2009: 6x6 and/or 7x7 as an official event

[Erik]

I can imagine people wanting 6x6 and 7x7 as an official event.
There is a thread about this although it's not formatted in the format Ron requested to be an official 2009 regulations thread.
Hereby I clearly vote AGAINST it

Let me explain that:
I think with the 17 events we have nowadays we have more than enough trouble on making the time schedules. As seen on competitions like Dutch Open 2008 a 6 and 7 event will take a LOT of extra time resulting in deletion of other events, for example the multibld.

Besides the fact that 6 and 7 are cool puzzles I don't really think they add something new to the events we already have, pyraminx chrystal would be different for example (although I'm not at all trying to make that official).
Furthermore a 6 or 7 will cause problems in scrambling too:
1. it takes LONG (especially for inexperienced scramblers)
2. many mistakes will be made due to the length, resulting in requesting the competitor to have to solve it again which can sometimes take more than 10 minutes, imagine they make a mistake in scrambling twice!
3. pops during scrambling: I can imagine at least 5 out of 30 6x6's would pop during scrambling which results in the effects named at 2 plus the extra time to fix the pop.

Anyway, it maybe seems a little pointless to start a thread about something I do not support, but I'm 100% sure there would be a thread about this anyway seeing the other thread down here and the 'test runs' at competitions with these new (and wonderful) puzzles.

Erik

[Dene]

I may as well vote for it. I definitely want 6x6x6 and 7x7x7 to be official events.

There could be a rule where people who participate must finish the solve on the stackmat. Penalty: DNF.
There would also need to be some regulation about scrambling, although I'm not sure what could be done about it.

[BryanLogan]

I would vote for Skewb as a new official event. Even learning a few basic algorithms, you can easily get 20 seconds. I suspect once people practice, the times will drop immensely. It will be about as fast as the 2x2x2, and it can easily be held.

If the 6x6x6 and 7x7x7 were adopted, I would say that a mean of 3 should be the format, and have strict cutoff times for the first solve. If you DNF because you went over, you're done. Of course, that could vary with the competition, just like I allow longer times for my 4x4x4 and 5x5x5 combined finals than they do at larger competitions, but I think organizers do need to set some standard.

[DanCohen]

Erik, I think all of your reasons for not having a puzzle as official are ridiculous.

1. The time issue. You don't HAVE to have every event at a competition. Just because feet solving is official (regardless of if it should be), you don't see it being done at every competition. Not even 5x5 is done everywhere. It's up to the competition organizer to schedule events and pick ones that will fit within the time limit for the competition. Also, there are other events that are much longer than 6x6 and 7x7 (4, 5, and multi BLD) that are still official.

2. I think the purpose of computer generated scrambles are to ensure a fair random scramble. The longer the puzzle takes to solve, the less the scramble really effects how the solve goes. It's not like on 2x2 where the scramble makes the entire solve. Even if someone has a slightly better first center than another (on supposedly the same scramble), The overall solve is not too affected by that. I don't think anyone (even the top bigcubers) will really care that the scrambles are not exactly the same between people. I really don't see any issue with a slight mistake in scrambling on 6x6 and 7x7.

3. Puzzle defects SHOULD NOT BE considered at all in making a puzzle official. The quality of a puzzle and the fact that it can be prone to pops shouldn't exclude it from the ranks of official events. I was happy to compete in 6x6 even though my solves were ruined by devastating pops. It's something that comes with the puzzle, and should be considered as such.

[jbcm627]

I agree with Dan.

I don't see a good reason not to introduce more events. if you don't want to participate in them, simply don't. If you don't want to see them in a competition, just organize your own without them. Just because the events are rare and/or time-consuming doesn't mean they shouldn't be official. Whether they are held or not should be up to the competition organizers.

If the events are time consuming (6x6 or 7x7), it is reasonable to make the event format something like best of 2 (or even 1), but I still think they should be official.

[Ton]

I still like to evaluate the 6x6 and 7x7 a bit more before introducing it in competition, this is why I scheduled it for Den Hague Open in a full format of mean of 3

Time and scrambling is not an issue, we simply need more room in the schedules, so we will not see them in all competitions, same is true for 4x4 Bld etc. And yes a prefect scramble is most unlikely , but there is no advantage as long as the number of turns are done- we had the same issue with the megaminx before we had the Stefan Pochman scrambling method.

The quality of the puzzle is however an issue for me to be fun in competition, they are great puzzles still it need lot of improvement for speedcubing. Maybe DIY kits will resolve most of the problems.

[Erik]

I think my reasons are not ridicilous. I would like to be 6 and 7 official but I just forsee a lot of trouble.
If you think puzzle defects should not be considered I would like to ask you some questions:

1. if you pop a 6x6 and pop more than 3 pieces you DNF, this happens to a lot of people. Would you like to have a DNF half of the time in your mean of 3?
2. if you scramble and pop a 6 or 7 the scramble will be off, of course it'll still be thoroughly scrambled but I wouldn't like that I get a scramble with no centres connected while someone else would get 2 lines done, would you like that?. Basically if you let scrambles that are not the same still go to be solved you are not really applying to one of the main goals the WCA has: fairness. You cannot give people different scrambles no matter how much influence it will have in my opinion.

To come back to your first point. I think we already have too many events. (Where I would agree that feet solving official is stupid) I know 5x5 is not done everywhere. I can imagine you don't like that, and nor do I. How would you feel if other events are canceled too because the organiser wants 6 and 7?

Anyway, if you know a way where you can avoid all of these problems (which have proven to be problems in the tryout tournaments) I'm in favor of the idea to get them official of course.

[BryanLogan]

You cannot give people different scrambles no matter how much influence it will have in my opinion.

We already do that today with different groups of competitors for the same round.

[TMOY]

2. if you scramble and pop a 6 or 7 the scramble will be off, of course it'll still be thoroughly scrambled but I wouldn't like that I get a scramble with no centres connected while someone else would get 2 lines done, would you like that?. Basically if you let scrambles that are not the same still go to be solved you are not really applying to one of the main goals the WCA has: fairness. You cannot give people different scrambles no matter how much influence it will have in my opinion.

Where's the problem ? On such big cubes it won't make a huge difference anyway. And remember different people have different solving methods, the same scramble can turn out to be lucky for me and not for you, or the converse. Giving people slightly different scrambles isn't more unfair than that.

[DanCohen]

You cannot give people different scrambles no matter how much influence it will have in my opinion.

We already do that today with different groups of competitors for the same round.

Bryan, that brings up a completely valid point that I didn't even think of. I definitely agree that the use of groups in the same round helps negate the need for the exact scramble between competitors.

[TomZ]

I think that diversity should be preferred over 'quantity' - I'd much rather have 2, 3, 4, 5 and a whole bunch of other events than all the medium/big cubes. Since solving a 4/5 and a 6/7 is so similar, I don't think 6 and 7 add something new. Therefor, in order to allow other people to show off their skills as well, we should try and have events in as many different puzzles as possible.

[anders]

I support the idea of having both 6x and 7x (and Skewb...) as official events: More puzzles => More fun!

As I mentioned in another thread, we already have too many events to hold them all in one competition. It's up to the organiser to select among the events. In Sweden, we discuss which events to hold at Swedish competition at the svekub.se forum. But it is the organiser who has the final word.

/Anders

[Dene]

Since solving a 4/5 and a 6/7 is so similar, I don't think 6 and 7 add something new.

Try telling that to Michal. Basically, you're wrong.

[DanCohen]

1. if you pop a 6x6 and pop more than 3 pieces you DNF, this happens to a lot of people. Would you like to have a DNF half of the time in your mean of 3?

I can't believe I missed this. Basically, you are absolutely wrong here. The regulations don't say ANYTHING about a puzzle popping more than 3 pieces. It just says that you can't forcibly remove pieces to fix the puzzle. If your 6x6 pops every piece but corners, you can still solve it. Unless you somehow magically pop a corner on 6x6, you won't have an issue with repairing the puzzle.

[Edouard Chambon]

I'm FOR these puzzles as official events, but with apropriate formats, since I don't really care of them.
I prefer letting more freedom to the organisers, and even if that's not official, there are already lots of competitions with these puzzles.

[DanCohen]

I hate to be "spamming" up this thread, but I came up with another idea:

Why not just have multiple acceptable formats for 6x6 and 7x7. The official averages will be done out of 5, but you are still able to hold a competition for best of X. This way, organizers who are truly committed to holding the event, provide a valid record, while others can still hold the event. I don't see any reason for penalizing organizers who want to hold a complete event. We shouldn't dumb down an event just because it takes a little bit longer. 5x5 BLD takes long. Not everyone does it. Some competitions have more than 1 attempt. That's how this should work.

[Hadley]

Maybe 6 and 7 could just be best of 2? I think that a lot of people would find that fine. I can't tell you how much I would love to have a chance to solve the 6x6x6 officially.

As far as popping, puzzle defects happen. Just the way it is. I popped Andrew Kang's 4x4x4 while scrambling it.


Minor differences in scrambles wouldn't make the solves un fair. Like said said earlier, there are different groups with different scrambles. There were 2 groups at Decatur Open, each had unique scrambles.

[anders]

@DanCohen
Already today, different formats are allowed. The regulations state both "Possible formats" and "Preferred format for finals" for every event ( Rules 9b)-9d) ).

/Anders

[Tyson]

Here's a question... are both 6x6x6 and 7x7x7 necessary as official events right now? In running, there's the 100 meter dash, the 200 meter dash, and the 400 meter dash. There isn't a 150 meter dash, and there isn't a 337 meter dash...

What if only 7x7x7 were official, but not 6x6x6? Is there a competitor who's really good at one, and not the other? I feel that for an nxnxn cube, for sufficiently large values of n, it's really testing the same skill set.

[Dene]

Tyson: I think that, although one might be similar at 6x6x6 and 7x7x7, there is still a difference between people. What I mean is: at the moment, Dan Cohen is probably the best at 6x6x6, while Michal is probably the best at 7x7x7. If you only have one, one person might get the only WR, when someone else is being deprived, depending on which puzzle you choose to make official.
You might say "there has to be a limit somewhere", and at the moment it looks like 11x11x11 is the limit.
Perhaps bigger bigger cubes (after 7x7x7) don't need to be official, but for sure, 6x6x6 has a different element from 4x4x4, and 7x7x7 has a different element from 5x5x5. I don't think the bigger cubes will have any new element (someone correct me if I'm wrong) so you can be nice to us big-cubers are draw the line at 6x6x6 and 7x7x7 .