# 4BLD and 5BLD mean of 3



## Sajwo (Oct 2, 2015)

When 4BLD and 5BLD mean of 3 will be officially ranked? Why it has not been done yet?


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## Goosly (Oct 2, 2015)

Because it's too difficult. Only 31 and 5 people got a mo3 in 4bld and 5bld, respectively.

You can find the unofficial ranking here.


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## Sajwo (Oct 2, 2015)

It should be officially ranked. They accomplished the hardest in speedcubing and they even can't call themselves world record holders. Yet 3BLD mean of 3 is officially ranked for some time. It just requires some changes in the page code.


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## not_kevin (Oct 2, 2015)

One major limitation for that is that many comps don't have the time for 3 attempts of the larger BLD events, particularly in the US, where the norm is having 1-day competitions. Because of that, it means that some regions simply never have many opportunities to even attempt the feat. 3BLD mo3 is something that many places have already done, because of the old precedent of preferring bo3 for the event; that's why adding 3BLD mo3 was a pretty straightforward idea.

I do agree, 'tho, that having the statistic be readily available is a great idea, and for sure, and Ollie and Cale should very proudly take their titles of WR holders in the mean


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## Goosly (Oct 2, 2015)

Sajwo said:


> It should be officially ranked.



Well, that's just your opinion. Actually I do have a mo3 in 4bld, but I don't care whether it's officially ranked or not.



not_kevin said:


> Because of that, it means that some regions simply never have many opportunities to even attempt the feat.



Because of the same reason, the same regions never have the opportunity to get a mo3 in FMC, which is officially ranked.


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## not_kevin (Oct 2, 2015)

Goosly said:


> Because of the same reason, the same regions never have the opportunity to get a mo3 in FMC, which is officially ranked.



That is an excellent point; I forgot about that  I'm too biased for FMC, I guess >.<


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## DGCubes (Oct 2, 2015)

I think that should be a thing. The people who have done it do deserve it.


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## Ollie (Oct 2, 2015)

As much as I'd love a free world record, I can't see this happening. Simply because people aren't interested, and because it would impact negatively on those in the 'all events club' that do not have a 4BLD or 5BLD mean.

That being said:

1. https://github.com/cubing/wca-regulations/issues/111 - all of the arguments that supported 3BLD means being recognised officially can be applied to 4BLD and 5BLD means. Points 1 and 2 are not as strong in this instance, but 4BLD and 5BLD scrambles are also influenced by luck.

2. It does not change the round format, nor does it affect competition resources as nearly as much as FMC Mo3s do. 



Lucas Garron said:


> For Rubik's Cube: Blindfolded "Best of 3" rounds, rankings and records of the mean will be recognized. This also applies to existing "Best of 3" results. (#111 / 5660ed5)
> 
> There is significant interest in recognizing these results. Since it does not change the round format, it does not require competitors to change their competition strategy for placing in competition.



and



> The "Best of 3" round format has been removed as an option for events that have a "Mean of 3" format. (#109 / 2685170)
> Both formats take roughly the same resources, so the preferred format should be used. Almost all competitions followed this in 2012 and 2013.



3. It is against the goal of the WCA. It is unfair on those individuals who worked hard to go beyond the call of duty in getting a single success in a competition are not recognized, in what are already very difficult events.

Just another two cents on top, I just think it's bizarre to think that Nevins Chan Pak Hoong should be placed in a small corner of the website for being the first person in the world to get a Mo3 in 5BLD, which is a monumental speedcubing accomplishment.


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## Kit Clement (Oct 2, 2015)

This might be something worth considering if 4BLD and 5BLD advance and become more competitive like 3BLD has. Granted, I'm not the best person to be stating an opinion on this, but it seems to me that the overall skill level of 3BLD competitors has pushed the records to the point where you absolutely need good scrambles to break records -- even the mean of 3 is starting to require a bit of scramble luck. I don't think this is anywhere close to being the case in 4BLD/5BLD yet. Given the lengthy nature of the event, I think there is more room to be able to practice and break records without necessarily getting the best scramble. Someone who is world class at 4BLD/5BLD can correct me if I'm wrong about this.

I think the arguments Ollie has about the all-events club and the overall difficult of the event are valid here too.


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## Ollie (Oct 2, 2015)

Kit Clement said:


> This might be something worth considering if 4BLD and 5BLD advance and become more competitive like 3BLD has. Granted, I'm not the best person to be stating an opinion on this, but it seems to me that the overall skill level of 3BLD competitors has pushed the records to the point where you absolutely need good scrambles to break records -- even the mean of 3 is starting to require a bit of scramble luck. I don't think this is anywhere close to being the case in 4BLD/5BLD yet. Given the lengthy nature of the event, I think there is more room to be able to practice and break records without necessarily getting the best scramble. Someone who is world class at 4BLD/5BLD can correct me if I'm wrong about this.
> 
> I think the arguments Ollie has about the all-events club and the overall difficult of the event are valid here too.



I think 4BLD is somewhat luck based now, while 5BLD still has a long way to go. The current 4BLD WR scramble had 22 wing targets in one cycle, with nice centers and no parity. I will struggle to beat it, and only a handful of 4BLDers have the potential to right now. In fact, I still think there are good cases for getting rid of 5BLD.

But there is no harm in recognising the previous achievements, while the events catch up to 3BLD in their competitiveness. It might even make it more competitive, as global accuracy becomes something extra to train for.


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## AlexMaass (Oct 2, 2015)

Ollie said:


> As much as I'd love a free world record, I can't see this happening. Simply because people aren't interested, and because it would impact negatively on those in the 'all events club' that do not have a 4BLD or 5BLD mean.


Jan Bentlage would be the only one in that club lol


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## Damien Porter (Oct 3, 2015)

I solidly think that 4bld and 5bld means should be recognized. It isn't going to change competition and we already have access to it on the WCA website.

I think the argument but I won't have completed everything is a bit flimsy. I mean tomorrow WCA might announce that the magic egg is now an official event and no-one would be part of that club.

I know this may be an unpopular opinion but I also think that Mbld should have a mean. Those more knowledgeable than me might correct but I don't believe that best of 3 is done for Mbld, but we could still do mean of 2. I know it is rare people get the opportunity to go for this and it would have to be a score like 8 points instead of 9/10 cubes, then an average of the times. But I think it would be an interesting stat to see that would reward consistency, even more than Mbld already does.

I may not be anywhere near it yet, but one day I would like to have singles and means in all 4 blind events, it would be nice to have them recognized.


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## hubingjushi (Oct 3, 2015)

If one result is too difficult or spending too much time; it(s' average) won't be ranked on WCA. 

Perhaps after 10 or 20 years big BLD is no longer a too difficult event for most cubers, then it dose


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## Roman (Oct 3, 2015)

Last time I voted against 3BLD Mo3 being official, but well, it happened.
I also voted for removing 5BLD from the list of official events because it's "side event of side event", and now the proposal to add an extra event...


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## mark49152 (Oct 3, 2015)

Damien Porter said:


> I know this may be an unpopular opinion but I also think that Mbld should have a mean.


Three hours per round?


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## Damien Porter (Oct 3, 2015)

mark49152 said:


> Three hours per round?



No definitely not (at least under normal conditions, i think it would be kinda cool to hold Mbld comps similar on concept to USA FMC, but that's another story). I mean when multiple attempts of Mbld are held, then even though the winner is the best single score, the mean is also put into the database. I don't think that we should make any changes to Mbld, just concider more stats official.


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## tseitsei (Oct 3, 2015)

I don't actually like this idea that much.

IMO it focuses too much on the accuracy and too little on speed. 5bld single is already on the edge with this "accuracy over speed" thing but it's still on the good side IMO. And it's constantly getting better as more people become better faster and more accurate on bigbld.

For 3bld mean it's still possible to get a mean even if you are trying to go fast since people can achieve over 80% accuracy even when going (almost) full speed. I doubt anyone can achieve close to 80% accuracy on 5bld if they are going anywhere near their normal speed. And I dont like that you need to choose if you try to get a decent single or if you try to get a mean just completed...

Mbld is good because you dont need a 100% accuracy to get a result. Mbld rewards both speed(you can try more cubes) and accuracy(more of those cubes will be correct). 

Also I strongly disagree with mbld mo3 for a few reasons. 
1. Single mbld will already last an hour and will be 15+ cubes for decent solvers. I think that is big enough sample size to show your skills quite well. After all in all other events we only solve 3 or 5 cubes. Here we solve many more.
2. Very many people (me included) that attempt large amount of cubes can only do 1 serious mbld attempt a day since their memory route is full and exhausted for the rest of the day. So only place this could be done reasonably is 3 day competitions and scheduling 1 attempt for each day. I think that's just too rare occurrance to be considered official


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## Ollie (Oct 3, 2015)

Roman said:


> Last time I voted against 3BLD Mo3 being official, but well, it happened.
> I also voted for removing 5BLD from the list of official events because it's "side event of side event", and now the proposal to add an extra event...



It's not an extra event. It's properly recognising achievements in the events we already have, and giving those people who aren't necessarily fast (but are accurate) something to aim for in competition.



tseitsei said:


> IMO it focuses too much on the accuracy and too little on speed. 5bld single is already on the edge with this "accuracy over speed" thing but it's still on the good side IMO. And it's constantly getting better as more people become better faster and more accurate on bigbld.
> 
> For 3bld mean it's still possible to get a mean even if you are trying to go fast since people can achieve over 80% accuracy even when going (almost) full speed. I doubt anyone can achieve close to 80% accuracy on 5bld if they are going anywhere near their normal speed. And I dont like that you need to choose if you try to get a decent single or if you try to get a mean just completed...



I don't see how this is any different for 4BLD or 5BLD. You can still choose to win the round or go for a record with a fast single. 

As for the accuracy argument, it is possible to go at a lower speed in big BLD and still achieve good accuracy and fast means, you just don't see it in the rankings because there is no incentive. It's not that people _can't_ do it.


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## mark49152 (Oct 3, 2015)

Damien Porter said:


> No definitely not (at least under normal conditions, i think it would be kinda cool to hold Mbld comps similar on concept to USA FMC, but that's another story). I mean when multiple rounds of Mbld are held, then even though the winner is the best single score, the mean is also put into the database. I don't think that we should make any changes to Mbld, just concider more stats official.


Taking a mean across attempts in different rounds is unprecedented for any WCA event AFAIK.


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## Damien Porter (Oct 3, 2015)

mark49152 said:


> Taking a mean across attempts in different rounds is unprecedented for any WCA event AFAIK.



I am sorry, I wrote the wrong thing. I mean when multiple attempts are held in the same competition that are all part of the same round.


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## Roman (Oct 3, 2015)

Ollie said:


> It's not an extra event. It's properly recognising achievements in the events we already have, and giving those people who aren't necessarily fast (but are accurate) something to aim for in competition.



See, that's why. One who can do fast singles can slow down just a little bit and easily do a fast Mo3, but should he? Basically the reason why I voted against 3BLD Mo3 is that person have to CHOOSE whether to rush the next attempt and possibly get a good single solve, or do a safe solve. This is such a difficult choice.

Sighed events and bigBLD have one difference - a fast BLD solve is not always a successful one. I appeal to everyone to keep this in mind before suggesting formats of those event types to be the same.


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## AlexMaass (Oct 3, 2015)

anyway, yeah BigBLD means shouldn't be officially, it'll make it super hard for people to be officially ranked in all event singles and averages. 

There is a ranking page for this, which I think is reasonable. https://www.worldcubeassociation.org/results/misc/missing_averages/


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## Damien Porter (Oct 3, 2015)

AlexMaass said:


> anyway, yeah BigBLD means shouldn't be officially, it'll make it super hard for people to be officially ranked in all event singles and averages.
> 
> There is a ranking page for this, which I think is reasonable. https://www.worldcubeassociation.org/results/misc/missing_averages/



This reason has come up multiple times but no body has given any reason that gives merit to it. We could always class these (as well as 3bld means) as "non competitive means" and then people can say they are officially ranked in every competitive singles and averages event.


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## Sajwo (Oct 3, 2015)

Roman said:


> Basically the reason why I voted against 3BLD Mo3 is that person have to CHOOSE whether to rush the next attempt and possibly get a good single solve, or do a safe solve.




I guess you have never heard before about Maskow


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## Roman (Oct 3, 2015)

Sajwo said:


> I guess you have never heard before about Maskow



Are you claiming then that he is both fast and accurate all the time? Sometimes he is, but most of the time he's not, which proves my point.
But of couse the argument that you have quoted is more applicable to blgBLD. For instance, the current 4BLD WR is so fast that it requires one-go memo without rehearsing. I don't know about other people, but for me - I absolutely can not guarantee that such a rush solve would be a successful one.


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## Ollie (Oct 3, 2015)

Roman said:


> Are you claiming then that he is both fast and accurate all the time? Sometimes he is, but most of the time he's not, which proves my point.
> But of couse the argument that you have quoted is more applicable to blgBLD. For instance, the current 4BLD WR is so fast that it requires one-go memo without rehearsing. I don't know about other people, but for me - I absolutely can not guarantee that such a rush solve would be a successful one.



Just because it's a difficult thing to achieve, it doesn't mean it shouldn't be recognised. If anything, they deserve as much recognition or more, because it's a hard accomplishment. Marcell Endrey overcame some pretty serious nerve issues at WC2013 to win all events and get the fastest 5BLD Mo3 at the time. 

And this kind of stress exists *in every event*. All of the best competitors in every event have had to deal with some of pressure where the first solves have been great and a lot rests on the outcome of the last solves. It's what makes them great.

I'm not exactly the best example of someone who controls their nerves in comps, but if I had a chance to break a Mo3 PB, then I would learn to. Right now, there is no incentive for me to be accurate three times.



AlexMaass said:


> anyway, yeah BigBLD means shouldn't be officially, it'll make it super hard for people to be officially ranked in all event singles and averages.
> 
> There is a ranking page for this, which I think is reasonable. https://www.worldcubeassociation.org/results/misc/missing_averages/



We're aware of the Missing Averages page. I'm saying it's not reasonable. There are some amazing achievements on that page, arguably some that were much harder to achieve than some 3BLD means, and the fact that they are not officially recognised is a bit insulting.


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## mark49152 (Oct 3, 2015)

Damien Porter said:


> I am sorry, I wrote the wrong thing. I mean when multiple attempts are held in the same competition that are all part of the same round.


That's why I asked if you were suggesting three-hour MBLD rounds. Or are you suggesting that means should only be possible for smaller attempts such that you can fit all three attempts into one hour?


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## Ollie (Oct 3, 2015)

1973486 said:


> https://www.speedsolving.com/wiki/index.php/List_of_Unofficial_World_Records#Unofficial_events
> 
> There's some pretty impressive stuff here, should those events also be added?



You've missed the whole point. The key word there is _unofficial_. I am not arguing for a new event, nor am I arguing that they should be added because they are impressive.

I am arguing for recognition of an average that already exists within an official event (hence the _missing_ averages page). My view is that all of the same arguments that helped to get 3BLD means recognised as being official (which used to be a part of that missing averages page) also apply to 4BLD and 5BLD as well. And that not recognising these is unfair on those who take part in 4BLD and 5BLD and have gone the extra mile to be accurate.


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## MatsBergsten (Oct 3, 2015)

Ollie said:


> In fact, I still think there are good cases for getting rid of 5BLD.



But why are you arguing for getting rid of 5BLD? Or rather, what are your arguments?


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## Ollie (Oct 3, 2015)

MatsBergsten said:


> But why are you arguing for getting rid of 5BLD? Or rather, what are your arguments?



A lot of my arguments are similar to Daniel's from this thread.

But it does not mean that big BLD Mo3s cannot be recognised officially. For example, old style MBLD is still recognised as an official world record, even though it is not an official event anymore.


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## 1973486 (Oct 3, 2015)

Ollie said:


> You've missed the whole point. The key word there is _unofficial_. I am not arguing for a new event, nor am I arguing that they should be added because they are impressive.



Depends on how "event" is used. In this sense, it is a new event.



> And that not recognising these is unfair on those who take part in 4BLD and 5BLD and have gone the extra mile to be accurate.



This still seems to me like adding it because it's impressive.


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## Damien Porter (Oct 4, 2015)

mark49152 said:


> That's why I asked if you were suggesting three-hour MBLD rounds. Or are you suggesting that means should only be possible for smaller attempts such that you can fit all three attempts into one hour?



No not at all, some competitions (not many bit some) allow competitors to have multiple attempts at Mbld. For these competitions and only these completions will an official mean be recorded, though in no way effect the results of the competition.

PS
You do raise an interesting thought about weather a competitor should be able to have multiple attempts at Mbld, if they can do them all within the hour. Whilst I do see some definite downsides to this, I think it is at least worth pursuing as an option.


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## Ollie (Oct 4, 2015)

1973486 said:


> Depends on how "event" is used. In this sense, it is a new event.



I'm obviously not using the word event in that sense. In that sense, 2x2x2 single is an event. To say that it is a 'new event' is silly because competition resources, competitor tactics and and round formats do not change with the addition of a recognised mean. 

Changing the definition of 'event' doesn't mean anything.



1973486 said:


> This still seems to me like adding it because it's impressive.



My main point was the "unfair on those who take part in 4BLD and 5BLD" part, since those who compete in these events get less official recognition than those who compete in 3BLD, purely because of their event choice.


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## Sajwo (Oct 4, 2015)

If 4BLD and 5BLD mean of 3 will not be recognised then I demand removing 3BLD mean of 3 as well.


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## Ollie (Oct 4, 2015)

1973486 said:


> Right now it's unfair on 3% of people who have done 5BLD. I feel like you're only thinking about the way it would affect fast big BLD solvers.



I'm thinking about the 36 people it affects who miss out on a good world ranking, or an NR, or a CR, or a WR, because of some technicality which shouldn't exist.

Edit: compared to the 15 people in the 'all official averages' club that would be affected

Edit 2: no idea that it had changed that much, it's actually 46 in total, and 45 affected. My mistake!


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