean of 3. Hence I also ask you to update 9b2a to:9b2a) Competition formats for these events are: "Best of X" (where X is 1 or 2) and "Mean of 3"."

Now we are no longer talking about adding mean-of-3 but about replacing best-of-3 with mean-of-3. He never asked for community support for this and basically his list of pro's and cons is no longer appropriate. (the DNF issue is actually on the pros part while it should be on the cons)


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## Sebastien (Jan 7, 2014)

So many ridiculous lies, purposely wrongly interpreted facts, false information and logical fallacies...



AvGalen said:


> It *proved* just how bad this Mean-of-3 idea is:



Stefan and Tim (who even shares your opinion!) already pointed out how wrong this is.



AvGalen said:


> What Sebastien said would happen: Good solvers would not be pushed down by lucky solvers (true) and the results will be a better representation of the skills of people (*this is false*)



No, that's not false. You are commiting the mistake to not taking into considaration that some people decided to stop caring about their Mean result. They would confirm this to you if you would care to ask them (and actually listen to their answer).



AvGalen said:


> This is what Sebastien said: FMC is the event where you are least likely to have a DNF if you pay attention to time and writing. For the top that turned out to be true but not for the middle-class
> The amount of DNF-results is much bigger than normal, as is expected



Big logical fallacy. There is a huge difference between DNFing as result of a lack of ability and DNFing as a result of choice. Laura describes this very well in her previous post.



AvGalen said:


> This is what Sebastien said: This will not influence the results because of "safety solves". Yet he and the top 3 got worse results than normal. Apparently all scrambles were really hard. But then the difficulty of the scrambles seems to be what influences the results and not the luckyness



Logical fallacy. The scrambles at this competition were indeed really hard. Why is it surprising that as a logical consequence, the results of the competitors were worse than usual? And how do you deduce any knowledge about the influence of luckiness about this?



AvGalen said:


> Also, the poll was about ADDING mean of 3 as an option, but in reality mean of 3 has now replaced best of 3 [...]



This is either a false presentation of facts or missing knowledge. Your are mixing up 2 seperate changes to our regulations, where one of those was :

https://github.com/cubing/wca-documents/issues/81
https://github.com/cubing/wca-documents/issues/109



AvGalen said:


> I couldn't make this competition on Friday, so I had no chance of getting into the ranking for FMC. Because of that I also choose not to do the 3rd solve on Saturday morning, although I love FMC.



I was actually sorry on Friday when I got to know you couldn't make it. I acknowledge that this scheduling decision was rather bad, and I will try to improve on this the next time I am delegating a competition holding FMC as Mean of 3. However, I cannot understand your decision not to attend the 3rd attempt on Saturday morning. You keep saying that your approach is to aim for good official singles. That's exactly what you could have done.



AvGalen said:


> Sebastien keeps saying that there is *lots of* community support for this, ...



Because there definitely is. I will surely not start to argue about percentages with you though.



AvGalen said:


> but I claim he has tunnel vision and didn't listen or even respond to most of the comments in this thread. Especially the ones about there never having been 3 attempts at a major competition (quite the opposite actually, most competitions with 3 attempts were small and some specialised for FMC and some (co)organised by him) and the different approaches to allow for a DNF.



Wrong. I read every single post in this thread. I just disagreed - and for good reasons:

- major competitions never had 3 attempts of FMC because there was no good reason for them to have. Now there is, and you will see what happens.
- again: there is no reason to DNF an FMC solve besides personal choice or bad time strategy. Do you seriously argue, that any capable FMC competitor would not be able to submit a correct solution within an hour if he really had to?



AvGalen said:


> He keeps saying that he wants to make it more in line with blind and 666/777 but those are not events that are taking 3 hours and spread over several days.



This is a lie, even if I assume that you were meaning feet instead of blind. I just told you last weekend, that FMC is now equivalent to those events in our regulations, which is different to any motive of making FMC similar to them.



AvGalen said:


> The retro-active awarding of records has no support as far as I have heard. Not even by people that got some of those WR's!



I can't argue against what you have heard, but I would suggest to you to also listen to voices of people that do not share your opinion.



qqwref said:


> I'm sure the number of FMC means will increase in 2014, but I think at the moment the people who want FMC means form small groups concentrated in a few areas of the world. The majority of serious cubers who regularly attend competitions have never done an FMC mean, and maybe have never even been to a competition which offered it.



No one has ever been to a competition offering Mean of 3 for FMC until January 1st of this year. But now that the format exists, this will likely be changing. It is simply unfair to judge from past statistics, while there hasn't been a clear reason to host 3 FMC attempt, in contrast to now.



AvGalen said:


> Even Sebastien told me that he didn't really like them.



This is a lie.



AvGalen said:


> Because of this variety and the fact that best of 3 is only rarely held it makes no sense to me that *suddenly* mean-of-3 became the preferred format



Nothing happened suddenly. All this would have been completely clear by simply knowing the rules. The proposal was clearly to move FMC from 9b3 to 9b2 within the regulations. 9p+ did not change in the new version, and there was no indication that it would change either.



AvGalen said:


> It wasn't just based on this sample, it was also based on historic knowledge. Sebastien basically claims that if you care for FMC and are somewhat decent at it you will not DNF.



This is a lie.



AvGalen said:


> Sebastien also claimed that safety solves are not needed, but yet he needed a 33 moves solution. For most people that is good, but for him we have to go back 40 competitions and almost 70 solves to see him do so badly (ignoring the 6 DNF's in there)



Logical fallacy. So I got a 33 move result, that's undeniable. But how can you claim that was a safety solve? It was just the best result that I could get within 1 hour, just like for every other official FMC attempt since the beginning of 2013 (except for 1 anger DNF).



AvGalen said:


> mean of 3 changes the way you have to approach fmc when you compare it to best of 3.



Wrong. It doesn't at least change the way I have to approach FMC, which disproves your general statement.



AvGalen said:


> Having this rule so suddenly implemented and implemented differently than suggested (replacing best of 3, not adding best of 3) by a board member that feels robbed of his 2013 WR-title reflects horribly on the WCA



That's for sure the most absurd statement in this entire thread. First of all, I did not implement anything. I just made a formal proposal, that was considered as reasonable by the WRC and thus proposed to the WCA Board, where it got accepted with an unanimous vote. 4 other board members and the entire WRC will be happy to confirm this.
The next absurd statement is your horrendous assumption that I would feel robbed of my WR-title. You can neither know this, nor is that true in any way. I was in contrast very satisfied with my 2nd place finish at WC13.



AvGalen said:


> Sebastien didn't propose mean of 3 in 2011. He just made a remark that he would love mean of 2 or mean of 3. If you read this thread from the beginning you can see that he actually was in favor of mean of 2 at first.



This is a lie. You are refering to the beginning of this thread yourself, but apparently you just ignored my starting post in which I propose Mean of 2 or Mean of 3. So in particular, I also proposed Mean of 3.



AvGalen said:


> Then this thread died out. Then he reanimated this thread just after not becoming the world champion in Las Vegas. Jimmy Coll, István Kocza, Steven Xu and Devin Corr-Robinett are the reasons we are having this discussion.



Again a logical fallacy. Your connection between me not becoming world champion and me reanimating this thread is completely arbitrary and not based on any knowledge. In contrast, there is no other explanation for this than purely mean intention.

For those that are actually interested in truth instead of arbitrary assumptions: As Linus mentioned earlier, that I had the chance to discuss a lot of WCA topics with the other Board members during WC13. Among other things, I got to know that they were agreeing with the idea of having a Mean-format for FMC and that Mean of 3 would be the most convincing proposal.

I also don't understand, given the knowledge that you should have, you are putting Jimmy and Istvan in line with Steven and Devin. That's just wrong.


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## Sebastien (Jan 7, 2014)

kinch2002 said:


> I'm not happy that best of 3 is no longer an option. I didnt realise this. That is not the only thing that was not made obvious at all during the proposal stage e.g. retroactive records, mean of 3 rankings.
> 
> Given that there is a mean of 3 ranking now, I'd like to hold a 3 attempt competition in the UK sometime. But I'd much rather rank it by best of 3 because tbh idc whether I get beaten by a lucky solve or another decent solver in a local comp, and it will of course ensure that most people get results.



I'm really sorry that you feel this way. However, there is a ranking for every official WCA format, so I always considered this obvious. The retroactive records are also just consistent with the acceptence of other results in the past (like WC82, WC03, MBF old) that were accomplished under slightly different conditions.

Furthermore, if Best of 3 was still possible, that wouldn't help you in any way, as a Mean-ranking would not be possible - that's something that we do for BLD exceptionally now, as the format is (for good reason) not available for that event.



AvGalen said:


> For everyone that thinks it is easy not to DNF: History has shown that lots of competitors make small mistakes in writing down their solution. I mentioned Guus because he is a previous (undisputed/non-lucky) World Record holder that has often missed a podium because of an error in his solution. All it takes is just 1 apostrophe, or being as stupid as writing down the solution to the inverse scramble. Why don't people realise that DNF-ing FMC is extremely common? If you spend 3 hours, spread over 2 days and you are not allowed the slightest mistake that really removes the fun of FMC for me.



All those described DNFs do clearly result from a risky time management or a sloppy solution checking. Both is easily avoidable. You act like there was an uncontrolable need for DNFing in FMC just like in BLD, which is just false. Again: If I offered you 1000 dollar for a successful FMC attempt, would you have any doubts about getting the money? Could you guarantee the same for a BLD solve?



Carrot said:


> (as it happens, the only reason Danish Special 2011 had 2 attempts for FMC was because Sebastien decided that it should have it, so yes, Sebastien can be persuading, even when he is just a competitor)



This is just wrong. I can clearly remember that 2 FMC attempts being hosted were one reason for me to go to that competition. I clearly did not "decide that the competition should have 2 FMC attempt". I might have said that it would be nice to have 2 FMC attempts, but I cannot find such a conversation either on Facebook nor in my (complete) mail archive.



Carrot said:


> Either Sebastien just happens to aim for the 3 attempts competitions else he may have had some influence in the decision of hosting a 3 attempt competition



Given that I attended 104 WCA competitions within not even 6 years and also given that it is not really a secret that I like FMC, I think it is pretty safe to assume that I do especially like attending competitions with 3 FMC attempt. That's no big surprise I guess.



AvGalen said:


> I have heard from others that Sebastien has requested extra attempts for FMC and sometimes asked to adjust the time schedule.



That's a bad presentation of facts, because it is actually the other way around. I'm a very conscious competitor and I always look at the schedules of competitions that I plan to attend. Given that I have a huge experience with creating competition schedule that work very well almost everytime, I spot weak points very easily. And given my personality, I like making suggestions for improvement. FMC is no topic within this most of the time though.



AvGalen said:


> I have never said or implicated or even felt that Sebastien did this to higher his chances to win future championships. I have only made the connection to the past. I am not mixing up personal and official interests in any mean way but I cannot stop you from thinking what you think.



If you don't have a mean intention, then I ask you to provide a good explanation for the fact that you are mixing up the arbitrary information that I didn't become world champion in Las Vegas with the fact that I reanimated this thread in August to inform the community about my plans.



AvGalen said:


> The problem is that the proposal (and poll) was about ADDING mean-of-3. I might (or might not) have been in favor of that actually. But as we all know by now the actual change has been to REPLACE best-of-3 with mean-of-3 AND make that the prefered format AND make retro-active results.
> I have read https://github.com/cubing/wca-documents/issues/81 and Sebastien nicely proposes the format-change.
> When he is asked to provide proof of community support he adds a poll and soon after writes "the community generally agrees that "Mean of 3" should be a possible format for FMC" which was perfectly true at the time.
> Now comes the strange part: Under pros he writes "in contrast to some people's assumptions, organisers will of course still have the possibility to host FMC with a "Best of X" format, just like this is possible for all other events listed in 9b2." This looks like the proposal is about adding mean-of-3
> ...



I have explained most of this before. However, as an addition concerning the second proposal: There was not much discussion about this, as the change was apparently uncontroversial (if you just read the discussion on Github). We simply considered it as inappropriate, that the events in 9b2 could still be held as Best of 3 while Mean of 3 was the preferred format (already before!) and as the number of attempts provided is still the same. I still haven't heard any good argument against this. As already said as well, that proposal did not target FMC at all and I did not see any special connection to FMC and I still don't do that now either.


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## Sebastien (Jan 7, 2014)

As a summary:

It is fine to disagree with some of the changes made in the Regulations 2014.

What I claim to be unacceptable though:

- telling lies or making arbitrary assumptions without having the knowledge about me in person
- arguing via false presentation of facts and logical fallacies just to fit those different opinions
- mixing up the 2 seperate proposals of removing Bo3 for Mo3 events (9b2a) and recognizing retroactive records (which is still likely to be changed in some way anyway) with the topic discussed in this thread.


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## AvGalen (Jan 7, 2014)

^^there is too much info above to respond to now. I am happy that you finally responded so thoroughly but you will have to wait for my response until tomorrow after work.
Just a short comment that bothers me the most: "As already said as well, that proposal did not target FMC at all and I did not see any special connection to FMC and I still don't do that now either.". The special connection is that in https://github.com/cubing/wca-documents/issues/81 you mention (unchanged) 9b2 in the pros AND also mention "As an *addition *it bothers me (and others), that Best of 3 is possible for events that can be held using Mean of 3" Hence I also ask you to update 9b2a to: 9b2a) Competition formats for these events are: "Best of X" (where X is 1 or 2) and "Mean of 3".

Here is a tip for everyone that prefers best-of-3: Organise best-of-2 round 1 and best-of-1 (or best-of-2) final. It is not the same as best-of-3 of course, but at least it allows for more people to get a BEST result.


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## Sebastien (Jan 7, 2014)

AvGalen said:


> I am happy that you finally responded so thoroughly but you will have to wait for my response until tomorrow after work.



I didn't really have any reason to answer, because as you could see your arguing style already led enough people to do that.

I finally replied because I was sick of so many lies, purposely wrongly interpreted facts, false information and logical fallacies, mainly concerning me in person.

Feel free to reply but you can expect me to simply ignore your reply if you don't significantly improve your arguing style, which is apparently necessary, unless you are able to invalidate every single point me and all the others listed above.


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## qqwref (Jan 7, 2014)

Sebastien said:


> Feel free to reply but you can expect me to simply ignore your reply if you don't significantly improve your arguing style, which is apparently necessary, unless you are able to invalidate every single point me and all the others listed above.


Is that how we are doing things now? The opposing side has to "invalidate every single point [you] and the others list" to get the regulations changed back? Where's the part where you invalidate our points? Or do you not have to because you already pushed the change through?


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## mycube (Jan 7, 2014)

AvGalen said:


> I see you edited your post to say that you reanimated it *first*. Please read more carefully next time. I specifically said "_Then he reanimated this thread *just after not becoming the world champion in Las Vegas.*". _This thread was dead for 4 months and anyone claiming that Sebastien didn't reanimate it is trying to rewrite history.



Don't say something you are not knowing for sure. I edited my post for the last sentence, not for changing anything I wrote before. 
And you know, you can't discuss something like such a change in the regulations within a small amount of time?
It seems like you ignored my last sentence just because it is against your 'logicial' sence.


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## Carrot (Jan 7, 2014)

Sebastien said:


> This is just wrong. I can clearly remember that 2 FMC attempts being hosted were one reason for me to go to that competition. I clearly did not "decide that the competition should have 2 FMC attempt". I might have said that it would be nice to have 2 FMC attempts, but I cannot find such a conversation either on Facebook nor in my (complete) mail archive.
> 
> 
> 
> Given that I attended 104 WCA competitions within not even 6 years and also given that it is not really a secret that I like FMC, I think it is pretty safe to assume that I do especially like attending competitions with 3 FMC attempt. That's no big surprise I guess.



Don't get me wrong, but having two attempts of fmc was *not* against my will at all. (yes, I like fmc a bit, not that I'm good at it, I just like to do it once in a while) And you can't find the conversations because they happened on IRC.

I don't think anyone does NOT know that fact, but I'm impressed that only Spain, Japan and China (not counting chile) managed to host 3 attempts without having you going, it's a feat in itself!


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## Laura O (Jan 7, 2014)

AvGalen said:


> I actually didn't make the connection between him reviving the thread and him not becoming the world champion in my last post, I did that in the post where I said he revived the thread and much before that as well: http://www.speedsolving.com/forum/s...n-of-N-for-FMC&p=939573&viewfull=1#post939573



And your opinions written in that post are not longer valid?



> I have never said or implicated or even felt that Sebastien did this to higher his chances to win future championships. I have only made the connection to the past. I am not mixing up personal and official interests in any mean way but I cannot stop you from thinking what you think.



Of course you can: explain what you mean by "a board member that feels robbed of his 2013 WR-title" or what this description is based on.
Believe it or not: I don't want to defend Sébastien or speak for him, I'm just curious.


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## Sebastien (Jan 7, 2014)

qqwref said:


> Is that how we are doing things now? The opposing side has to "invalidate every single point [you] and the others list" to get the regulations changed back? Where's the part where you invalidate our points? Or do you not have to because you already pushed the change through?



Don't be moronic. I'm clearly refering to his arguing style, that as of now mainly constisted of lies, assumptions without knowledge and logical fallacies. I'm just not willing to argue on such an indecent level and I think it is pretty hard to dismiss that desire as not adequate.


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## TMOY (Jan 7, 2014)

Carrot said:


> I don't think anyone does NOT know that fact, but I'm impressed that only Spain, Japan and China (not counting chile) managed to host 3 attempts without having you going, it's a feat in itself!



Just for completion's sake: there have also been at least four French comps with three FMC attempts and Sébastien not coming, in addition to the two he attended


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## Ninja Storm (Jan 7, 2014)

Sebastien said:


> Furthermore, if Best of 3 was still possible, that wouldn't help you in any way, as a Mean-ranking would not be possible - that's something that we do for BLD exceptionally now, as the format is (for good reason) not available for that event.



That's something we do for BLD, but BLD doesn't take an hour per attempt. FMC does.


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## Sebastien (Jan 7, 2014)

Ninja Storm said:


> That's something we do for BLD, but BLD doesn't take an hour per attempt. FMC does.



I'm curious how this is supposed to match the paragraph you quote.


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## Carrot (Jan 7, 2014)

TMOY said:


> Just for completion's sake: there have also been at least four French comps with three FMC attempts and Sébastien not coming, in addition to the two he attended



yes, but no one got a success mean  (else I failed at checking)


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## ThomasJE (Jan 7, 2014)

Surely we can add 'Best of 3' again in addition to 'Mean of 3'?

I don't think I've seen this in the thread, but why was 'Best of 3' taken out?


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## TMOY (Jan 7, 2014)

Carrot said:


> yes, but no one got a success mean  (else I failed at checking)



You failed at checking 

(At the other two, the three FMC attempts were divided into two rounds (best of 2 then best of 1, so no mean for anybody there, granted.)


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## cubizh (Jan 7, 2014)

ThomasJE said:


> Surely we can add 'Best of 3' again in addition to 'Mean of 3'?
> 
> I don't think I've seen this in the thread, but why was 'Best of 3' taken out?



You can see the details here.


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## ThomasJE (Jan 7, 2014)

cubizh said:


> You can see the details here.



Thanks.

So, instead of having 3 separate time slots that people could use when there are not any other events they are doing, they will force you to turn up to every one of those 3 slots?

If competitions want to make more events available to people, then surely we can have both 'Mean of 3' and 'Best of 3' as formats, and let the organizers decide?

Bearing in mind that Sebastian put that there were no cons to this at all on Github, then for me to find one bearing in mind I have been cubing for a lot shorter than he has and also that almost no discussion and no opinions from the cubing community annoys me.

And just saying, this 'Best of 3'/'Mean of 3' thing also applies to Feet, 6x6 and 7x7.


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## uberCuber (Jan 7, 2014)

ThomasJE said:


> So, instead of having 3 separate time slots that people could use when there are not any other events they are doing, they will force you to turn up to every one of those 3 slots?



This is what is annoying about the change. If an organizer wants to have 3 attempts of FMC, now in order to place in the competition, one is required to put *three hours* of their time into the event, which *no* other event comes close to requiring.



> And this 'Best of 3'/'Mean of 3' thing also applies to Feet, 6x6 and 7x7.



Wait, how are those very relevant? FMC takes a full hour per attempt, whereas those events take a small number of minutes per solve. Wanting to run FMC as best of 3 makes a lot of sense, but why would you ever need to run those three events as best of 3?


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## ThomasJE (Jan 7, 2014)

uberCuber said:


> Wait, how are those very relevant? FMC takes a full hour per attempt, whereas those events take a small number of minutes per solve. Wanting to run FMC as best of 3 makes a lot of sense, but why would you ever need to run those three events as best of 3?



I wasn't complaining about that; I was just saying. I'll edit my post to avoid confusion.


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## cubizh (Jan 7, 2014)

ThomasJE said:


> So, instead of having 3 separate time slots that people could use when there are not any other events they are doing, they will force you to turn up to every one of those 3 slots?


If the competition is running the event FMC (Mean of 3), you can still only participate in the attempts you want. No one is forcing you to do all 3. You still get single results, just not a mean and are not going to win the event in this format.


TomasJE said:


> If competitions want to make more events available to people, then surely we can have both 'Mean of 3' and 'Best of 3' as formats, and let the organizers decide?
> 
> Bearing in mind that Sebastian put that there were no cons to this at all on Github, then for me to find one bearing in mind I have been cubing for a lot shorter than he has and also that almost no discussion and no opinions from the cubing community annoys me.
> 
> And this 'Best of 3'/'Mean of 3' thing also applies to Feet, 6x6 and 7x7.


The reasons to remove that possibility based themselves in looking at the (former) current events in 9b2) which at the time were Rubik's Cube: With Feet, 6x6x6 Cube, and 7x7x7 Cube. For all these three events, a Mean of 3 was already the most used format so, with that basis, it made sense to remove it. However, since a new event was added to this category, my personal view is it might have been more prudent to wait (until the next regulations review) to enforce this, given that no data existed on FMC under 9b2), and would allow for a more peaceful and justified transition for all events, after some time of experience and would reduce this sort of discussion. This regulation also has some other minor consequences that are not meant to be discussed in this thread's scope.


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## Sebastien (Jan 7, 2014)

uberCuber said:


> Wait, how are those very relevant? FMC takes a full hour per attempt, whereas those events take a small number of minutes per solve. Wanting to run FMC as best of 3 makes a lot of sense, *but why would you ever need to run those three events as best of 3?*



That's exactly why this proposal was completely uncontroversial in the first place, thus no big discussion about it.

I see that adding FMC to 9b2 made it more controversial, but you just can't make everyone happy:

1) If Best of 3 was still allowed for FMC, then you would have a bunch of people complaining about not being able to get a Mean of 3 ranking.
2) Now that Best of 3 is not allowed for FMC, there is a bunch of people complaining that they need to attend all attempts in order to place at the competition.

I consider 1) as worse, because 2) [that's what we have now] still leaves the choice to the competitors to attempt a Mean or not.

Edit: Partly ninja'd.


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## keemy (Jan 7, 2014)

Sebastien said:


> 1) If Best of 3 was still allowed for FMC, then you would have a bunch of people complaining about not being able to get a Mean of 3 ranking.



I don't see why allowing best of 3 would not give people the chance to get a mean of 3. All comps that gave people means of 3 (except one) where judged as best of 3.

Also 


Sebastien said:


> You are right that a DNF would be harsh if the format is Mean of 3. But that's something that also goes for 6x6x6, 7x7x7 and feet. And it doesn't seem to be a problem there. And as I said before, I think that is far easier to not DNF in FMC than at every other event. As far as you don't do crazy last minute finishes, you can finish your solve in FMC and check your solution multiple times before the attempt ends. This is a benefit that you don't have for any other event.
> 
> I also don't think that it is a common thing that "better" FMC competitors hand in a solution which is supposed to work and then doesn't. I haven't had a single DNF like this in my whole cubing career.



I don't really agree with. For FMC maybe I'm not the best but I'd like to think I'm decent and this has happened to me more than once (us nats 2010 I had a 29 that I wrote down wrong and not for lack of trying, I checked my solution ~20 times but still messed up writing it down). For me I have a 33% DNF rate (not counting DNS's which usually just occur because I don't find something worth turning in, these would be those still trying for the best at 50 mins you mentioned so I'm not wont count them) and for 3BLD I have 38% DNFs (again ignoring DNS's also this figure is higher than it should be as a few of my DNFs should have been DNSs). So for me at least I have a similar rate of failure in an event I actually really like (FMC) and an event I dislike (3BLD). So I really don't understand how you think FMC can be easier to not DNF in that EVERY other event when, at least for me, its of similar difficulty as blindfold not to even mentions sighted events...


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## uberCuber (Jan 7, 2014)

Sebastien said:


> 1) If Best of 3 was still allowed for FMC, then you would have a bunch of people complaining about not being able to get a Mean of 3 ranking.



Keemy got to this first, but I agree with his point. Right now, there are plenty of results that are listed in the rankings for mean of 3 despite the fact that those competitions were run as best of 3. The fact that running them as mo3 was not an option at the time is irrelevant. They were run as best of 3, and are being ranked as means of 3, so it is obviously perfectly acceptable to you for this to occur, so saying that despite this it is not acceptable for future competitions to do the same thing is just being inconsistent on purpose.


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## irontwig (Jan 7, 2014)

keemy said:


> I checked my solution ~20 times but still messed up writing it down



So, you checked it 20 times and it seemed to be correct, or did you see that you had made a mistake, but didn't manage to find where that mistake was? If it's the former I have no idea how managed to do that.


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## Lucas Garron (Jan 7, 2014)

It's a good point that "Mean of 3" forces competitors to do all 3 attempts when "Best of 3" might save valuable time because it can free up competitors more.

This goes counter to the "Both formats take roughly the same resources" which was the rationale for removing Mean of 3 from Best of 3 events *before* the Board voted to change FMC to Mean of 3.

Would someone be willing to update the pros and cons from Sébastien's proposal for tradeoffs among the following possibilities?


 FMC as "Mean of 3".
 FMC as "Best of 3".
 FMC as either "Best of 3" or "Mean of 3" (organizer choice).

In addition, if "Best of 3" is an option, consider the effect of ranking means of competitors who have three successful attempts (like BLD since Jan. 1).

(Note: In all cases, "Best of 1" and "Best of 2" should remain as choices, and all measured means should be means of the same number attempts.)


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## uberCuber (Jan 7, 2014)

Lucas Garron said:


> FMC as either "Best of 3" or "Mean of 3" (organizer choice).



With this option, do you still mean to rank means of 3 from those comps organized as best of 3? You specify ranking means for best of 3 rounds in the option above it and not this one, but I think that would be the best option of all and it should be added to the list if it's not what you intended in this case. Allow a competition to be organized with either Best of 3 or Mean of 3, but rank means of 3 in the database either way.


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## Lucas Garron (Jan 7, 2014)

uberCuber said:


> With this option, do you still mean to rank means of 3 from those comps organized as best of 3? You specify ranking means for best of 3 rounds in the option above it and not this one, but I think that would be the best option of all and it should be added to the list if it's not what you intended in this case. Allow a competition to be organized with either Best of 3 or Mean of 3, but rank means of 3 in the database either way.



That's a good point. I'll edit my post to make it a separate option from the round formats.

Personally, I think letting organizers chose between Best of 3 or Mean of 3 without a strong default is a bit unfortunate, but I can see the case for doing so for FMC, as well as considering ranking means for Best of 3 rounds. Basically, all rounds would give the same records, but the organizer may chose which way to do the competition ranking. (But personally, I'm still uncomfortable with the organizer making such a choice, and I would probably be against it if it weren't for the "everyone needs to do 3 attempts to rank in Mean of 3" argument.)


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## Sebastien (Jan 7, 2014)

uberCuber said:


> Keemy got to this first, but I agree with his point. Right now, there are plenty of results that are listed in the rankings for mean of 3 despite the fact that those competitions were run as best of 3. The fact that running them as mo3 was not an option at the time is irrelevant. They were run as best of 3, and are being ranked as means of 3, so it is obviously perfectly acceptable to you for this to occur, so saying that despite this it is not acceptable for future competitions to do the same thing is just being inconsistent on purpose.



You surely got a valid point there. What I dislike about this, is that this focusses on the ranking only. But the ranking for Mean of 3 in FMC is just a secondary result of the format being added in order to provide fairer conditions in FMC, especially for major competitions, which is the main point of the whole thing. How would you ensure that Mean of 3 is used as the format at a competition when fairer conditions are needed, i.e. because some title is given away?


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## uberCuber (Jan 7, 2014)

Sebastien said:


> You surely got a valid point there. What I dislike about this, is that this focusses on the ranking only. But the ranking for Mean of 3 in FMC is just a secondary result of the format being added in order to provide fairer conditions in FMC, especially for major competitions, which is the main point of the whole thing. How would you ensure that Mean of 3 is used as the format at a competition when fairer conditions are needed, i.e. because some title is given away?



I'll assume it isn't enough of an answer to you to leave this up to the judgment call of the organizing teams? How about requiring Nationals/Worlds competitions to use mean of 3? Meh, that would achieve your main goal, I think, but it's so unlike anything present in the regs right now. I'll think about this.

EDIT: Just throwing more bad ideas out in case they help someone get a good idea: require mo3 over bo3 for >x competitors (but any number chosen for x would invoke complaints about being arbitrary)


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## BaMiao (Jan 7, 2014)

Lucas Garron said:


> (But personally, I'm still uncomfortable with the organizer making such a choice, and I would probably be against it if it weren't for the "everyone needs to do 3 attempts to rank in Mean of 3" argument.)



Is there any particular reason you don't want organizers making this choice? To me, it makes most sense, since organizers are the ones who set the schedule, and would know how difficult it would be to get all three attempts in. In some competitions, it might be possible to do all three attempts without sacrificing the ability to compete in other events. In this case, a Mean of 3 would make sense. Other competitions won't have that flexibility, so a "Best of 3" ranking would allow people to podium with only one or two attempts.


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## keemy (Jan 7, 2014)

irontwig said:


> So, you checked it 20 times and it seemed to be correct, or did you see that you had made a mistake, but didn't manage to find where that mistake was? If it's the former I have no idea how managed to do that.



IIRC it was something like a U written instead of a U', it's really not that hard for it to happen imo but feel free to look down on me for it.


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## Lucas Garron (Jan 7, 2014)

BaMiao said:


> Is there any particular reason you don't want organizers making this choice? To me, it makes most sense, since organizers are the ones who set the schedule, and would know how difficult it would be to get all three attempts in. In some competitions, it might be possible to do all three attempts without sacrificing the ability to compete in other events. In this case, a Mean of 3 would make sense. Other competitions won't have that flexibility, so a "Best of 3" ranking would allow people to podium with only one or two attempts.



Because we have preferred formats and the change from issue #109 for a reason. Given two formats that take the same resources, there should be a consistent one that the competitor should expect to encounter.

To reiterate: In this case, there is a significant argument that the two formats don't take the same resources, but *apart from that* I'm uncomfortable with making this the organizer's choice.


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## Lucas Garron (Jan 7, 2014)

keemy said:


> IIRC it was something like a U written instead of a U', it's really not that hard for it to happen imo but feel free to look down on me for it.



I usually test the reverse solution followed by the reverse scramble.
It works as well as turning a piece of text upside-down to count the words (you lose track of the patterns and make fewer mistakes on the specific task at hand).


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## keemy (Jan 7, 2014)

Lucas Garron said:


> I usually test the reverse solution followed by the reverse scramble.
> It works as well as turning a piece of text upside-down to count the words (you lose track of the patterns and make fewer mistakes on the specific task at hand).



Yeah sure, I think I am better at it now (it helped me to stop using rotations so the moves don't feel smooth) but I still think it's ridiculous to say FMC is easier to avoid DNFs in then every other event.


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## Sebastien (Jan 7, 2014)

keemy said:


> IIRC it was something like a U written instead of a U', it's really not that hard for it to happen imo but feel free to look down on me for it.



Could you just elaborate on how you use to check your solutions please?

That's how I do that and I'm sure this is the easiest and safest way to make sure your solution is correct:

_1. Take a solved cube
2. Apply the scramble
3. Apply the solution
4. If the cube is solved, then your solution works._

I cannot and will not believe that you performed such a check ~20 times with a positive result and that your solution was still wrong.


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## Forte (Jan 7, 2014)

Sebastien said:


> You surely got a valid point there. What I dislike about this, is that this focusses on the ranking only. But the ranking for Mean of 3 in FMC is just a secondary result of the format being added in order to provide fairer conditions in FMC, especially for major competitions, which is the main point of the whole thing. How would you ensure that Mean of 3 is used as the format at a competition when fairer conditions are needed, i.e. because some title is given away?



I skimmed through the regs, so I might have missed something, but doesn't the same argument apply to all those events with "Best of X"? Like if an organizer really wanted, they could just make 3x3 Finals at Worlds a "Best of 1" round. It seems like the standard right now is to have many options available and leave them to the organizer's discretion, instead of limiting the options so that the organizers are forced to choose the "fairer" option.


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## keemy (Jan 7, 2014)

Sebastien said:


> Could you just elaborate on how you use to check your solutions please?
> 
> That's how I do that and I'm sure this is the easiest and safest way to make sure your solution is correct:
> 
> ...



Yes that is the process I used to check my solution. I mean I can't force you believe me but that's what happened. 

Like, I'm not even mad about that or anything, I just think the statement that FMC is the easiest event to not DNF is blatantly false just based off the format of the event, in speedsolving you can see your puzzle solved, the only room for error I see is if you have a hard time differentiating colors and maybe you are off by a (U2L2)*3 or something similar. But in FMC to verify you have finished a solve you have to apply a 20ish move scramble then your solution (20~35 moves lets say) and ensure you have written it down legibly and with no small mistakes. This is clearly harder than ensuring you have completed a speedsolve, if you want to disagree with me on this then arguing with you is pointless.


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## Kit Clement (Jan 7, 2014)

Lucas Garron said:


> Because we have preferred formats and the change from issue #109 for a reason. Given two formats that take the same resources, there should be a consistent one that the competitor should expect to encounter.
> 
> To reiterate: In this case, there is a significant argument that the two formats don't take the same resources, but *apart from that* I'm uncomfortable with making this the organizer's choice.



What if Mean of 3 were the default, but Best of 3 could be an option only with Board approval? That way we can be sure that the organizer is using Best of 3 for scheduling reasons rather than personal preference.


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## Sebastien (Jan 7, 2014)

keemy said:


> Yes that is the process I used to check my solution. I mean I can't force you believe me but that's what happened.



I can try to believe you, but that must have been a massive failure then. 



keemy said:


> Like, I'm not even mad about that or anything, I just think the statement that FMC is the easiest event to not DNF is blatantly false just based off the format of the event, in speedsolving you can see your puzzle solved, the only room for error *I see* is if you have a hard time differentiating colors and maybe you are off by a (U2L2)*3 or something similar. But in FMC to verify you have finished a solve you have to apply a 20ish move scramble then your solution (20~35 moves lets say) and ensure you have written it down legibly and with no small mistakes. This is clearly harder than ensuring you have completed a speedsolve, if you want to disagree with me on this then arguing with you is pointless.



There are apparently some things that you miss, like puzzle defects leading you to exceed the time limit or timer malfunctions. It is indeed pointless to discuss about this though. I don't think there is an objectively correct answer for this, because personal preferences are a big factor.


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## uberCuber (Jan 7, 2014)

Forte said:


> I skimmed through the regs, so I might have missed something, but doesn't the same argument apply to all those events with "Best of X"? Like if an organizer really wanted, they could just make 3x3 Finals at Worlds a "Best of 1" round. It seems like the standard right now is to have many options available and leave them to the organizer's discretion, instead of limiting the options so that the organizers are forced to choose the "fairer" option.



I believe you are correct, as Ctrl+F-searching "Best of ", "Mean of 3" and "Average of 5" didn't lead me to any regulation that would actually prevent them from making Worlds finals be Best of 1. Didn't even think about this, great point. So in this case, my initial idea of leaving FMC Bo3 vs. Mo3 as a judgment call to be made by the organizing team should be perfectly valid, unless Sebastien also thinks we should add regulations to deal with all the other events as well.

EDIT: Oh yeah there is the guidelines page too. There, 9b+) says "The preferred format for the final of an event is "Average of 5" or "Mean of 3", if possible." But "preferred" isn't exactly a strong word, so there is still nothing in the regs actually preventing Worlds 3x3 finals from being Best of 1.


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## cubizh (Jan 7, 2014)

Forte said:


> I skimmed through the regs, so I might have missed something, but doesn't the same argument apply to all those events with "Best of X"? Like if an organizer really wanted, they could just make 3x3 Finals at Worlds a "Best of 1" round. It seems like the standard right now is to have many options available and leave them to the organizer's discretion, instead of limiting the options so that the organizers are forced to choose the "fairer" option.





uberCuber said:


> I believe you are correct, as Ctrl+F-searching "Best of ", "Mean of 3" and "Average of 5" didn't lead me to any regulation that would actually prevent them from making Worlds finals be Best of 1. Didn't even think about this, great point. So in this case, my initial idea of leaving FMC Bo3 vs. Mo3 as a judgment call to be made by the organizing team should be perfectly valid, unless Sebastien also thinks we should add regulations to deal with all the other events as well.
> 
> EDIT: Oh yeah there is the guidelines page too. There, 9b+) says "The preferred format for the final of an event is "Average of 5" or "Mean of 3", if possible." But "preferred" isn't exactly a strong word, so there is still nothing in the regs actually preventing Worlds 3x3 finals from being Best of 1.



There's a guideline that addresses that specific point. 

EDIT: Obviously Ninja'd

I believe preferred is used in the sense of "to use generally unless under specific conditions/exceptions priorly approved by the Board" (?)


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## TMOY (Jan 7, 2014)

Sebastien said:


> I cannot and will not believe that you performed such a check ~20 times with a positive result and that your solution was still wrong.



IMHO it's a case of cognitive dissonance: there's, say, a U in your solution but for some reason you think it's a U', so you write down U'; when you check your solution, you still perform your U thinking "U'", and since you get a solved cube, you have no reason to corrrect the faulty U' on your written solution. Yes it sounds weird, but it happens.


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## BaMiao (Jan 7, 2014)

TMOY said:


> IMHO it's a case of cognitive dissonance: there's, say, a U in your solution but for some reason you think it's a U', so you write down U'; when you check your solution, you still perform your U thinking "U'", and since you get a solved cube, you have no reason to corrrect the faulty U' on your written solution. Yes it sounds weird, but it happens.



I understand this completely. I'm getting flashbacks to the days of doing problem sets and not being able to figure out where I made a mistake because _I'd make the same mistake every time I redid the problem._


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## Carrot (Jan 7, 2014)

TMOY said:


> You failed at checking
> 
> (At the other two, the three FMC attempts were divided into two rounds (best of 2 then best of 1, so no mean for anybody there, granted.)



I actually did check those competitions, I'm stupid, just forget that post. I'm stupid...


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## Noahaha (Jan 7, 2014)

TMOY said:


> IMHO it's a case of cognitive dissonance: there's, say, a U in your solution but for some reason you think it's a U', so you write down U'; when you check your solution, you still perform your U thinking "U'", and since you get a solved cube, you have no reason to corrrect the faulty U' on your written solution. Yes it sounds weird, but it happens.



Protip: Check the inverse of your solution. I used to make that mistake.


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## Sebastien (Jan 8, 2014)

uberCuber said:


> I believe you are correct, as Ctrl+F-searching "Best of ", "Mean of 3" and "Average of 5" didn't lead me to any regulation that would actually prevent them from making Worlds finals be Best of 1. Didn't even think about this, great point. So in this case, my initial idea of leaving FMC Bo3 vs. Mo3 as a judgment call to be made by the organizing team should be perfectly valid, unless Sebastien also thinks we should add regulations to deal with all the other events as well.
> 
> EDIT: Oh yeah there is the guidelines page too. There, 9b+) says "The preferred format for the final of an event is "Average of 5" or "Mean of 3", if possible." But "preferred" isn't exactly a strong word, so there is still nothing in the regs actually preventing Worlds 3x3 finals from being Best of 1.



I will not conceal that I still have some doubts about this, but in sum you convinced me:

https://github.com/cubing/wca-documents/issues/150


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## Worms (Jan 27, 2014)

I don't like Mean of 3 format, I was second easily...

https://www.worldcubeassociation.org/results/c.php?i=MolinaOpen2014&allResults=1#333fm


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## Methuselah96 (Jan 27, 2014)

Worms said:


> I don't like Mean of 3 format, I was second easily...
> 
> https://www.worldcubeassociation.org/results/c.php?i=MolinaOpen2014&allResults=1#333fm



How did you DNF your other two solves (just out of curiosity)?


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## Worms (Jan 27, 2014)

No
I was second
I'm Alexandre Toledo 

Javier Cabezuelo and Alexander Olleta are much better than me (I have never practiced fewest at home), but I won them because mean of 3 format allow it.


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## Methuselah96 (Jan 27, 2014)

Worms said:


> No
> I was second
> I'm Alexandre Toledo
> 
> Javier Cabezuelo and Alexander Olleta are much better than me (I have never practiced fewest at home), but I won them because mean of 3 format allow it.



Oh sorry, I thought you were saying that you should have been second. Do you know how Javier and Alexander DNF'd their other 2 solves?


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## Worms (Jan 27, 2014)

(Sorry, my english is very bad )

Javier Cabezuelo had a mistake writting his solution (he forget an ').
Alexander Olleta had a solution but the time finished, he can't copy the solution.

The second solve, I don't know why they had a DNF.


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## Tim Major (Jan 27, 2014)

Your English isn't bad. I could tell it's not your main language, but it's readable.


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## okayama (Jan 27, 2014)

Worms said:


> Methuselah96 said:
> 
> 
> > Oh sorry, I thought you were saying that you should have been second. Do you know how Javier and Alexander DNF'd their other 2 solves?
> ...



I think the second scramble is hard. You can see all three scrambles here.

This was my first comp for Mean of 3 FMC, and that (I must not have DNF) put me under pressure, especially after 40 min on the second attempt. Mean of 3 is surely different from Best of 3, and I (and also other all competitors) should change the strategy for time-management depending on the format. Maybe all participants (including me) were not well-prepared for it.
Hopefully I will get a better result next time.


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## Tim Major (Jan 27, 2014)

okayama said:


> I think the second scramble is hard. You can see all three scrambles here.
> 
> This was my first comp for Mean of 3 FMC, and that (I must not have DNF) put me under pressure, especially after 40 min on the second attempt. Mean of 3 is surely different from Best of 3, and I (and also other all competitors) should change the strategy for time-management depending on the format. Maybe all participants (including me) were not well-prepared for it.
> Hopefully I will get a better result next time.



I feel similar about 3bld. Before, depending on your goal (comp podium, personal/regional records) you had two strategies. 

Go super fast on all 3 attempts (going for records)
Go safe on first solve to guarantee podium. Rush next two.

Now, if you want the mo3 record, you need to go a combination of safe+fast on all 3. You're far less likely to break a single record.

You basically have to decide "do you care more about a mo3 record or a single record?" because if the single record is very competitive, you can't go for both.

Personally I don't care much about mo3, so I'll continue my safety attempt->super rush the solves after a success. But if one of the fastest bldsolvers in a region have my approach, "2nd best" solvers can go for the mo3, for a semi shallow record.

I feel this change, and the change to fmc definitely change the overall approach to the event.

Marcin Zalewski has the 3 fastest 3bld singles
https://www.worldcubeassociation.or...gionId=&years=&show=100+Results&single=Single
Yet he's 5th in the world for mean...


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## EMI (Jan 27, 2014)

Tim Major said:


> I feel this change, and the change to fmc definitely change the overall approach to the event.



I don't think this really changes the approach of FMC. You still try to get as few moves as possible on every single try, the only difference is you don't want to get a DNF. But it really is not hard to not DNF an FMC attempt imo.


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## Robert-Y (Nov 4, 2014)

FM mo3 takes three hours which is a lot of time. I'm wondering if there's a way to determine the winner "sensibly" and save time. How likely is it to get two lucky FM solutions in a row? I haven't seen/heard of such a case before.

How about this format: Everyone does 2 solves and the winner is determined by finding the person with the best worst solve. I'm not sure if this has some name.

Example: Let's say these are the results for a final round of FMC:
1st: Shaniel Deppard: 28, 30
2nd: Yobert Rau: 29, 31
3rd: Mames Jolloy: 25, 40

In this case Shaniel is the winner, Yobert is second, Mames is third. Let's assume Mames got lucky with the 1st scramble. Even though she got a 25, it was not enough to let her rise above Shaniel and Yobert whose results are (arguably) more respectable, because of her worst solve. This seems sensible, right? In the case of a tie, I would suggest determining the winner by their best solve.

Currently I cannot see anything particularly wrong with this, but I haven't thought this through that much, admittedly.

Thoughts?


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## MTGjumper (Nov 4, 2014)

Robert-Y said:


> Let's assume Mames got lucky with the 1st scramble. Even though *she* got a 25, it was not enough to let *her* rise above ...



Haha, gave me a good chuckle.


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## kinch2002 (Nov 4, 2014)

Robert-Y said:


> FM mo3 takes three hours which is a lot of time. I'm wondering if there's a way to determine the winner "sensibly" and save time.


Have best of 1 in most comps. I really don't mind if some gets "lucky" at a UK comp and beats me. I suspect most other top solvers would feel the same.
Best of 3 in major champs.
I am totally cool with never having mean of 3 in UK comps.

Also, I'd like best of 3 to be a valid ranking format for competitions. You'd still get an official mean if you did all 3, but placings in that comp would be done by the best one. Then in non-major comps people don't HAVE to do all 3 to rank, but there is still an option for people to get a mean if they want.


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## porkynator (Nov 4, 2014)

Robert-Y said:


> How likely is it to get two lucky FM solutions in a row? I haven't seen/heard of such a case before.



Well, I have heard Vincent Sheu averages sup-30. So, yes, you can definitely get two lucky solves in a row.
The format you propose makes sense though.
But do we really want to avoid lucky winners at all costs? Luck is part of the game. Mo3 is a good format for the world ranking and an accurate way to measure your FMC level. If there isn't enough time for 3 FMC attempts, Bo1 or Bo2 is fine - if someone gets lucky, good for him!


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## okayama (Nov 5, 2014)

Robert-Y said:


> FM mo3 takes three hours which is a lot of time. I'm wondering if there's a way to determine the winner "sensibly" and save time. How likely is it to get two lucky FM solutions in a row? I haven't seen/heard of such a case before.
> 
> How about this format: Everyone does 2 solves and the winner is determined by finding the person with the best worst solve. I'm not sure if this has some name.
> 
> ...



Personally, I like this idea (the best worst solve).
That is related to "competitor's number", same meaning as God's number.
I once suggested awarding the competitor who gets the best worst solve here.

My another thought is here:
https://www.speedsolving.com/forum/...The-FMC-thread&p=916703&viewfull=1#post916703
This way (Best of 1 in the 1st round, and Best of 1 in the final) can be employed in the current WCA regulation.


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## guysensei1 (Nov 5, 2014)

So, just to clarify, the proposal here is, instead of 'best of N', we should have 'worst of N'?


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## Sebastien (Nov 5, 2014)

I find it very weird to have this thread revived at this point, while the addition of the Mean of 3 format for FMC has turned out to have worked out way better than the vast majority had expected.

Besides my feeling that the Mean of 3 has definitely created a lot of new FMC enthousiasm around the world, here are some convincing numbers:

Competitions hosting FMC in 2014: 145 of 384 = 37,8%
Competitions hosting FMC in 2011-2013: 332 of 966 = 34,4%

FMC formats used in 2014:


*Format**Usage*Best of 176 (51%)Best of 215 (10%)Mean of 358 (39%)

FMC formats used in 2011-2013:


*Format**Usage*Best of 1243 (73%)Best of 259 (18%)Best of 332 (9%)

The concern about an FMC mean taking 3 hours has been expressed ever since this proposal was made, however I haven't seen this being an issue in practise a single time during this year. It was no problem to fit in 3 FMC attempts in at Euros and apparently neither at US Nats. 

Further, I am still convinced that Mean of 3 is the best practical format for FMC. 

One thing that I have said many times, which is not a strong argument but still, is that I find it quite useless to create a new WCA format for FMC, while there is an existing one (Mean of 3) that works very well for the event.

But let me be more precise: "Worst of 2" is definitely not better in my opinion than "Best of 2". It might be true that "Worst of 2" prevents FMC noobs to win because of a lucky solution, but "Worst of 2" certainly raises the randomness among the top FMCers. Take the following example:

Shaniel Deppard, Yobert Rau and Mames Jolloy are all Top FMCers and as those most of their solutions end up with insertions. As top FMCers, their insertions are always optimal.

*Shaniel Deppard: *
1st attempt: L3C in 22, 3 moves cancel => 27
2nd attempt: L4C in 19, 4 moves cancel => 31
*Yobert Rau:*
1st attempt: L3C in 22, 2 moves cancel => 28
2nd attempt: L4C in 19, 5 moves cancel => 30
*Mames Jolloy:*
1st attempt: L3C in 22, 1 move cancels => 29
2nd attempt: L4C in 19, 6 moves cancel => 29

I don't see while Mames Jolloy should win this competition just because of random insertion luck, while all 3 FMCers are obviously on the same level.

Meanwhile, another benefit of "Mean of 3" is that it mostly cancels out the insertion luck (that I assume to be randomly distributed).




Robert-Y said:


> How likely is it to get two lucky FM solutions in a row? I haven't seen/heard of such a case before.



The two first solves of Vincent's tied WR average have been LL skips.


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## c4cuber (Nov 5, 2014)

kinch2002 said:


> Have best of 1 in most comps. I really don't mind if some gets "lucky" at a UK comp and beats me. I suspect most other top solvers would feel the same.
> Best of 3 in major champs.
> I am totally cool with never having mean of 3 in UK comps.
> 
> Also, I'd like best of 3 to be a valid ranking format for competitions. You'd still get an official mean if you did all 3, but placings in that comp would be done by the best one. Then in non-major comps people don't HAVE to do all 3 to rank, but there is still an option for people to get a mean if they want.



you may take the sum of the 2 attempts and whoever is the lowest, gets the first prize.


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## Ranzha (Nov 5, 2014)

Sebastien said:


> The two first solves of Vincent's tied WR average have been LL skips.



He worked for those LL skips, too.


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## irontwig (Nov 5, 2014)

Ranzha said:


> He worked for those LL skips, too.



Not trying to be funny or anything, but I'm not sure what that's even supposed to mean.


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## Randomno (Nov 5, 2014)

irontwig said:


> Not trying to be funny or anything, but I'm not sure what that's even supposed to mean.



He figured out a way to force a LL skip I guess...


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