Disordered scrambles
oranjules (2011-11-25 19:57:38 +0000)
Hi,
Here is a little suggestion, to avoid competitors to know about easy scrambles (for example 2x2x2 WR).
We could have 5 scramblers, each one will do only 1 scramble, and note which one he applies on the cube (on the verso of the scoree sheet ? Or on an other sheet, so the competitor will not be able to see it, but it seems more hard to do). So, if you see that a scramble is lucky (for the 2x2x2 WR, or for my pyra NR, i admit that i saw somebody averaging around 10 doing a 3.xx, but i think i would have seen it anyway), you don't know which it is, and even if you already did it. It will be useful for people doing other methods than the more popular ones : i'm not in face-first for 2x2x2, but if i saw a 0.69, i would have searched for an easy face... Which i won't have done without this indication.
It has many pros, I listed them already. An other one is that a scrambler would know very well the scramble he has to do, and do it a bit faster than an other one.
The only cons I see is that we will need 5 scramblers for every event (but 1 scrambler can still do several scrambles), and scramblers may forgot to note the number of scrambles.
Thank you for reading, I hope that it has not been proposed yet.
Radu (2011-11-25 21:28:42 +0000)
I see what you are mentioning and I was thinking about the same thing after the new WR record in 2x2. The spirit of WCA covers this in the regulations. See 7h3:
7h3) Competitors in the competitors area must not communicate to each other about the scrambled positions of the puzzles for the round in progress.
I said "spirit of WCA" because communicate is generic and can mean talking, seeing, explaining through gestures etc. The only problem is that this is not always respected. Waiting competitors can see, hear, be influenced by reactions or applause and through many ways that there might be an easy scramble. So maybe we should work more on this and apply it. Your solution is not that practical and would make competitions more complicated, but this is an interesting topic to be discussed.
BryanLogan (2011-11-26 04:01:22 +0000)
Seems pointless. If you and someone else get called up, he goes first and you know he got a really good solve, you're just going to examine all five solves instead of just the first one. Even if you're both on the fifth solve, you have a 1-in-5 chance of having the same one as your fifth solve.