Fewest Moves incident at Zonhoven Open 2016
Pedro_S (2016-04-07 12:31:58 +0000)
Dear WCA community
At Zonhoven Open 2016, on March 5th and 6th, competitor Linus Fresz achieved a new WR mean (24 moves) for the 3x3x3 Fewest Moves event, with individual results of 21, 26 and 25 moves.
From the delegate report of the competition, it was found that Linus' solution on the first scramble had 11 moves that matched the inverse scramble.
The solution was accepted by the delegate at the competition, but further discussion between the WRC and the delegates led to a decision by the Board to DNF that particular solve.
The specific regulations for Fewest Moves lay out that:
E2e) The competitor's solution must not be directly derived from any part of the scrambling algorithm. Penalty: disqualification of the attempt (DNF).
This means that the final solution cannot be related to the scramble, and it doesn't matter how that solution was achieved. It must be made clear that Linus' integrity is not being questioned, nor the fact that he may have found the solution by some way other than reversing the scramble.
The decision was made based on current regulations, and those should apply to every competitor at any competition and conditions. The regulations have also been improved to further clarify the meaning of this particular article, so that similar decisions can be made across the world without doubts.
There has also been a change to the scramble generation procedure, specifically for Fewest Moves solving, which has the goal of avoiding that parts of the scrambling algorithm are unintentionally used in the solution.
We thank all delegates and WRC members involved in the discussion, and also Linus for understanding the reasons behind this decision.
WCA Board
Randomno (2016-04-07 15:13:59 +0000)
Could the WRC explain why [url=https://www.worldcubeassociation.org/regulations/#E2e1:1sj6hpfj]E2e1[/url:1sj6hpfj]) [i:1sj6hpfj]The WCA Delegate may ask the competitor to explain the purpose of each move in their solution, irrespective of scrambling algorithm. If the competitor cannot give a valid explanation, the attempt is disqualified (DNF).[/i:1sj6hpfj] did not cover the incident?
Sebastien (2016-04-08 10:20:14 +0000)
See here: https://github.com/cubing/wca-regulations/issues/344
It is actually pretty simple: E2e) and E2e1) are different regulations, that can individually lead to a DNF. E2e1) does not lead to Linus' solution being a DNF, but E2e) does. Pedro also pointed that out in the anouncements: "This means that the final solution cannot be related to the scramble, and it doesn't matter how that solution was achieved."
This case has revealed that connecting E2e) and E2e1), just like you seem to do it, is a very common misconception. Obviously, I have had that misconception as well, otherwise I wouldn't have accepted the solution at the competition.
Randomno (2016-04-09 01:31:05 +0000)
Aren't all sub-regulations related to the main regulation?