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Subject: Speed Cubing
From: mark.longridge@canrem.com (Mark Longridge)
Message-Id: <60.826.5834.0C1B76FD@canrem.com>
Date: Thu, 27 Oct 1994 21:57:00 -0400
Organization: CRS Online  (Toronto, Ontario)

Derek Bosch writes:
> I too, have read the book, Jeff Conquers The Cube in 45 seconds, as
> well as Minh Thai's book on the cube (he's the world record holder,
> with 22 seconds as an official world record.  I used to compete back
> in the cubing days, and could regularly get under 25 seconds, using
> a strategy of solving the corners, solving the edges on two opposite
> sides, followed by the middle slice.


The "official" world record was set by Minh Thai at the 1982 World
Championships in Budapest Hungary, with a time of 22.95 seconds.

Keep in mind mathematicians provided standardized dislocation patterns
for the cubes to be randomized as much as possible.

I think the Guiness Book of Records dropped the entry in the 1985
edition due to the fact that the contests all dried up.

Interestingly David Allen, the #2 cubist in the United States, also
uses the Jeff Varasano method. I met him in Buffalo NY in the
a regional American Cube-a-thon on Sept 18, 1982. (Yes, that long
ago!)

Did you enter any of the tournaments Derek?

Derek continues:
> Several people on this mailing list have done serious analysis
> trying to reach "God's Algorithm", which isn't terribly useful to me.
> The operators that these analyses generate are really slow to crank
> out on the cube.  I prefer slightly longer ones, that are more
> optimized for speed (hand positions, etc).

I can't agree entirely. I use computer generated sequences for a lot
of patterns and I find them quite useable in some cases. Also the
< U, R > group processes only use 2 sides, and those I can do
without moving the cube in space. Usually I rotate them in
space first.

 -> Mark <-
 Email: mark.longridge@canrem.com