UCSD PBQ 2026

Date
City: San Diego, California, United States
Venue: UC San Diego
Address: 9500 Gilman Drive, La Jolla, CA 92093
Details: RIMAC-Annex Dugout Room (Friday), Dolores Huerta Room (Saturday)
Contact: Organization team
Organizers: Graham Siggins, Manning Karahashi (唐橋康成), Muhtasim Al-Farabi, and West Coast Cubing
WCA Delegates: Abhimanyu Singhal (अभिमन्यु सिंघल) and Alex Lehman

: Download all the competition's details as PDF here.

Information

This competition is recognized as an official World Cube Association competition. Therefore, all competitors must be familiar with the WCA Regulations.

If you are new to competing, we recommend you register for CSU San Marcos Cubing Open 2026 will be held the very next day at CSU San Macros.

Spectators can attend for free and can come and go as they please! No registration or check-in process is needed for spectating.

This competition is organized in partnership with West Coast Cubing and SpeedCubeShop.

Events
Main event

Competitor limit: 30

Number of times bookmarked: 2

Registration period

Online registration will be open from to .

Registration requirements

Create a WCA account here if you don't have one.
If this is not your first competition, associate your WCA ID to your WCA account here.
Register for this competition here.
There is a competitor limit of 30 competitors.
The base registration fee for this competition is $20 (United States Dollar).
The registration fee has to be paid through Stripe here once registered.
If your registration is cancelled before you will be refunded 75% of your registration fee.
Registrants on the waiting list may be accepted onto the competitor list until .
If you are a registered competitor you may change your registered events until on the Register tab.
No on the spot registrations will be accepted.
Any spectator can attend for free.

Registration Process

Wait until registration opens on Thursday, October 22, 2026 at 5:00 PM PDT. You cannot register prior to then. You cannot register after Friday, November 13, 2026 at 4:00 PM PST. No exceptions to these will be given. If deemed necessary, we may close registration early.
If you have not competed before, create a WCA account here.
Go to the Register link on the competition website.
Fill out the events you will be competing in, any comments you may have about your registration, and press register.
Pay the registration fee via Stripe on the competition website.
A member of the organization team will manually accept registrations. Wait for an email confirming your registration has been accepted.

Competitors MUST pay their registration fee before being eligible for a spot in the competition.

Waitlist

If the competition is full, a message will be displayed saying such on the competition website. If, after this time, you register and pay for the competition, you will be added to the competition waitlist.

If a competitor cancels their registration, the person at the top of the waitlist will be added to the competitor list.

If you are on the waitlist, you may cancel your registration (see below) at any time for a full refund.

If you are on the waitlist, you will be informed whether you have made it on the competitor list after Friday, November 13, 2026 at 4:00 PM PST, otherwise you will be given a full refund.

Registration Changes

If you would like to cancel your registration, email the organization team with your request and you will be refunded 75% of your registration fee. Refunds are available only until Friday, November 13, 2026 at 4:00 PM PST.

If you would like to edit your registered events or listed guests, you may do so on the Register page. This can only be done prior to Friday, November 13, 2026 at 4:00 PM PST.

By registering, competitors agree to the information in the Competitor Responsibilities tab. This tab details the responsibilitIes of all competitors at this competition. Not abiding by these responsibilities can result in disqualification.

ALL COMPETITORS MUST READ THIS TAB BEFORE REGISTERING.

Please remain silent while blindfolded events are taking place. Silence your cell phones, and take any conversations outside.

Before the competition, you will receive a card/nametag with personalized information detailing your events and what group you will be competing in for each event in an email. We will be relying on competitors to help by judging whenever they are not competing. If you are competing and done with your event before the allotted time, please stay to help judge. Judging is very easy and is a great way to make time fly!

We will need help judging for all events. Spectators are encouraged to learn how to judge; you do not need to know how to cube in order to be a judge. Having enough judges ensures that we stay on schedule and are able to leave on time.

If you are planning to spectate and judge, here is a summary of judging instructions for 4x4 blindfolded and 5x5 blindfolded attempts predicted to take longer than 10 minutes:

When the competitor indicates the start of their attempt by placing their hands down on the timer and starting it, start the stopwatch at their station.
When the competitor is memorizing the cube, spectate their attempt and make sure that they do not take physical notes or make a move to the cube. Penalty: DNF
Once the competitor has put on their blindfold and started turning the cube, ensure that a sight blocker is in between the competitor and the cube. This will be usually in the form of a harmonica holder placed by the competitor.
If the competitor does not do this, hold a sight blocker between the competitor and the cube.
Once the competitor indicates the end of their attempt by placing their puzzle down and hands down on the surface, stop the stopwatch and write down the time on their scorecard and ensure the puzzle is solved, without touching the puzzle. If the puzzle is not solved, write down the time, along with DNF. For example, if the attempt takes 16 minutes and 30 seconds, but the cube is not solved, write: DNF (16:30).
If the cumulative time of their 4x4 blindfolded and 5x5 blindfolded solves exceeds the cumulative time limit of 105 minutes, the solve should be stopped and DNF'd. For example, if the attempts on their scorecard currently read 1) 19:00, 2) 20:00, 3) 21:00, 4) 10:00, and 5) 12:00 for a total of 82 minutes, they have 8 minutes left for the final attempt. If the solve exceeds 8 minutes, the attempt should be stopped. Only stop the attempt if you are 100% sure the time limit has been exceeded.

Judging MBLD is similar. We will also go over judging instructions at the beginning of the round.

Parking

For Saturday:

See visitor parking info. Please park only in designated visitor parking areas. Cars parked in spots marked "24/7 Reserved" may be ticketed or towed.

Navigate to Gilman Parking Structure:

10 min Walk to Dolores Huerta / Philip Vera Cruz Meeting Room

For Friday:

Navigate to Hopkins Parking Structure:

5 min Walk to RIMAC-Annex building

Food

There are many options for food on the first floor of Price Center. Here is a list of places to eat on campus

This competition will be sponsored by SpeedCubeShop! They will be providing gift-card prizes for this competition. They will not be selling puzzles on-site.

Want to stay connected with the West Coast community? Join the West Coast Cubing Community Discord Server! Speak with other competitors from NorCal, SoCal, Nevada, Hawaii, and Tijuana and keep in touch with fellow competitors and meet new ones! Find out about competition discussion as it happens in real time, and even announcements for competitions before registration opens!

Click here to be directly taken to the Discord Server!

We also have our SoCal Cubing Facebook Group, WCA Forum thread for California, and the West Coast Cubing website.

This competition has Dual Rounds for FMC so every competitor is able to compete in FMC Round 2 on Saturday. Participation in FMC Round 1 on Friday is not mandatory (we'd love you there on Friday, of course!)

If you'd like to come on Friday for FMC Round 1, please be prepared to pay $5 at the venue. We accept Zelle, PayPal, and cash (QR code to pay will be available on-site). Also please add a comment while registering if you plan on coming on Friday (not mandatory, we are trying to estimate how many people are coming on Friday)

Time limit

If you reach the time limit during your solve, the judge will stop you and your result will be DNF (see Regulation A1a4).
A cumulative time limit may be enforced across rounds (see Regulation A1a2).

Format

The format describes how to determine the ranking of competitors based on their results. The list of allowed formats per event is described in Regulation 9b. See Regulation 9f for a description of each format.

Advancement Condition

The number of competitors shown as advancing to the next round is the planned maximum. The actual number may be lower if there are fewer competitors than expected, or if there are ties at the boundary.