what makes an event official vs unofficial? for instance. in the Polish open 2006 there was an event Rubik's 3x3x3 Cube Speed Blindfolded. why would you declare that unofficial when you have to do everything official in order to compete. i mean if for some reason someone set a new record would it not count because its unofficial? does unofficial mean you can break the rules and cheat because its not official? or does it simply mean that we (WCA) is not recognizing it as being a real event. I for one would like to see all of the puzzles be official, even if it is a crappy or dumb or unpopular puzzle. if you are going to take the time to host that particular event then i think it should be official and obey by all of the rules set by the WCA. there should not be any discrimination between official and unofficial.

Hi Adam, Thanks for the feedback. For me there are three different situations: 1) not fully defined events I asked several times to speed blindfolded competitors about clear regulations for the event. My main concern is the memorization time. In Euro 2006 one competitor used 20 minutes another competitor 3+ hours. You can imagine that 3 hours is very hard to manage in a time schedule. I think that is also the reason that people are not eager to compete in the event. So if anyone comes up with good regulations then we can actually talk about whether we want it as a regular event in competitions. 2) events for other types of puzzles For next version I will make a proposal of which puzzles will be under the influence of WCA. Example: if we have a 2x2 event, why should we have a Darth Maul event. Basically the same puzzle. We cannot define our limit to twisty puzzles, because some puzzles aren't twisty puzzles, for example a Magic is not a twisty puzzle. My idea is to take puzzles of Rubik PLUS the basic form of all twisty puzzles (to be defined). This includes Magic but excludes speed stacks and the difference between 12 color and 6 color Megaminx. 3) different types of events for accepted puzzles For next version I will make a proposal of which types of events for which puzzles will be under the influence of WCA. Example: if anyone wants to do a one-handed Square-1 solve, just go ahead, but WCA will not govern such events in competitions. My idea is to have speed solve events for all accepted puzzles (see 2), blindfolded speed events for basic cubes (3x3, 4x4, 5x5), special events only for 3x3 (with feet, fewest moves, one-handed, ...) In Belgium Open 2006 and Polish Open 2006 we tried some new formats for 3x3: team solves (each team member doing one move at a time), nations cup (relays) and head-to-head competitions with knock-out format. In short: There should be clear regulations for an event to make it official. There should also be boundaries for which events can be official. But there should also be room for experiments, being unofficial events until they are fully accepted. What do you think? Have fun, Ron

i think you have a great points that i never thought about, (point#1 and 3). i think the area that i was concerned with is point #2. for the upcoming Caltech Fall 2006 there is a UFO event. this is to be unofficial. why, since there is enough time to meet (define) all of the rules. 1. amount of moves for scrambling. 2. inspection time 3. penalties. i would hate to spend time in learning a new puzzle and to compete in it but to not get a recognization for it (if i were to make or break a world record in an event) i think most people agree that a homer head is the same a a 2x2x2 and wouldnt want to compete in whats bacially the same event. but when the puzzle is completly different ie. UFO then it should be considered to be official. i might be wrong but why are sometime a pyraminx events official and sometimes its not. i know there are alot of puzzles out there and someone will want another puzzle to be official at some point in time. but where do we make the decision to say YES or NO.

Hi again Adam, About UFO. I think UFO is an original puzzle, not a "decoy" of another puzzle. It fits the definition of Rubik + Twisty, so a UFO event could be official. The regulations have not been defined in full. I will ask Jaap what he thinks would be a good scramble length. He might even be willing to make a scramble program for UFO. Inspection time should be the standard 15 seconds. Penalties should be the standard "edge of block passing next block". Under these conditions the UFO event is done the official way. Then the WCA board will discuss whether we will list the records/rankings the way we do for for example Rainbow Cube. About Pyraminx. There was only one unofficial Pyraminx event. And that was because the number of competitors was less than 10, which is the lower limit for a competition to be official. Have fun, Ron