# 1 Hour FMC is a Luck Based Event



## ErikJ (Feb 3, 2012)

getting lucky isn't a crime but no event should reward luck as much as FMC does. 






reading this might be faster than watching the video - 
the main issue is that the rankings section the of WCA website should represent the skill of each competitor. solvers with more skill should win against those with less skill and should also get a higher rank. if this is true, then the podium results in competition should be correct. we can see the disadvantage of using single solves to determine skill just by comparing the single and average ranks of any cube, except maybe 2x2, and judging what each solver typically averages by looking at their history. if we look at the FMC ranks, and each solvers history, it becomes obvious that a lot of the people ranked near or at the top aren't necessarily better than those ranked bellow them. so if the big leader board is not correct then the podium results in competition cannot be correct. 

an easy way to fix the issue is to give each solver 2-3 scrambles and have them do multiple solutions in one hour. that way, not only do they have to rely on their skill and knowledge of the cube more than luck, but we can also take an average of 2 or a mean of 3. I'm going to email Per and see if he can make a section for this format in his weekly FMC. I think that would be a great place to test it out.


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## kinch2002 (Feb 3, 2012)

Sure, there's luck involved. Sometimes more than some people like. But no feasible solution has been found. As for your suggestion, although it still only takes an hour, I'm not convinced the luck will be reduced. A good solution for me usually uses almost the entire hour, and that's not because I'm slow. I'm not bad at FMC either. If I were given 20 minutes, I'd probably be better off just building a couple of blocks and then spamming hundreds of ways of finishing F2L until I find a nice OLL/PLL skip. In which case, luck comes into it more. At least if there's an hour I can go through most/all of the 'advanced' techniques I know which should give me the edge over 'lucky noobs'. If you really want to know who's the best at FMC, just look at profiles and see all their results.


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## ErikJ (Feb 3, 2012)

kinch2002 said:


> spamming hundreds of ways of finishing F2L until I find a nice OLL/PLL skip.


 
this is MUCH easier to pull off right now with the one hour format and all you have to find is one, not 3.

everyones results will change. I probably wont average 30-35 with 20 minutes per cube. all of the numbers for everyone will change and will show there actual skill at fewest move solving.


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## JasonK (Feb 3, 2012)

You say that the WCA rankings show that the higher people are _better_ at the event than lower people. I'm pretty sure that the only thing the rankings can (and are meant to) show is that the higher people have had *better results in competition* than the lower people. I don't disagree that FMC is more dependent on luck than other events, but I don't think that "the WCA rankings don't reflect who's best at the event" is really a good argument. I mean, we already basically ignore the rankings for 2x2 single, why can't it be the same for FMC?


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## Tim Major (Feb 3, 2012)

I agree, but only because OcR is PLL skip and my 2nd place was full step 

I would actually prefer linear FMC, 3 solves, middle solve counting.

I mean look at Okayama, consistent sub 30, but not WR because his solves in competition haven't had great luck.


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## Cubenovice (Feb 3, 2012)

So Sebastien with more sub 30 HTM solves than any other competitor is just a lucky guy?

I don't particulary like the fact that the FMC WR solves were done by "non-experts" but that is just the way the dice rolls...

If you want to know who's good at FMC you just need to look past the WR's.
Deal with it


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## Tim Major (Feb 3, 2012)

WTF2L? said:


> I mean, we already basically ignore the rankings for 2x2 single, why can't it be the same for FMC?


  
Mind clarifying? Ignoring FMC single means ignoring the event, as there is no average.


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## masterofthebass (Feb 3, 2012)

Yes, the very best solves are pretty lucky, but overall, the people who win FMC at competitions are people who are really good at FMC. Look at http://worldcubeassociation.org/res...gionId=&years=&show=100+Results&single=Single . There's a pattern of people who consistently get good solves. Just because you can get mediocre solves relatively fast doesn't mean we should change the event.


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## kinch2002 (Feb 3, 2012)

ErikJ said:


> this is MUCH easier to pull off right now with the one hour format and all you have to find is one, not 3. everyones results will change. I probably wont average 30-35 with 20 minutes per cube. all of the numbers for everyone will change and will show there actual skill at fewest move solving.


I'm saying that I think it's easier to find a decent non-skilled solution in 20 minutes than a decent skilled one. So luck is MORE prevalent when time is reduced.



Cubenovice said:


> So Sebastien with more sub 30 HTM solves than any other competitor is just a lucky guy?


He is obviously one of the best, but remember he does compete much more than any other FMC 'expert'  Going slightly off-topic, to get a good idea of who's good, I would suggest looking at the median result over a suitable time period (rather than mean, so that DNFs can be accounted for). Sebastien's median for 2011 was 34 with 6/26=23% attempts sub-30. I wonder who has the best median for the year? Btw my median was 33, with 2/7=29% sub-30[/QUOTE]


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## ErikJ (Feb 3, 2012)

masterofthebass said:


> Yes, the very best solves are pretty lucky, but overall, the people who win FMC at competitions are people who are really good at FMC. Look at http://worldcubeassociation.org/res...gionId=&years=&show=100+Results&single=Single . There's a pattern of people who consistently get good solves. Just because you can get mediocre solves relatively fast doesn't mean we should change the event.



yes but there are so many people who shouldn't be ranked up so high. look at the results from 09 nationals http://www.worldcubeassociation.org/results/c.php?i=USNationals2009&allResults=1#333fm

both 27s were PLL skips by mediocre FMCers and bambozzled you and I out of the podium. another example is from armonk where bob beat my 39 with a 36 because he had the 6 move OLL and a PLL skip. since those results place him at the top of that competition then that means he was the best FMCer there which certainly isn't true. 

doing FMC as a single attempted makes as much sense as doing 3x3 as a single solve instead of an average.


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## kinch2002 (Feb 3, 2012)

ErikJ said:


> yes but there are so many people who shouldn't be ranked up so high. look at the results from 09 nationals http://www.worldcubeassociation.org/results/c.php?i=USNationals2009&allResults=1#333fm
> 
> both 27s were PLL skips by mediocre FMCers and bambozzled you and I out of the podium. another example is from armonk where bob beat my 39 with a 36 because he had the 6 move OLL and a PLL skip. since those results place him at the top of that competition then that means he was the best FMCer there.
> 
> doing FMC as a single attempted makes as much sense as doing 3x3 as a single solve instead of an average.


Competition results don't have to reflect who's the best there. Otherwise there wouldn't be much point in having a competition - just decide who's the best without turning up


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## JasonK (Feb 3, 2012)

Tim Major said:


> Mind clarifying? Ignoring FMC single means ignoring the event, as there is no average.


 
Maybe that wasn't the best comparison ever, but what I meant was that since the world rankings don't show who's actually best at the event, we should know not to take them quite as seriously as we do with other events. We know who the good FMCers are by their results in other places, the rankings don't have to be the final word on who's the best.

I think the biggest problem is that you can't properly compare FMC results that were set with different scrambles. In general, the good FMCers tend to win the event in competitions because they are competing on an even playing field with everyone else. Unfortunately this isn't the case when comparing results between competitions, so the overall rankings can get a bit screwed up.

EDIT:
[quote="ErikJ] since those results place him at the top of that competition then that means he was the best FMCer there which certainly isn't true.[/quote]
No it doesn't. It just mean that he found the shortest solution to the given scramble on that day. Winner doesn't always have to equal best.


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## cityzach (Feb 3, 2012)

Even though i'm not an FMC-er myself, I agree with what you're saying. If you look at Tim Reynolds for example, his results are all very consistent, with only 1 DNF. Jimmy Coll and Istvan Kocza probably aren't the best FMC-ers in the world.


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## ErikJ (Feb 3, 2012)

kinch2002 said:


> Competition results don't have to reflect who's the best there. Otherwise there wouldn't be much point in having a competition - just decide who's the best without turning up


 
the point of competing is to compete and reward the people who are the best. not to roll dice and flip coins.


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## kinch2002 (Feb 3, 2012)

ErikJ said:


> the point of competing is to compete. not to roll dice and flip coins.


Your first sentence doesn't really make sense. Anyway, so poker is a stupid game/sport because there is some luck involved?


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## Jaycee (Feb 3, 2012)

ErikJ said:


> the point of competing is to compete. not to roll dice and flip coins.


 
It's my understanding the many people don't go to competitions to win. If everyone did, there wouldn't be nearly as many people at competitions.


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## ErikJ (Feb 4, 2012)

kinch2002 said:


> Your first sentence doesn't really make sense. Anyway, so poker is a stupid game/sport because there is some luck involved?


 
I was saying that it's called a competition because people compete there. a competition is about rewarding the skilled solvers and not the luckiest. poker takes skill in the sense that you have to read people based on there faces and what they are betting. but that's a different conversation.



Jaycee said:


> It's my understanding the many people don't go to competitions to win. If everyone did, there wouldn't be nearly as many people at competitions.


 
it doesn't matter why people go. a competition based on luck is more fun for the less skilled because they have a shot at winning but if they don't care about winning then why should we have events that cater to them?


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## kinch2002 (Feb 4, 2012)

ErikJ said:


> I was saying that it's called a competition because people compete there. a competition is about rewarding the skilled solvers and not the luckiest. poker takes skill in the sense that you have to read people based on there faces and what they are betting. but that's a different conversation.


Yes of course poker takes skill, just like FMC does. Just because there's a mix of skill and luck doesn't mean it has to be changed


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## Lucas Garron (Feb 4, 2012)

[Disclaimer: I haven't watched your video. If you have a good argument, you should be able to put it down in (concise) words instead of making me listen to 12 minutes of questionably planned oration. I'm going to go off the written text in this thread instead]

This has been discussed before. What I got out of those discussions was that making competitors do *more* solves in an hour only forces a good FMC expert to spread out her/his effort too much, while not really reducing the potential for luck to determine the result. It's no longer about finding a good solution, but gaming the scrambles to find the best way to spend your time on them.

Also, requiring more solves to be written down (e.g. all 3 for mean of 3) is a lot of pressure, and more room for accident. If not all the scrambles need to be solved (e.g. median, average of best 2, etc.), it's back to luck on which scrambles the competitor chose to focus on.

While it's not perfect, I think that 1 scramble at a time is best. 1 hour is the most reasonable compromise for organizers and competitors (and very few FMC solvers would truly benefit from more than an hour except as a way to keep trying to "more of the same" or get lucky).

Luck is certainly somewhat of a problem. (Last week at Berkeley Winter, I think I put in some decent effort to find two solutions that ended up 33 and 35 moves, but I placed third because Vincent and Steven got more lucky on the second scramble. While I don't claim to be particularly good or to have deserved a better ranking, the result did seem up to luck much more than skill, and I think it would be great if is wasn't.)
I'd love to hear from any experienced FMC solvers about this. Maybe we can come to consensus on a new approach (preferably compatible with old results) that we agree is more fair to experienced solvers rather than those who get lucky.


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## kinch2002 (Feb 4, 2012)

Lucas Garron said:


> I'd love to hear from any experienced FMC solvers about this. Maybe we can come to consensus on a new approach (preferably compatible with old results) that we agree is more fair to experienced solvers rather than those who get lucky.


Cubenovice and I have already commented. I pretty much agree with everything you said, and also tried explaining how more solves in an hour doesn't make it better. Afaik expert FMCers know and also accept that they can't win every comp. Personally I'm not too bothered if a lucky solution beats me every now and then - just comes with the event. The only place I sense something should be done is the major champs. This has been discussed before and it was suggested that best of 2 or 3 should be done if at all possible.


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## masterofthebass (Feb 4, 2012)

ErikJ said:


> both 27s were PLL skips by mediocre FMCers and bambozzled you and I out of the podium. another example is from armonk where bob beat my 39 with a 36 because he had the 6 move OLL and a PLL skip. since those results place him at the top of that competition then that means he was the best FMCer there which certainly isn't true.


 
First of all, if you think I am a better FMCer than David Woner and that he is "mediocre", you are sadly mistaken. You have seemed to overlook his 27 at USNats 2010 as well. 

Second, perhaps if you went to more competitions with FMC, you'd have a higher chance at not getting undercut by 1 or 2 lucky solves. Look at the Worlds 2011 podium. The people in the top 5 are people who are genuinely good at FMC. You just seem to have gotten a little but unlucky with some people beating you, but a 39 solve is really nothing to be proud of when you compare it to people like Sebastian who are consistently sub 30.


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## ErikJ (Feb 4, 2012)

masterofthebass said:


> but a 39 solve is really nothing to be proud of when you compare it to people like Sebastian who are consistently sub 30.


 
was sebastian sub 30 was 4 years ago? that's when I got the 39 hahaha



Lucas Garron said:


> This has been discussed before. What I got out of those discussions was that making competitors do *more* solves in an hour only forces a good FMC expert to spread out her/his effort too much, while not really reducing the potential for luck to determine the result. It's no longer about finding a good solution, but gaming the scrambles to find the best way to spend your time on them.
> 
> Also, requiring more solves to be written down (e.g. all 3 for mean of 3) is a lot of pressure, and more room for accident. If not all the scrambles need to be solved (e.g. median, average of best 2, etc.), it's back to luck on which scrambles the competitor chose to focus on.


 
I'm not saying that it has to be a mean of 3. it could be average of 2. even keeping it one solve but lowering the time limit to 30 minutes might reduce luck. I really don't know what's best for the event. but one solve per hour really is not a good way of doing it. Let's just try some different things and see if we can make it better.


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## masterofthebass (Feb 4, 2012)

ErikJ said:


> was sebastian sub 30 was 4 years ago? that's when I got the 39 hahaha



39 wasn't in the top 100 solves in at the end of 08. You still had people like Guus and Gzregorz and Mirek and Zbigniew getting solves ~31 "consistently". There's no reason to be so upset because Bob got 1 lucky solve and beat you with it.


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## Tim Reynolds (Feb 4, 2012)

Strongly disagree.

Comments: You're putting too much faith in the 3x3 average rankings. Getting two PLL skips in an average is not unreasonable; I am sure there are people whose best average was extremely lucky and thus are not a correct indication of skill. The same is true in the other direction; there are certainly people who have not gotten good averages because of the particular format we use, and thus are ranked worse than they actually are. If you think we should look for a better system for the WCA rankings besides just taking each person's best time, I agree, but I haven't seen any good systems yet. What happens when someone gets lucky twice in one competition? Then they're "the best in the world", and nothing is fixed. In other events where single solves can be affected greatly by luck, the average rankings still aren't foolproof. Just ask Dan about the 2x2 average rankings.

Individual competitions don't need to replicate the WCA rankings. Just because someone beat you at a competition doesn't mean they're better than you; conversely, just because you came in last at Cornell Spring 2008 with a DNF doesn't mean you were the worst person there.

DNF average-of-2s are going to be very common, and people who are good at FMC are going to get them. This will show them as the "worst" people there, while people who do two CFOP solves will beat them by not DNFing.

I've got more to say, but I'll leave it at that for now.


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## irontwig (Feb 4, 2012)

I think 1 hour is a pretty good balance between being long enough for "advanced" techniques and not being screwed if you made a bad choice at the start (like linear solving) and short enough to not allow for too much just fudging around hoping to get lucky (like one week/unlimited time solves).


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## clement (Feb 4, 2012)

Go to France
http://worldcubeassociation.org/res...Results&competitionId=PuydeDomeOpen2011#333fm
http://worldcubeassociation.org/res...etitionId=ClermontOpen2009&allResults=1#333fm


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## Gaétan Guimond (Feb 4, 2012)

The 2x2 is the best example of that skill and knowledge isn't the speed record. It makes him look bad the rules of the competition and gives a controversy in the way it sets the rules for a record. It feels like cheating when a competitor at the chance to resolve it with half the average number of movement to solve a 2x2 (fmc).

Already no human has yet proven to be able to find the fewest move on each of scramble of 2x2. Its says it all!.

GG


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## ErikJ (Feb 4, 2012)

clement said:


> Go to France
> http://worldcubeassociation.org/res...Results&competitionId=PuydeDomeOpen2011#333fm
> http://worldcubeassociation.org/res...etitionId=ClermontOpen2009&allResults=1#333fm


 
look at the history of both people who took first place. I don't know how good that actually are but from their previous results it looks like they got lucky and had better results than the solvers bellow them. there are some very skilled fmcers in those results but they got out lucked. 

the issue with fmc is that getting lucky helps you too much. let's talk about PLL skips: let's say that dan and rowe are both having great days. rowe gets five 8.00 second solves. dan gets three 9.00 second solves and two PLL skips which were 7.00. rowe's average would be 8 seconds and dan's average would be 8.33. getting two PLL skips is very lucky but it only improved his average by about 9%. 

now lets say someone tends to be around 40 moves in FMC. all they have to do is get one PLL skip and their solve will be reduced down by at least 10 moves. just by getting lucky once, their result is improved by 25%. 

this is a classic case of a small skill gap. a skill gap is just the distance in results between noobs and pros. 3x3 has a rather large skill gap which is why there is a huge range of times. but FMC only tends to range from 25-60 moves and when you factor in how much getting lucky can help, the skill gap becomes almost non existent. 

you have to admit that FMC is the worst event when it comes to being rewarded for getting lucky. even worse than 2x2 because at least 2x2 has an average. I don't see any harm in trying a few different formats online.


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## ThomasJE (Feb 4, 2012)

I like your idea of three scrambles in an hour, but I think it should only be two. The world record is 22 twice, and most winning sequences are around 25-35. It could be quite clear that the 22's was a bit lucky. Because of there being two scrambles, lucky solutions are filtered out a bit. Here's an example:

Person A: 1st solution = 21 moves | 2nd solution = 35 moves | Mean of 2 = 28 moves
Person B: 1st solution = 26 moves | 2nd solution = 28 moves | Mean of 2 = 27 moves

Person A gets a new single WR for solve 1, and messes up the 2nd.
Person B is much more consistent, and has a better mean.

This way, it favours consistant people, it filters out lucky solutions more, time management is a bigger factor and it becomes less than a 2x2 single - if the solution is short, then you get a very good time.



Tim Reynolds said:


> DNF average-of-2s are going to be very common, and people who are good at FMC are going to get them. This will show them as the "worst" people there, while people who do two CFOP solves will beat them by not DNFing.



I have a way of getting around that a little, but not totally. The order of results could be as follows:
1) Mean of 2 (lower is better)
2) If only one solve is completed, then the one solve decides the order (lower is better)

Here's an example:
Person A: 1st solution = DNF | 2nd solution = 21 moves | Mean of 2 = DNF (21 single)
Person B: 1st solution = 26 moves | 2nd solution = 28 moves | Mean of 2 = 27 moves
Person C: 1st solution = 29 moves | 2nd solution = DNF | Mean of 2 = DNF (29 single)
Person D: 1st solution = 24 moves | 2nd solution = 29 moves | Mean of 2 = 26.5 moves

So the order would be this:
Person D
Person B
Person A
Person C

To avoid the DNF, you could just write a 40 move solution for both in 10 mins, so you don't DNF, then you can get the moves down. I don't FMC, but that's just an idea.


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## bamilan (Feb 4, 2012)

Basically your method is a mean of 2.


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## aronpm (Feb 5, 2012)

ThomasJE said:


> I don't FMC, but that's just an idea.


 
This basically undermines everything that you just said, because you clearly don't understand it.


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## Pyjam (Feb 5, 2012)

ErikJ said:


> now lets say someone tends to be around 40 moves in FMC. all they have to do is get one PLL skip and their solve will be reduced down by at least 10 moves. just by getting lucky once, their result is improved by 25%.


Even if you get PLL-skip every time, Tomoaki Okayama will beat you every time.
There's no place for a PLL in a good FMC solution.


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## Escher (Feb 5, 2012)

I'm sorry but why is this even a question?

Is cubing really that young that we still moan about 'luck'? 

It's an almost inescapable fact that if we have systems to interpret cube data then some situations within that system will be easier than others. It's up to the individual to maximise the number of 'cases' they know for a system, or the number of systems they know. Deriding the ranking system because it does not 'reflect the best' is ridiculous in a game like this, with the limitations we have in testing ability.

I think it would be nice to develop a weighted ranking system or point-scoring system based on a) ranking achievements and b) consistency, but imo in order to support that in a way that would be useful we would need a much larger competitor pool (i.e. it should be common for small countries to have >12 competitions per year).


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## irontwig (Feb 8, 2012)

Have heard anything from Fredlund? If not you can just try to make a competition thread, I for one is a interested in trying two scrambles in one hour.


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## MaeLSTRoM (Feb 8, 2012)

ThomasJE said:


> ...if the solution is short, then you get a very good time...


 
The people who are good at FMC spend a long time trying to get a short solution, hence why the hour is needed.
More time = More thinkting about insertions/cancellations = better solve.


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