# Largest number of cubes possible in old-style multi attempt



## abunickabhi (Jan 1, 2021)

The MBLD event has a time limit of 1 hour.

But there are some big attempts some blinders do once in a while with all their speedcubes. Maskow did 100 cubes in 2013 where he scored 90 points.

Tom and Graham attempt 150+ cubes too.

My question is, given that a person cannot be doing an attempt for eternity and say, has unlimited number of cubes in their home (hypothetically), what is the human limit for old style MBLD attempt. How far above 200 cubes can we go, before it starts taking a toll on the physical health of the person attempting?

Our mind has no limit on how much information it can store, so there should be a physical limit where we feel doing more will be just more painful.

I personally think the hard limit is 300 cubes, after which attempts will take more than a day, and sleep will be important factor to take into account.


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## Cubing Forever (Jan 1, 2021)

I guess we can push it a bit more to the 320-340 range after which memory retention and fatigue might be a problem.
(coming from a guy who can only do 4 lol)


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## sigalig (Jan 1, 2021)

300 is a pretty huge underestimate. I’d say if I gave myself a full 24 hours and got plenty of sleep the day before, and took little periodic breaks during memo, 500 is for sure doable. Maybe more


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## abunickabhi (Jan 1, 2021)

Such a big attempt will require a full time MBLDer to do such attempts. Since there is so much effort for virtually no monetary rewards. Getting 500 cubes itself is a challenge (eg cost, cubes getting upgraded every few years), and maintaining them can be a job of a part time intern. Currently memory athletes do make a living teaching their memory techniques via books or online courses or private tuitions.

Thank God old style MBLD does not exist in the WCA today, otherwise, we will have cubers bringing in their equipment via trucks to the venues, xD. And if the organisers have only one Qiyi cube and certificate as prizes, participating in the event will require lot of sponsors too to make the cuber not spend out of their pocket to just compete, R' S R D F M' F' M D' R' S' R .


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## qwr (Jan 1, 2021)

abunickabhi said:


> Such a big attempt will require a full time MBLDer to do such attempts. Since there is so much effort for virtually no monetary rewards. Getting 500 cubes itself is a challenge (eg cost, cubes getting upgraded every few years), and maintaining them can be a job of a part time intern. Currently memory athletes do make a living teaching their memory techniques via books or online courses or private tuitions.



Can you not do your MBLDs on cheap Meilongs? After all you are not timed. 300 Meilongs is $207 at ziicube, plus they quote about $300 of shipping, though I'm sure you could negotiate a bulk rate far below that. Maybe you can get a cube store to sponsor you too. Try asking your local cube store for a quote for cubes in bulk because purchasing in bulk is much much cheaper than buying cubes individually. I know some companies order 200 cubes or 1000 cubes for company promotions.

Also you mention there is a physical limit to getting tired. This is true, but you are not limited to a day. The people who memorize pi learn it over more than a day. My guess is if you gave willing memory champions unlimited time for memo and solving, you could see 1000+ score.


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## abunickabhi (Jan 1, 2021)

I purchased 5 Meilongs recently, they are considerably worse than the Yuxin Little Magics I use. Ordering 300 of them will not be ideal, as I will not like doing attempts on them as the core screws quality is not good enough.

I think even before 2008, Old style MBLD attempts, attempts spanning few days, which is required when you are reciting pi (memorising 10k digit of pi takes months though) over days, will be discouraged in old style MBLD event(ref: https://www.worldcubeassociation.org/archive/forum_topics/494). I still feel doing 300+ multi attempts is much harder than reciting digits of pi, as it will be physically constraining to do these attempts as opposed to just speaking for hours in reciting digits of pi.


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## Jacck (Jan 3, 2021)

abunickabhi said:


> ... (memorising 10k digit of pi takes months though) ...


Hmm, Graham said that he could do 500 cubes in one day -> 500 * 20 pieces = 10K letters

@sigalig But do you have enough rooms (or whatever you use) to store this lot of letters?


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## Dylan Swarts (Jan 3, 2021)

Oh I'm very glad you made this thread @abunickabhi!
I've been thinking about this in like June or so. Again assuming unlimited cubes and allowing the attempt to span multiple days, I believe even more than 2000 cubes. The exact specifics for time management would have to be decided by the individual, depending on their skill. But setting up a strict schedule that includes bathroom breaks, sleeping and eating and the attempt itself could result in a very effective attempt spanning a week or more. Memorization and reviewing will be the first couple of days and perhaps an entire day for execution.

The problem is even with enough sleep and breaks, you would probably become very tired within the first few days. This would mean you need some days off where you take a break from the entire thing. But this means the total time commitment is even longer, and it gets more unrealistic. So in terms of realistic time commitment, maybe someone could take 5 days that are free of all responsibilities and distractions, and do probably 2000 cubes.
Rooms are the other challenge, but we aren't limited in any way by this. You just need to do the work to get all the rooms.

I believe that the mental capacity is not the first thing that'll limit you. It'll be exhaustion, time and perhaps cubes.


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## Mo_A2244 (Jan 3, 2021)

abunickabhi said:


> The MBLD event has a time limit of 1 hour.
> 
> But there are some big attempts some blinders do once in a while with all their speedcubes. Maskow did 100 cubes in 2013 where he scored 90 points.
> 
> ...


I think the limit isn't what we should be worrying about, but purely the time taken to get to that limit, surely anyone can get to a certain limit of remembering things, however, it's about how much time it takes to get to that limit that should be the "talking point" of this argument.

If that's the case then it would take a lot of grind to achieve 500+ cubes, even if you're born with a "gift of memory," surely memorising many cube states would be a pain to your physical state and your mental state. I still think it's possible over a certain period of time though, if you sleep.. Like.. A LOT.


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## Mike Hughey (Jan 3, 2021)

I think that we may have forgotten, due to amazing feats by people like Graham, that even the best people slow down as the numbers go way up. I really doubt Graham could do 2000 cubes in as little as 5 days. I think it might take him as much as 2 weeks. And with the old-style rules, you'd have slightly less than 2 weeks to do an attempt (10 minutes per cube time limit).

I think the maximum is probably somewhere over 500 but less than 2000, assuming the person is allowed to take whatever breaks are necessary for eating and sleeping, but the 10 minutes per cube overall calendar time is enforced. 

I don't think enough rooms is a problem. Generating lots of new rooms to use can be done very fast, especially if you're motivated by trying something this major.

I think it's sad, but my personal limit at my best was probably around 60, because of the time limit and because I was so slow. :-(


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## sigalig (Jan 24, 2021)

Just a little update -- I don't have a whole lot to say specifically to back this up, but

1. 200 was actually significantly faster than I expected, and that included messing around with technical difficulties and having nerves from hundreds of people watching me do it for the entire attempt

2. trying my best to do a logical extrapolation, I think I could do 250 in about 8 hours, 300 in maybe 12 hours, and similar to what I said before, I think if I slept a TON beforehand and prepared my body/brain really well, took strategic breaks, and of course got enough cubes and made enough rooms, I could probably do *at least* 400 in 24 hours, maybe up to 500.

3. one other thing to consider, not trying to sound "elitist" or anything like that, just advice from someone who has done these kinds of things several times now -- if you've never done a 3+ hour long multi-blind like this, its reeeeally really unlikely you will be able to just speculate and be able to accurately figure out what you are capable of without actually trying it. Which is why I've given such a huge margin of error on what I'd be able to do in 24 hours. Up to 12 hours, I'm pretty certain I know my capabilities now, but going longer than that, knowing I'll need to eat multiple times and I'll also probably get really tired, it's hard to say.

That all being said, I'm not sure how high I'll ever end up going. I think I can confidently say I'll probably eventually try up to like 300 cubes. But more than that and I'm just not sure if the motivation would be there.


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## sigalig (Jan 24, 2021)

abunickabhi said:


> Such a big attempt will require a full time MBLDer to do such attempts. Since there is so much effort for virtually no monetary rewards.


I definitely had significant monetary rewards for this 200 attempt also 
People are definitely interested in watching and supporting this kind of stuff on twitch, so I feel even more justified doing these huge attempts in the future.


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## OreKehStrah (Jan 24, 2021)

Personally, I think it would really cool if the WCA were to allow people to do old style multi attempts and officially recognize these kinds of records at special comps for it so long as the person wanting to do it reached a certain level in normal multiBLD. Maybe an 8 hour limit or something?


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## abunickabhi (Jan 26, 2021)

https://forum.artofmemory.com/t/200-cubes-blindfolded/59246

The memory world is also in awe of this attempt. They closely follow speedcubing. 
It would be wonderful if top speedcubers and blinders will be able to collaborate with Mallow in the future to do interesting events related to memory.


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## abunickabhi (Apr 17, 2021)

OreKehStrah said:


> Personally, I think it would really cool if the WCA were to allow people to do old style multi attempts and officially recognize these kinds of records at special comps for it so long as the person wanting to do it reached a certain level in normal multiBLD. Maybe an 8 hour limit or something?


Yeah I wish that too, but it will not be spectator friendly for sure, and there will not be that many interested competitors for the 8-hour special event.

I think the record books people like Guinness will be interested in staging an old-style MBLD attempt. Guinness already recognises all WCA records, so MBLD is naturally recognised as the official record, but it will be cool if the special event about 8 hour long is staged. Obviously there must be huge money put into it, otherwise top MBLDers will not be interested to train for 8 hour attempt, to test the old-style MBLD limit.


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## Filipe Teixeira (Apr 17, 2021)

abunickabhi said:


> Our mind has no limit on how much information it can store, so there should be a physical limit where we feel doing more will be just more painful.


Interesting what you said right there. I think our minds are limited, but the capacity is astronomical and we can keep learning forever as more abstract thoughts consume the more low level ones.

But that's just a philosophy


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## abunickabhi (Oct 20, 2021)

A lot of info bombs were dropped in this scalpel interview. Although I disagree with a lot of his views, it is worth considering for a while.







Bomb 1: A person will die if he does 12 MBLD attempts a day. (Small disagree here- its possible to do it if you are in that mental state and have enough training, eg, some ultramarathoners can run for 24 hours straight)


Bomb 2: After 5 hours of straight memoing, our brain starts to think of food and hunger creeps in. (Big disagree here, a lot of adults who do meditation can control hunger for longer, I have first person evidence for that. Even after 6 hours of active full brain work, it is possible to evade hunger and sleep).


Bomb 3: It is good to practice 75 minutes MBLD attempt at home to build stamina for official hour long MBLD (One of the rare point I agree on).


Bomb 4: Translating image directly to the alg is the key (a small correction in my case, the image should translate to Yo notation which is obviously the alg encoded as image.)


Bomb 5: No other human can visualise like I do, and it will be painful for them (BIG disagree here, you are not the smartest human out there, some people will have more active and focused minds and visualise better).


Bomb 6: 24 hour of continuous BLD attempt is not possible. (ummm what, if you pace yourself correctly, it is possible, dont spread misinformation scalpel).


Bomb 7: Mental fatigue follow ^3/cubic law (whaaatt, Please do not make up nonsense on the spot, I do not agree the fatigue follow a third degree polynomial, please support your wild insights with actual medical research and proof).

Overall, scalpel is a smart kid, I have nothing against him. I just wanted to make sure he does not spread misinformation, as a lot of people will be taking what he says at face value, which can be painful for a lot of people if it is wrong advice.


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## Filipe Teixeira (Oct 20, 2021)

I've heard of brain fatigue in blindfolded chess but I don't see people talk about it on speedsolving BLD

I was even warned by a friend to not try blindfolded chess at all or else I'd die sooner


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## qwr (Oct 20, 2021)

the bragging rights are worth it


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## Cubing Forever (Oct 21, 2021)

abunickabhi said:


> Big disagree here, a lot of adults who do meditation can control hunger for longer, I have first person evidence for that.


Yeah I've got first person evidence for that too. I regularly do 24-hour fasts and it's not that hard to control hunger for a day imo.


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## Filipe Teixeira (Oct 21, 2021)

Cubing Forever said:


> Yeah I've got first person evidence for that too. I regularly do 24-hour fasts and it's not that hard to control hunger for a day imo.


yeah you just have to eat


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## abunickabhi (Mar 10, 2022)

Graham is going to do a 250 cube MBLD attempt soon.

I am hyped about it. Estimated attempt time will be 5-6 hours. Super stressful as we increase the number of cubes.

Yucheng Chen and Tom also do old style attempts at home sometimes but they are nowhere close to 250 cubes.


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## Mike Hughey (Mar 10, 2022)

I know Maskow did a 150 cube attempt about 7 years ago. And I know Graham has topped that since then. But has anyone else besides Graham done over 150 cubes before?

Edit: I guess you said earlier that Yucheng Chen and Tom have both done 150+ cubes. How big were their biggest attempts so far?


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## sigalig (Mar 22, 2022)

Mike Hughey said:


> I know Maskow did a 150 cube attempt about 7 years ago. And I know Graham has topped that since then. But has anyone else besides Graham done over 150 cubes before?
> 
> Edit: I guess you said earlier that Yucheng Chen and Tom have both done 150+ cubes. How big were their biggest attempts so far?


Hey Mike.

Tom tried 200 *twice*, a couple of years ago, actually before I even tried 160. His best result out of the two was 162/200 in over 12 hours.

As far as I know, Yucheng's biggest attempt was 100. He tried it twice, first getting this, and then this.

Shivam has also tried 100, getting 87/100 just like Yucheng.

So as of right now, I've done the biggest ever attempt by 50 cubes. I also have the top 3 best points results at 154/160, 189/200, and 238/250. Tom has the fourth best points result with 162/200, and Maskow has the fifth best result with his 125/150.


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## abunickabhi (Nov 4, 2022)

Waiting for Graham's 300 cube attempt at the year end. It will be epic!


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