# Should 4BLD and 5BLD means be recognized officially?



## CarterK (Dec 11, 2017)

This more than likely won't change anything, but I was mainly curious to what most people think about this.


----------



## Mike Hughey (Dec 11, 2017)

I don't understand the reason why these are treated differently from 3BLD. I see no logical justification for the difference.


----------



## JustinTimeCuber (Dec 11, 2017)

y e s, o f c o u r s e


----------



## Underwatercuber (Dec 11, 2017)

I don't get why they aren't means in the first place


----------



## Sue Doenim (Dec 11, 2017)

What about MBLD means?


----------



## Underwatercuber (Dec 11, 2017)

Sue Doenim said:


> What about MBLD means?


The problem with that is multibld takes an hour and usually there isn't 3 multibld attempts at a competition. 4Bld and 5Bld however usually are usually best of 3 format which means that by adding means for it almost nothing at competitions would change.


----------



## Sue Doenim (Dec 11, 2017)

I think it'd have to work similarly to FMC means. Those don't have to be all from the same competition, do they?


----------



## T1_M0 (Dec 11, 2017)

Sue Doenim said:


> I think it'd have to work similarly to FMC means. Those don't have to be all from the same competition, do they?


umm???


----------



## Sue Doenim (Dec 11, 2017)

T1_M0 said:


> umm???


Sorry, yeah, I guess I should have maybe checked that. You really only get them at FMC specialized competitions though, so MBLD means would be similar, only gettable at BLD specific competitions.


----------



## T1_M0 (Dec 11, 2017)

Sue Doenim said:


> Sorry, yeah, I guess I should have maybe checked that. You really only get them at FMC specialized competitions though, so MBLD means would be similar, only gettable at BLD specific competitions.


Lol I've been to 6 comps and 5 of them had fmc means.


----------



## T1_M0 (Dec 11, 2017)

No, that would ruin the all wca events completion club.

It doesn't work, too small success rate, the nature of the events would change completely.


----------



## Keroma12 (Dec 11, 2017)

T1_M0 said:


> No, that would ruin the all wca events completion club.
> 
> It doesn't work, too small success rate, the nature of the events would change completely.



Making it harder to get into the all wca events completion club is not necessarily a bad thing; you could argue both ways.

What do you mean by it doesn't work?

You could argue that such a small success rate is all the more reason to officially recognize those who can get a mean.
I'm not sure the nature of the event would change much. Competition ranking would still be by single, not mean. I suspect most people wouldn't even try to get a mean; it would just be a small number of people who might go a bit safer to try and get one.


----------



## Cale S (Dec 11, 2017)

Underwatercuber said:


> The problem with that is multibld takes an hour and usually there isn't 3 multibld attempts at a competition. 4Bld and 5Bld however usually are usually best of 3 format which means that by adding means for it almost nothing at competitions would change.



also MBLD scores are combinations of points and time, taking a mean isn't very accurate


----------



## abunickabhi (Jan 29, 2018)

I think it is just too hard to get a good pool of competitors who have a mean, since the event is hard itself.

So it is meaningless to have a ranking for it, and it will be not worthwhile to do analysis on the data, as many good solvers might not have a mean.


----------



## mark49152 (Jan 29, 2018)

I guess I don't really understand why they are treated differently to 3BLD means, as aside from the rarity, the same arguments apply to both.

Personally I find it a little frustrating when starting the third 3BLD attempt after two successes, because there is a temptation to go safe and get a mean rather than go all-out to get the best single. That seems a conflict of interest and distracts from the spirit of the competition which of course should be to go for the best result.


----------



## Ollie (Jan 29, 2018)

Mike Hughey said:


> I don't understand the reason why these are treated differently from 3BLD. I see no logical justification for the difference.





mark49152 said:


> I guess I don't really understand why they are treated differently to 3BLD means, as aside from the rarity, the same arguments apply to both.
> 
> Personally I find it a little frustrating when starting the third 3BLD attempt after two successes, because there is a temptation to go safe and get a mean rather than go all-out to get the best single. That seems a conflict of interest and distracts from the spirit of the competition which of course should be to go for the best result.



I'm biased since I stand to gain a world record if they were made official, but there honestly isn't any reasonable justification. In my cynical opinion, it's because the vast majority of delegates are all-rounders and would lose their platinum/gold club memberships and it would be too much effort to get it back.


----------



## mark49152 (Jan 29, 2018)

Ollie said:


> I'm biased since I stand to gain a world record if they were made official, but there honestly isn't any reasonable justification. In my cynical opinion, it's because the vast majority of delegates are all-rounders and would lose their platinum/gold club memberships and it would be too much effort to get it back.


I'm not sure which way you're arguing. But anyway, I don't really see the point in any ranking being "official" unless it meets some WCA competitive purpose. Unofficial rankings already exist for big BLD means and people can care about it as much as they want to (like Kinchranks). What would be the purpose of making that ranking WCA "official"? For most events, competitions are decided on average, so that is ranked, and single should be ranked because that's what many see as the primary record in an event. But although BLD means are notable achievements, competitively they are nothing more than by-products of the format. The fact that the OP included 2-means in the poll shows how contrived it is .


----------



## Ollie (Jan 29, 2018)

mark49152 said:


> I'm not sure which way you're arguing. But anyway, I don't really see the point in any ranking being "official" unless it meets some WCA competitive purpose. Unofficial rankings already exist for big BLD means and people can care about it as much as they want to (like Kinchranks). What would be the purpose of making that ranking WCA "official"? For most events, competitions are decided on average, so that is ranked, and single should be ranked because that's what many see as the primary record in an event. But although BLD means are notable achievements, competitively they are nothing more than by-products of the format. The fact that the OP included 2-means in the poll shows how contrived it is .



Ah, you're right, I was a bit ambiguous. I'm arguing for 4BLD and 5BLD means being official mainly because:

The vast majority of arguments for making 3BLD means officially recognised apply directly to 4BLD and 5BLD as well.
Making them official does not change the strategy of a competitor (as fastest single will win in competition)
It does not take extra competition resources away since the format is already Bo3 (compared to multi where 3 attempts are really rare and FMC where Bo3s were more frequent, but still rare)
No difficult changes would be required to update the database or the website.


----------



## Ollie (Jan 29, 2018)

I should get all my ducks in a line one day and prepare a proper argument (GitHub style like Noah Arthurs did for 3BLD means) and challenge people to actually come up with legitimate reasons for not including official 4BLD and 5BLD means. I fear it will be mostly to do with it not being fair to 'all-events-club' members, although I don't remember that being an argument when FMC Mo3s were official.


----------



## mark49152 (Jan 29, 2018)

Ollie said:


> Making them official does not change the strategy of a competitor (as fastest single will win in competition)




That's the only point I disagree with, for the reason I gave a couple of posts back. I can't think of any other event where a competitor sitting down to solve is faced with a decision whether to prioritise single over mean/average or vice versa. In most cases, the best strategy is to solve as fast as possible, but that's not the case for 3BLD means where competitors are incentivised to go safe if they already have a good enough single to make the next round, for example.

People can of course pursue whatever goals they want even if not aligned with winning strategy, for example success streaks or fastest 2/2 multi, but in most other cases that's unofficial and not incentivised by an official ranking.

Just to be clear, I'm not arguing against big blind means being official. I'm expressing the opinion that no BLD means should be official and 3BLD mean should never have been made official. But that's academic and since 3BLD is already official, I see no justification for 4&5BLD being treated differently.


----------



## porkynator (Jan 29, 2018)

I agree that they should be official.

I see Mark's point, but I don't think it is such a bad thing. True, sometimes you have to sacrifice either a good mean (for a chance of getting a faster single/winning) or, vice versa, a good single. But, on the other hand, you can choose what strategy to apply and which of the two goals to pursue - that's better than having only one goal! Moreover, this gives room to new strategies. For example, you may approach your last solve like this: start memorizing fast, so that you don't give up the chance of a good single; but then, if the scramble turns out to be hard, review your memo and do it safer.

I don't think the "all-event-club" should prevent us from changing the format. That's an unofficial thing, even more unofficial than BigBLD means - at least they have a spot in WCA's website. If those people who have completed all events want to keep their title, they should just practice and get a mean 

One last point. More than "not changing the game", I would argue that introducing BigBLD means can be good for us, for the simple reason that they would incentivize organizers to hold BigBLD in the Bo3 format (with cumulative cutoffs), instead of Bo2. This means more attempts, provided that you are fast enough.


----------



## mark49152 (Jan 29, 2018)

Has anyone got a link to Noah's argument for 3BLD means, mentioned by Ollie?


----------



## Mike Hughey (Jan 29, 2018)

mark49152 said:


> Has anyone got a link to Noah's argument for 3BLD means, mentioned by Ollie?


https://www.speedsolving.com/forum/...bld-mo3s-be-ranked-read-the-first-post.39272/

By the way, I think your argument that 3BLD means shouldn't exist is a potentially valid one. My only real argument on this is that if 3BLD means are official, I don't think there is a valid reason for not also including official 4BLD and 5BLD means. Either all 3 should exist, or none should.


----------



## Roman (Jan 29, 2018)

After mo3s will be introduced, I can predict people complaining about MBLD being the only event without mean or average. "Why should it be treated differently than the other 17 events?"; "let's come up with a method of measuring the points/time average".
I was always inclined towards REDUCING the number of events or recognized records on the WCA. The less events there are, the more valu.


----------



## abunickabhi (Feb 5, 2018)

mark49152 said:


> I guess I don't really understand why they are treated differently to 3BLD means, as aside from the rarity, the same arguments apply to both.
> 
> Personally I find it a little frustrating when starting the third 3BLD attempt after two successes, because there is a temptation to go safe and get a mean rather than go all-out to get the best single. That seems a conflict of interest and distracts from the spirit of the competition which of course should be to go for the best result.



Yes , to solve this problem and have the spirit of competition, the 3BLD event can be made average of 5, which will give one solve to go all out for a good single, while still getting the mean, as a DNF will be allowed in the Average of 5 format.

For 4bld and 5bld, the pool for the people who will have mean is just too less. And there is already an event called MBLD which measures the precision of blindsolving, we don't need another format (bigBLD mo3) to test this precision.


----------



## abunickabhi (Feb 5, 2018)

Roman said:


> After mo3s will be introduced, I can predict people complaining about MBLD being the only event without mean or average. "Why should it be treated differently than the other 17 events?"; "let's come up with a method of measuring the points/time average".
> I was always inclined towards REDUCING the number of events or recognized records on the WCA. The less events there are, the more valu.



I agree about lesser records will mean more value.
To make MBLD mean of 3, logically the only event which will not have a mean, we will have to tamper with the hour limit.
Since there are only a few competitions that can allow 3hours of MBLD in their schedule, testing this mo3 MBLD in many competitions will not be possible.

So , the ad-hoc solution can be to make MBLD attempts only 20 minutes each , so that a mean of 3 can be determined in most of the competition. Again, a 20 minute format doesn't seem convincing.


----------



## mark49152 (Feb 5, 2018)

abunickabhi said:


> Yes , to solve this problem and have the spirit of competition, the 3BLD event can be made average of 5, which will give one solve to go all out for a good single, while still getting the mean, as a DNF will be allowed in the Average of 5 format.


That doesn't really solve the problem because if you get a DNF earlier you are in the same situation. The problem is simply that means/averages and singles reward two different things (speed and accuracy) which are in conflict with each other. If it is a problem at all, because some people might like that .


----------



## mark49152 (Mar 17, 2018)

https://github.com/thewca/wca-regulations/issues/539


----------



## CarterK (Mar 17, 2018)

mark49152 said:


> https://github.com/thewca/wca-regulations/issues/539


Yeah I saw that yesterday. Hope it gets through and we'll see it in the changes in 2019.


----------



## Ollie (Mar 17, 2018)

Iiiiiinteresting


----------



## Jacck (Mar 17, 2018)

Especially when they add Mo3 in mbld, too, and leave the rules for the all-events-members as they are now. Then there would be 1 platin, 1 gold and 1 silver and a lot of bronze


----------



## abunickabhi (Feb 19, 2019)

I do not think the consistency of having all BLD means will be addressed by having bigBLD mean. I think it will be a bit premature to recognize bigBLD means as official results,
as there are talks about have 3BLD as an average of 5. https://www.speedsolving.com/forum/threads/proposal-combined-best-of-3-best-of-5-rounds-for-3bld.69657/
Not enough people have voted on this decision on the SS forum and the decision stands almost equal.

If Combined Best of 3/Best of 5 Rounds is recognized then there will be more inconsistency in the BLD events. Also, there is a chance of MBLD being a mo3 event, if the community deliberates and dicusses on it anytime in the future.


----------



## mark49152 (Feb 19, 2019)

abunickabhi said:


> I think it will be a bit premature to recognize bigBLD means as official results,
> as there are talks about have 3BLD as an average of 5.


Why would that matter? Is there a problem having ao5 for 5x5 sighted but mo3 for 6x6?


----------



## Kit Clement (Feb 19, 2019)

abunickabhi said:


> Not enough people have voted on this decision on the SS forum and the decision stands almost equal.



Not sure how 76% (or 84%, if including 2-means) and 16% can be seen as almost equal.


----------



## CarterK (Feb 19, 2019)

Kit Clement said:


> Not sure how 76% (or 84%, if including 2-means) and 16% can be seen as almost equal.


I'm thinking he means for the ao5 thread (which the link isn't working for me so I can't check.) Not sure how that's relevant to the discussion though.


----------



## Underwatercuber (Feb 19, 2019)

abunickabhi said:


> I do not think the consistency of having all BLD means will be addressed by having bigBLD mean. I think it will be a bit premature to recognize bigBLD means as official results,
> as there are talks about have 3BLD as an average of 5. https://www.speedsolving.com/forum/threads/proposal-combined-best-of-3-best-of-5-rounds-for-3bld.69657/
> Not enough people have voted on this decision on the SS forum and the decision stands almost equal.
> 
> If Combined Best of 3/Best of 5 Rounds is recognized then there will be more inconsistency in the BLD events. Also, there is a chance of MBLD being a mo3 event, if the community deliberates and dicusses on it anytime in the future.


On the mbld point that’s a lot less likely to happen seeing how few comps have bo3 whereas 3/4/5bld all are frequently bo3 so it’s much easier to implement means


----------

